CARIBOU — Officials with the Maine Food Strategy Initiative were back in Aroostook last week, getting ideas and suggestions for next steps and approaches for expanding interest in agriculture as an economic development engine for Maine. One stop was a Jan. 20 discussion with both the Aroostook Partnership for Progress (APP) Diversified Agriculture Working Group and Aroostook Farm Bureau representatives.
Contributed photo
LISTENING — Maine Food Strategy Co-Director Tanya Swain listens to comments at the APP Diversified Agriculture Working Group meeting in Caribou on Jan. 20.
The Maine Food Strategy is an initiative to create a broader and more strongly connected network of organizations, agencies, businesses and individuals contributing to the food system in Maine. The initiative seeks to convene a statewide participatory process that will identify and advance shared goals to support the growth of a robust food economy and a thriving natural resource base in our state.
Maine Food Strategy Co-Director Tanya Swain attended the session to hear feedback on the next steps for the initiative, which includes forming working groups around goal areas, additional outreach and a statewide meeting this spring.
“We want to create a statewide conversation about food and how it will be even more of an economic driver for this state,” she said.
Swain also added her group is not a group of experts telling farmers and fishermen what to do. She added the Maine Food Strategy Steering Committee is not a government agency.
APP President Bob Dorsey, who serves on the Maine Food Strategy steering committee, said the meeting was a good dialogue on what is important to growers in our region.
“It’s great to have Tanya connect with Aroostook in her current role as she fully realizes that Aroostook, with our premium land for growing, is a very important and valuable component to any statewide strategy,” he said.
Swain said she is focusing on different areas important to the food system, primarily economic development. She has begun gathering information on marketing, regulations, financing, labor, production and processing.
“A key element to this effort is networking and growing awareness of emerging markets for local food in the southern part of Maine and New England to county growers to enable them to gain access and awareness of potential new customers,” added Dorsey.
Swain also participated in the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Maine Potato Conference the following day at the Caribou Inn and Convention Center.
In other Diversified Agriculture Working Group news, outreach continues to gauge interest in holding a “Bounty from the County” event in which growers and potential customers are brought together to highlight produce and products from Aroostook County.
If a producer is interested in helping to organize that event they are urged to contact Michael Eisensmith at NMDC, meisensmith@nmdc.org.
