MOFGA's Public Policy Teach-ins
Nurturing Native Wildlife in Your Landscape Without Hazardous Chemicals: Practical Steps That You Can Take Around Your Home and Policy Actions That You Can Take in Augusta and Washington
The natural landscape in our bioregion is ever-changing and is experiencing pressure from commercial and residential development, chemical contamination, clearcutting and energy development, dramatically shifting weather patterns, and emerging plant and animal species. Of Maine’s more than 16,000 species of inland wildlife, 51 are endangered or threatened, and the greatest threat to these species is habitat loss and fragmentation. The 2023 Public Policy Teach-In at the Common Ground Country Fair focused on the practical and policy actions we can take to nurture habitat for native plants and animals and understand how to work with nature to enhance the health of the soil, create resilient habitat, and protect clean water and air, rather than continually using agrichemicals to temporarily control undesirable species. Nancy Ross, past executive director of MOFGA and long- time member of MOFGA’s public policy committee, will moderate a panel discussion with expertise from Chip Osborne, Sharon Turner and Heather Spaulding.
Nurturing Native Wildlife in Your Landscape Without Hazardous Chemicals
Saturday, September 23, 2023 at the Common Ground Country Fair Professional horticulturalist Chip Osborne started using pesticides in the 1970s, when the pesticide industry was just over 20 years old. “Twenty-five years of my business, I was up to my elbows in pesticides,” said Osborne. “We buttoned up our collars, put on some glasses, a
Climate Change in Maine: The Problem, the Response and What All of Us Can Do
The 2020 Common Ground Country Fair Public Policy Teach-In offers participants a broad view of the impacts of climate change in Maine, how Maine is responding, and what all of us citizens can do to join this critical movement. MOFGA deputy director Heather Spalding hosts a panel of experts including Hannah Pingree, Director of Governor
Local Pesticide Control: How Your Town Can Protect Health and the Environment
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
Making America Green Again: A Workshop in Resistance
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,
Today’s Agriculture – An Important Piece of Maine’s Economic Development Strategy
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
Pesticides: In the News and All Around Us
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.
Public Policy Teach-In
Pesticides: In the News and All Around Us Who decides which pesticides can be approved for use – are these “forever” decisions? Saturday, September 21, 2019 1 to 2:30 p.m. on the Spotlight Stage Join us to learn how pesticides are evaluated by state and federal authorities. Pesticides are available for sale in hardware, grocery
GMO Labeling Efforts Draw Crowd at Common Ground Country Fair
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
Teach In Antibiotics
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
Teach In
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
1998 Teach In
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
Teach In
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
