By Jacomijn Schravesande-Gardei, Associate Director of Crops, MCS Many of MOFGA Certification Services (MCS) clients know Joan Cheetham as the “very nice lady.” Unfortunately for all of us Joan is retiring. Over nearly 20 years, she has reviewed many client files and inputs and has also performed many inspections. The work of a certification specialist
South Paw Farm owner says despite grant funding farms are struggling By Dani Walczak Meg Mitchell, co-owner of South Paw Farm in Freedom, Maine, is tired of perseverance stories. The narrative of the hard-working white farmer personally overcoming obstacles to feed their community has started to fall flat for the farm owner of 15 years.
By Eesha Williams and Elizabeth Wood Photos courtesy of the authors After 20 years of organic vegetable farming, in 2022, we planted our farm, New Leaf CSA, near Brattleboro, Vermont, with cover crops and set out to see how farmers in other countries approach the challenges of farming. South Korea offered some great opportunities for
Maine farms develop indoor and outdoor set-ups for market-scale mushroom production By Holli Cederholm Courtney Williams of Marr Pond Farm in Sangerville, Maine, says that outdoor mushroom production is a way to manage marginal lands profitably. She and her partner, Ryan Clarke, branched into mushrooms in 2016 in order to gain “market access” to farmers’
How The Buckle Farm Streamlined Their Business for Profitability and Improved Their Wellbeing By Jennifer Wilhelm Husband and wife team Jim Buckle and Hannah Hamilton of The Buckle Farm worked “epically long days” to get their business up and running. Five years after starting their farm in Unity, Maine, they found themselves exhausted from twice-weekly
Twenty Years of Small-Scale No-Till Production in Northern Vermont By Holli Cederholm Over the past 20 years, Evan Perkins and Heidi Choate of Small Axe Farm have transformed their quarter-acre homestead garden on a south-facing hilltop in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom into a 1-acre market garden grossing over $230,000 in annual sales. In the beginning, the
By Tim King Robin Kerber, the Maine Department of Education Farm and Sea to School coordinator, says energy to build on past successes for farm and sea to school relationships has been accelerating the last several years. One indicator of that, she says, is growing participation in Maine’s Local Foods Fund. In the 2021 school
By Sonja Heyck-Merlin Photos courtesy of Mark McBrine Monday is pasta night at Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston, Maine. And it isn’t SpaghettiOs or canned ravioli. There are two kitchens and two dining halls on the sprawling hilltop campus where on clear days Katahdin can be seen looming in the distance. One facility is
By Tim King When Kim Patnode and Christopher Hahn came separately to 3 Level Farm in South China 11 years ago, they were acquainted with each other but had no idea what the future would bring. Hahn had just purchased the 143-acre farm, formerly known as French Farm, and imagined it supporting multiple enterprises, more
Bringing More Organic Herbs, and Herb Growers, to Maine By Sonja Heyck-Merlin The 25 members of the Meeting House herb growers collaborative talk enticingly about their plant medicines: whether it’s the sticky, resinous calendula buds or the tufts of crimson bee balm flowers reminiscent of an ‘80s rockstar hairdo. They’re equally passionate about the unassuming
