Kendall Voisine loads seed potatoes and fertilizer into a planter, Wednesday, May 24, 2017 in Cross Lake Township.
(SJVT/FhF staff photo/Don Eno)
Voisine is one of the people Rick Gervais and Reuben Pelletier hired this spring to help them plant 200 acres of potatoes. The pair, both from Frenchville, began farming together a few years ago. Wednesday they were planting Caribou Russet potatoes on what had been for years Coulombe Farm along a stretch of Maine Route 161, just south of New Canada. The pair plant and market fresh market potatoes to various buyers along the East Coast. According to data from the Maine Potato Board, the total potato acres planted in Maine has fallen from more than 60,000 acres in 2004 to less than 50,000 acres last year. The majority, more than 65 percent, of these acres are used for processing potatoes.
(SJVT/FhF staff photo/Don Eno)
