Seaweed Harvesting

Orion Magazine takes a look at how one Maine resident is getting by.

During his lifetime John has been an orchard pruner, fisherman, lobsterman, apple picker, log roller, sawyer, and logger, and for more than forty years he has harvested seaweed on the coast of Maine. He started by renting a dory and rake for a dollar a day, and since then has retired several skiffs of his own. While rockweed—his present quarry—is certainly plentiful, it is not in great demand; it is used almost exclusively for animal supplements, a growing but still small market.

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In 2007, the mechanical harvesters, now redesigned, reappeared but were equally inefficient. That was good for John, who was offered work; that year the processor had to have weed. Because it had not been picked the previous year, the rockweed had proliferated. The price was up too, to three cents a pound.

The mechanical harvesters are being redesigned again for 2008, when John will be eighty years old. Whether the machines will work in the coming year, and whether John’s boat and fortitude will last one more season, will be determined in the spring.

- Orion Magazine

Blueberries bringing in the green

Wild blueberry growers last summer harvested 76.9 million pounds worth an estimated $71.5 million, the New England office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service reported Friday.The crop is the fourth-largest on record and state’s biggest since growers harvested 80.4 million pounds in 2003. The preliminary value is 20 percent higher than 2006 and nearly double the 2005 value of $38.9 million.

- MaineToday

‘Maine Feeds Maine’

A group of Maine residents is facilitating discussions on Maine’s agricultural issues.

“Is it possible for Maine’s family-owned farming and fishing operations, and its local, value-added food producers, to thrive by feeding the people of Maine, first and foremost?”

More than 150 people participated in the discussions during November and December, as part of a project called Maine Feeds Maine. Jane Livingston, coordinator of the project, said the answer to the question is an emphatic “yes!”

- Village Soup

Growing tomatoes year-round

The Maine Democrat reports on Backyard Beauties‘ new greenhouses in Madison.  The company has already found success, and is planning on expanding.  It is a great example of the State working to bring sustainable business here.

The greenhouses will grow tomatoes in an environmentally friendly and atmospherically conditioned medium, pumping nutrients to the plants through plastic tubing. That enables the plants to reach up to 20 feet, to the roof, where workers will use hydraulic platforms to harvest year round. The roots will be set on heating pads, and the plants will have grow lights to aid the sun. The tomatoes will be grown without use of chemical pesticides.

It’s the first greenhouse complex of this scale in New England, as well as being the only one that can grow year round.

Last June, on the River Road site of the U.S. Functional Foods LLC (USFF) tomato greenhouse complex, Governor John E. Baldacci designated 200 acres as a Pine Tree Development Zone (PTZ), making the facility eligible for the tax incentive program.

Maine Potato Harvest Down

Maine’s potato harvest was down, due in part to fewer acres of land used for growing. The reasons for this decline were not provided. AP:

According to the Department of Agriculture, farmers this fall harvested an estimated 1.65 billion pounds of potatoes.

The 2007 production, however, is about 8 percent below the 2006 output because of reductions in acreage and yield. Maine farmers planted 57,100 acres, or 1,400 fewer than in 2006.