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Farmer Reduces Food Waste in Maine

Dean and Deborah Richmond of Pleasant River Farms collect food waste from nearby Sunday River and Mt. Abram ski resorts and compost it along with their farm manure. Photo by Rachael Guay By Heather Omand MOFGA Organic Marketing and Business Coordinator The tourism industry brings billions of dollars into Maine, but that is not the

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Farmall Cub

A 1955 Farmall Cub. Photo by Ben Hoffman By Ben Hoffman To me, the most versatile, useful, practical farm machine ever made was the Farmall Cub. Introduced in 1947 to replace horses and mules on small farms, about 245,000 Cubs were produced from 1947 until 1979. The tractor featured a 4-cylinder, 9.25 horsepower gasoline engine,

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Volunteer Profile Bri Beecher

Bri Beecher By Betsy Garrold Dressed in an outfit specifically color coordinated with that year’s Common Ground Country Fair volunteer staff Fair T-shirts, Bri Beecher is a super salesperson at the Rose Gate during the Fair. As coordinator for the membership table at that gate, she speaks about MOFGA enthusiastically. She walks the line of

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Harpswell Heritage Apples

Toki Oshima drawing By Abbey Verrier Apples have been chasing Robert McIntyre from the time he was a little boy and his father cut down a healthy apple tree. “It didn’t have apples that I was interested in, but it sort of made a mark in my mind,” said McIntyre. Years later, as a professor

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Slow Money Maine

  Steve Levy (left), a Slow Money Maine technical assistance mentor and member of Maine Farm & Sea Cooperative’s board, along with Gray Harris of Slow Money Maine’s steering committee and Coastal Enterprises Inc., at SMM’s November 2015 daylong gathering. Photo courtesy of SMM By Jean English Like healthy soils that nourish abundant, nutrient-dense crops, Slow Money

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Volunteer Profile Patti Hamilton

Patti Hamilton By Betsy Garrold In 2012, after Patti Hamilton and her husband, Chris, had been living at their current Whitefield farm for a while, they began discussing names for the property and for Patti’s dairy business. That summer as she worked in the garden, a barred owl sat in the trees during daylight hours

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Maine Heritage Orchard Volunteer

Rudy Kelly, an ardent heirloom apple tree sleuth and volunteer for MOFGA’s Maine Heritage Orchard, standing by an ancient tree he discovered that he calls “Jake 1829.” Photo by Abbey Verrier By Abbey Verrier and Angus Deighan A few years ago, Rudy Kelly and his girlfriend, Phoebe Barnes, were driving to the Common Ground Country

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Choosing Community

Toki Oshima drawing By Jean English Editor, “The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener” As MOFGA develops a long-term, forward-looking strategic plan, I looked backward for inspiration – to our late director Russell Libby’s visionary writing. “What would Russell plan?” I wondered. A long list quickly emerged, with four intertwined themes: actions we can take at

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Huey Coleman

Huey Coleman filming John Bunker collecting wild apples, for Coleman’s next documentary, “Henry David Thoreau: Surveyor of the Soul.” Photo by Judy Wentzell By Abbey Verrier In April 2014, Huey Coleman arrived at MOFGA’s Maine Heritage Orchard, camera in hand and ready to film. It was our first planting day, and a big group of

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MOFGAs Farmer in Residence Program

Pheonix Obrien and Megan Gardner are the current farmers-in-residence at MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center in Unity. This photo shows them preparing for MOFGA’s Common Ground Country Fair, which takes place right outside the farmhouse where they live during their residency. English photo Farmers-in-residence grow crops on MOFGA’s grounds, enabling them to begin a farming

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