Danielle Walczak

Staff Writer

Community and local food systems were the focus at the first Maine Food Summit at Wells Conference Center on Friday. In a state where 24.1 percent of children under the age of 16 live in a food insecure household, obtaining sustainable food security in the aging state of Maine was an important topic for speakers at the summit.

The event, which was conceptualized at the New England Food Summit at University of Southern Maine last year and put on by UMaine Cooperative Extension, was a gathering of farmers, policy makers, students, professors, Cooperative Extension members and more food enthusiasts. With two keynote speakers and two breakout discussion sessions, each break in the action was filled with loud chatter and excitement regarding the speakers’ topics.

New England is a bull’s-eye for a local food model throughout the country.

“The level of interest from a whole group of different audiences is just incredible,” said Timothy Griffin, associate professor and director of the Agriculture, Food and Environmental program at Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and the first keynote speaker.

For Griffin, who previously worked for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, New England is a wealth for the local food system.

“There’s a lot of capacity here and we need to recognize that,” he said in his talk “Maine’s Role in Creating a Sustainable, More Regional Food System.”

UMaine President Paul Ferguson opened the day presenting the responsibility he feels UMaine has as a Land Grant university to “embrace a core value of sustainability” and instill this value in its students. He said if graduates of UMaine don’t come out with an idea of sustainability, “I think we’ve missed our mark.”

For Griffin, collaboration between sources, such as local, industrial and regional, is important for the future of Maine’s food. He cited the example of incorporating local food into school lunches as a good start to cooperation.

Griffin is excited about the opportunity to make local food accessible to all people from different economic backgrounds.

Mark Lapping of University of Southern Maine, spoke with two other speakers about the New England Food Vision, a report offering three options for a more sustainable and locally sourced New England food system. The plan would produce 50 percent of clean, fair, just, accessible food in New England for all New Englanders by 2060 while leaving 70 percent of New England forested, according to Lapping.

“This is a possible thing for us to do if we embrace what we have in front of us,” Lapping said.

In the same discussion, Molly Anderson of College of the Atlantic said the New England Food Vision would only be possible with a cultural shift toward more healthy eating: less meat and more vegetables.

The Maine Food Strategy presented the beginnings of their project, which differs from the New England Food Vision, as it is more of a plan and open forum for Maine food producers, much like Vermont’s Farm to Plate program. The group was met with many questions and comments from audience members regarding entities such as dairy farms, financial institutions and GMO labeling.

Unanswered questions were addressed after lunch in the two sessions of group discussions. Which covered issues such as climate change, food policy, marine fisheries and more.

Second keynote speaker Patrick Keliher, the commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources, spoke on Maine’s Role in Creating a Sustainable Fishery.

Maine imports 90 percent of the food its citizens consume according to Amanda Beal of University of New Hampshire and Maine Food Strategy.

Lapping believes Maine is ready to get back to what was once, “a very rich, very agricultural past.”

During breaks attendees circulated the conference center, connecting and chatting with many organizations with tables such as Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, Maine’s Own Organic Milk and Maine Farmland Trust pushing forward the introductory goal of John Rebar, executive director of Cooperative Extension: “collaboration, community, passion and commitment to a healthy state.”