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The University of Maine Dining Services bought 5 to 8 percent of its food from local farms during November and December, supporting Maine’s economy and getting fresher food in the process, according to Glenn Taylor, UMaine’s director of culinary services.
The percentage of locally-grown food at UMaine was higher in September and October, at some times close to 15 percent because of seasonal products such as apples, Taylor said.
Stewart Smith is one of the farmers UMaine buys from. In addition to teaching resource economics and policy at UMaine, Smith owns and operates Lakeside Farms in Newport, with the help of his son. He supplies local produce for both UMaine and Colby College dining services.
During this school year, UMaine has purchased broccoli, squash, cabbage, tomatoes, beets and carrots from Lakeside Farms.
“The university’s been patient with us,” he said. “We give them unpeeled carrots when they could buy peeled carrots from their regular supplier.”
Smith’s farm, which is in its third season, will continue to provide the school with carrots throughout the winter months.
Maine counts Lakeside Farms among the many that do not supply to industries. Lakeside also does not sell directly to consumers through farmer’s markets or community-supported agriculture. Smith said it’s the middle ground between the two types.
“What I’m interested in right now is that middle group,” he said. “Those systems, I think, can be financially viable and help in developing that middle that’s more diverse and better sustainable.”
Rather than selling produce to consumers or factories, mid-size farms compete by delivering to area supermarkets or universities. This way, they keep the profit that would otherwise be taken out for the store’s distribution department. They supply grocers with, as Smith puts it, “a fresher, better taste at equivalent price and service.”
Several local farms supply produce to Performance Food Group (PFG) Northcenter, the operation from which dining services purchases produce, according to Taylor.
Five years ago, when he was a chef with the university’s catering service, Taylor said he used to walk to the farmer’s market, held twice weekly in the Steam Plant Parking Lot. There, he found items he could use in dinners and brought them back to the kitchen.
Once faced with serving an entire campus and spending $800,000 a year on produce, finding the supply locally became a more challenging task. Taylor found his solution in farms such as Lakeside.
“I try to keep up on the trends. At every conference we’ve gone to for the past five years, it’s been, ‘buy local, buy local, buy local,’” Taylor said.
The problems, he warned, come with defining the term “local.” For schools like Princeton, it’s a four-to-five-state region, while schools in California have their entire state to choose from.
Last year, Taylor looked at Maine’s primary produce supplier, PFG. Thinking he’d wind up with California for an answer, he began tracking where the food at Northcenter came from. He was surprised to find much of the produce originating from Maine farms.
“When we found out it was from real farmers, I’d send out an e-mail, and they’d say, ‘Okay, your apples are coming from Belle Vue [farm] this week.’ Every single day now, there’s something we’re using,” Taylor said.
Taylor said Smith called him one day, offering to supply carrots. Now, dining purchases as many as 600 pounds of carrots a week to use in recipes and salad bars campus-wide.
“Stew was wonderful this year,” Taylor said.
In addition to Smith, Taylor stresses the importance of buying from mid-size farms.
In addition to supporting local businesses, Taylor said local produce seems to be healthier than industrial produce. Produce brought across the country is picked when it’s underripe, he says, but local produce is picked fresh. Taylor says he worried about quality, but is now convinced local produce trumps industrial.
“It’s kind of a feel-good thing,” he said. “It’s one of those things where you know it’s the right thing to do.”
Third-year sustainable agriculture student David Merrill is co-manager of the Black Bear Food Guild at Orono’s Rogers Farm. Every year, students plant, tend and harvest crops at the three-acre organic farm.
The program is part of a Community-Supported Agriculture group (CSA). Each season, students begin planning in January, determining how much their operation will cost. They then sell shares to members of the community in March, who front the funding in return for produce later on. In April, the students plant and take care of their crop until October, delivering fruits and vegetables to shareholders after harvesting.
This year was Merrill’s first as co-manager, and he witnessed the CSA program serve more than 83 shareholders. He is a firm believer in local agriculture, saying that humans cannot separate themselves from their environment.
“There is an important sense of connection that’s lost when you don’t know where your food comes from,” Merrill said. “There is an almost sacred element to preparing food that you are connected to. It’s also about local economies, making sure there is a productive capacity and skill set in our own communities.”
Merrill believes the university’s interaction with local farmers can be an incredible building block for the area’s agriculture. He said UMaine, like many schools established around the same time, was founded with a land grant in order to encourage agricultural and mechanical disciplines.
“As an institution of higher education, acknowledging that and acting on it is essential,” Merrill said. “Educating students about where their food comes from is really crucial. If people aren’t aware of this, they will miss some really important information on how it’s grown, about how agriculture affects the environment.”
