Today’s Press Herald has a wrap up on Maine Maple Sunday. Reportedly, some sugar houses even ran out of syrup to sell. There’s a photo slide show on the Press Herald site for those of you who didn’t make it out this year to see the action in person.
Category: Farming
White House Garden
The First Lady and students from the Bancroft Elementary School in DC will break ground for a vegetable garden at the White House. The garden has been the goal of the Eat the View campaign, organized by Scarborough resident Roger Doiron. According to a press release, Doiron and Eat the View now hope to reach “out to other people and identifying other high-profile pieces of land that could be transformed into edible landscapes. Sprawling lawns around governors’ residences, schoolyards, vacant urban lots: those are all views that should be eaten.”
Kosher Maple Syrup
A Gorham sugar shack, The Lockman Place, is now producing kosher maple syrup certified by Hechsher of the Vaad of Portland. Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld from Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh administers the kosher certification process for the syrup.
All Natural Certified Free Roaming
Not sure about the difference between cage-free, free roaming, and free range eggs? Then you might want to read Meredith Goad’s article in the Food & Health section of today’s Press Herald. In addition to the article there’s also a handy egg labeling glossary.
Hood Downsizing Organic Dairies
Today’s Press Herald published a pair of articles from the Bangor Daily News on downsizing in the organic dairy business. Hood has decided not to renew contracts with about a third of their organic dairies in Maine and asked the rest to decrease their output.
The farms being dropped by Hood are in Aroostook and Washington counties only, an area courted heavily by Hood just three years ago, when the organic boom was at its peak.
Hood ships Maine’s organic milk to New York to be processed and packaged and then returns it to Maine where it is sold as Stonyfield Farm Organic Milk.
Sunset Farm Organics
Sunset Farm Organics in Lyman run by MOFGA board member Paul Lorrain provides “gorgeous greenery” and vegetables to a number of Portland restaurants (Street & Co, Fore Street, Flatbread, Local 188, etc) throughout the winter months, according to this new eGullet Forums post by johnnyd.
Photo Credit: John Dennison
Chicken Farmers Corner Grace
There are several articles of interest in today’s Portland Daily Sun:
- A feature article on the new restaurant initiatives that are proceeding during a downturn in the economy. The optimists behind The Corner Room, The Farmer’s Table and Figa were all interviewed for the piece.
- An update on Grace, the new restaurant being built in the renovated Chestnut Street Church.
- An article on Portland’s local food movement and the new Portland chicken ordinance.
Portland City Council
This week’s meeting of the Portland City Council resulted in the passage of an ordinance to permit Portlanders to raise chickens, denial of a liquor license for Cactus Club (which will stay open pending an appeal), and passage of liquor licenses for two new establishments, Pearl and The Farmer’s Table.
Maine Street Marketplace
There’s an article in today’s Press Herald about the goals of Maine Street Marketplace initiative that’s meeting this week at USM.
Maine farmers, fishermen and others are working to create a new delivery system to connect customers with locally produced food and agricultural products.
The idea is to set up an online grocery store that would take customer orders for the wide range of produce, fish, meat, poultry, dairy and other agricultural products produced around the state. A warehousing and distribution system would be part of the venture, which may also include a retail store and commercial kitchen for food processing.
Farms in Maine
The total number of farms in Maine increased 13% from 2002 to 2007 and the number of organic farms increased 139% over same time period, according to an article in today’s Press Herald.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture released its latest five-year census this week, showing that the number of farms in Maine increased by 13 percent, to 8,136, from 2002 to 2007, compared with a 4 percent increase nationwide. The average size of a Maine farm declined 13 percent, to 166 acres, during the same period.