Protect Maine Farmers

Protect Maine Farmers is working to ensure that Maine's farmers have all the tools that they need to be successful now and in the future.  We seek to amplify and support the voices of farmers in this critical time as decisions are made that will impact the future of farming in Maine.  Through farmer outreach, legislative action, and direct empowering of farmers to act on their own behalf, we are building a just, secure, and democratic food system.  

Healthy Schools Initiative

The Healthy Schools Initiative— a grassroots, decentralized organization—supports students, teachers, parents, staff, administrators, and concerned community members to promote healthy eating, school garden projects, and sustainable agriculture in the classroom.  We believe that a strong connection to a community’s food system is essential to promoting healthy students and healthy local farming communities. 

• Video Project documenting successful efforts around the state
• Action Tool Kit
• Advocating for farm to school projects, healthy school lunches,  school gardens, and sustainable agriculture curriculum
• HealthySchoolsInitiative.org website

Local Solutions

Town meetings are one of the last truly democratic institutions in the state. Concerned citizens from a community gather to discuss, debate, or take action on the issues of the day.    The Local Solutions Campaign is designed to stimulate debate, dialogue, and action at the local level  by empowering community members to hold forums, pass resolutions or ordinances, and host education events with a goal of defining their own food system and using their collective voice to impact food policy at the local, state, and national levels.  

• Assist communities in democratically defining their own food system
• Host video showings and other educational events
• Advise communities on developing, passing, and implementing resolutions and ordinances designed to mitigate threats to local farmers

Defining the Future

Bio-fuels, genetically modified trees, grass, salmon— as well as other plants and animals— designed to produce pharmaceutical or industrial chemicals, and other forms of corporate and government control will impact every farmer in Maine.  Our Defining the Future Campaign seeks to identify and address these issues before they threaten Maine farmers, consumers, and the environment. 

• Workshops and other educational events focused on GE Grass, Trees, and Pharmaceutical Crops
• Using market pressure  and legislation to prevent the introduction of these threats and to promote sustainable alternatives

Food Independence 

Food independence is when a nation, state, or community has the capacity to determine what and how much they eat and, in turn, has democratic control over who profits from it. Declaring food independence means declaring our right to know about the food in our markets: if it is genetically engineered, if it was sprayed with toxic chemicals, and if the farmers and farm-workers who grew and harvested it earn livable wages. From global climate change and corporate globalization, to racism and poverty, creating greater food independence is central to addressing many critical issues of our time.  

• Tour of Farmers from the Global South
• Building the Maine Center for Food Sovereignty
• Annual Sustainable Agriculture and Local Foods Conference
• Collaboration with Winter Cache Project, Eat Local Foods Coalition, and other groups
• Defining Your Own Food System workshops around the state
• Gleaning Project
  

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