Advocates of organic farming question agriculture workshop
Kennebec Journal - 1/13/2010.By Mechele Cooper – Augusta: Advocates for organic farming say a workshop at the state agricultural trades show today is a veiled campaign to make Maine farmers accept genetically engineered crops. The 12:45 p.m. workshop is billed as promoting co-existence of organic and genetically engineered crops. "It looks to me with this workshop that they're really pushing for people to be OK with genetic engineering and accept GMOs (genetically modified crops)," said Bob St. Peter, executive director of Food for Maine's Future. |
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Farms big, little display at expo
Kennebec Journal - 1/13/2010.By Beth Quimby – Augusta: In the summer, Janet Spear digs in the dirt on a fifth-generation vegetable and cattle farm on Eugley Hill Road in Nobleboro. In the winter, she grows back her "girly fingernails" and gets busy marketing her other business, Janet's Ag Tours and Travel Service, specializing in domestic and international excursions with an agricultural focus. |
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Down East farmers market seeking ... Farmers
Bangor Daily News - 1/12/2010.By Sharon Kiley Mack – Whiting: In assessing the 2009 farmers market season in Calais, farmers of the Washington County Farmers’ Alliance at their meeting here Sunday said they are lacking one key ingredient: more farmers. Ted Carter, a farmer from Alexander, said the Calais market is going so well on Tuesdays that he never even got to the Eastport farmers market on Saturdays. “I was all sold out,” he said. |
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Legislators grapple with dairy payouts
Bangor Daily News - 1/11/2010.By Sharon Kiley Mack – Augusta: Legislators debated the payments to the state’s unique Dairy Stabilization Program for nearly the entire day Friday. The program provides subsidies to Maine dairy farmers when the price of milk falls. Rep. Jeff McCabe, D-Skowhegan, a member of the Agriculture, Forestry and Conservation Committee, said the committee struggled with making across-the-board percentage cuts to farmers’ payments in a cash-strapped year. |
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