Saturday, September 24, 2016 Common Ground Country Fair With a 700 percent increase in the distribution of home-use pesticide products in Maine in recent years, what are citizens’ options when state and federal governments are not adequately protecting our health and environment from these toxic chemicals? Maine is one of seven states that allow towns
Saturday, September 23, 2017 Common Ground Country Fair The Trump administration and its allies are pursuing the most aggressive environmental rollbacks in U.S. history. Attacks on federal laws that protect our climate, public lands, air and water as well as attacks on the agencies that administer these laws could set us back decades. These threats,
Saturday, September 22, 2018 The Public Policy Teach-in, co-hosted in 2018 by MOFGA’s Public Policy Committee and Maine Farmland Trust (MFT) at the Common Ground Country Fair, focused on creating an agricultural platform for Maine’ next governor. The teach-in is posted on YouTube. Panelists were Ellen Stern Griswold, MFT policy and research director; Penny Jordan of Jordan’s Farm in Cape
Who decides which pesticides can be approved for use – are these “forever” decisions? Teach-in participants, left to right: Sharon Tisher, Nancy Ross, Carol Hubbard and Jay Feldman. English photo Saturday, September 21, 2019 The 2019 teach-in at MOFGA’s Common Ground Country Fair, posted at https://www.youtube.com/user/MaineOrganicFarmers and with edited excerpts below, reviewed the process for regulating pesticides.
A panel of beekeepers (Theresa Gaffney and David Hackenberg, left) and scientists (Kim Stoner and Frank Drummond, right) discussed Colony Collapse Disorder at the Common Ground Country Fair. English photo. Common Ground Country Fair Teach-In 2012 Ten years ago an average of 15 to 20 percent of commercially managed honeybee colonies died annually; now, it’s 30 to
A panel discussed Maine’s GMO labeling bill at the Fair. From left to right, Jim Gerritsen, Laura Murphy, Sen. Chris Johnson and Rep. Lance Harvell. English photo. Maine’s GMO labeling initiative, LD 718, is alive and well. Foods made with genetically modified organisms are often called GMO foods – or GE (genetically engineered) foods. Last
Don Hoenig, V.M.D., (far left) said, “This idea that there is rampant resistant bacteria moving from livestock and poultry into the human population and resulting in treatment failures and disease in the human population is just not true.” He is optimistic about FDA’s voluntary guidelines regarding antibiotic use in livestock. Photos by Jean English. 2014
Tokar and Lawn on Tape What You Can Do About Genetic Engineering in Our Food System “Never before have the results of new scientific discoveries been so heavily promoted and so rapidly rushed to market. Never before has the course of basic scientific research been so thoroughly and single-mindedly driven by commercial considerations.” – Brian
A panel of beekeepers (Theresa Gaffney and David Hackenberg, left) and scientists (Kim Stoner and Frank Drummond, right) discussed Colony Collapse Disorder at a Common Ground Country Fair teach-in, moderated by Sharon Tisher, center. English photo. Common Ground Country Fair Teach-In 2012 Ten years ago an average of 15 to 20 percent of commercially managed
Climate change panelists, from left to right: Stephen Mulkey, John Jemison, Sharon Tisher (moderator), Lou McNally, Dylan Voorhees and Andy Burt. English photo. Maine gardener Beedy Parker notes that we are experiencing generally longer growing seasons, but they are unpredictable and undependable due to extremes of temperature, moisture and storm intensity. Parker was the moving
