On April 26, 2024 the report was picked up in a Bangor Daily News article titled, “Maine’s new organic farmers are moving away from milk.” Read the article in full here.
The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) recently published an organic impact white paper, titled “Maine Organic Agriculture from 2007-2021: Size, Economic Impact, Farmer Goals, and Profitability.”
The purpose of this report is to aggregate data about organic farming in Maine to better support farmers, and inform MOFGA’s programming decisions. The white paper describes the historical growth trajectory of organic agriculture in Maine from 2007-2021; including number of farms, acreage, gross sales and jobs. It also estimates the economic impact of agriculture in Maine from 2007-2021.
“This project, which has taken almost two years to bring to this stage, is an update to an economic impact report that MOFGA completed back in 2010,” says Nicolas Linholm, MOFGA’s organic marketing and business specialist. “It will be an important tool for MOFGA and other farm service providers in the coming years for building meaningful, practical programs to help Maine’s organic farmers where they’re currently facing specific barriers and goals for their businesses.”
The paper aims to take a deeper dive into these topics by looking at them based on farm types (e.g., dairy, vegetables, fruits, etc.), as well as market channels. It also seeks to understand some of the current goals that Maine’s organic farmers have for their farms, and describe the challenges that farmers see themselves currently facing as they work towards those goals. With this information, MOFGA can better evaluate the profitability of Maine’s organic farmers as of 2022: by type of farm and by primary market channel.
While more data will be analyzed to update this white paper report (including the newly released 2022 USDA Agriculture Census data), it is a comprehensive snapshot with valuable data for Maine’s farming community and will help guide its programming decisions. MOFGA will publish a full economic impact report of organic farming in Maine later this year.
For more information about MOFGA, visit mofga.org. To read the white paper in full, visit MOFGA’s website: mofga.org/farmer-resources/marketing-resources/#white-paper.
