This Thanksgiving, many Maine families will be giving thanks for the turkey on their table — a fresh Maine bird free from the avian flu that has hit Midwestern farms so hard.
It’s just one more example of why interest in locally provided food keeps growing.
Last May, largely because of pressure from student groups such as Real Food, the University of Maine System called for its food service provider to include 20 percent local food by 2020. The contract, which kicks in this July, covers all system campuses except for Orono, which has its own contract.
Three vendors submitted bids in early November. One of them was a new kid on the block, the Maine Farm and Sea Cooperative. The co-op’s member-owners include a growing number of Maine farms and food workers as well as community members who support not only local food but local ownership of the food system.
They are but one example of increased buy-in by all the stakeholders invested in a locally owned local food system who recognize that success will depend on collaborating efforts and aggregating products.
No one understands how to do this better than co-op board members Leah and Marada Cook, sisters whose family created a statewide farmer-to-retailer distribution service that became a multimillion-dollar business, Crown O’Maine Organic Cooperative, whose supplier list includes 200 Maine food producers.
Other co-op board members include Dave Seddon, president of the Maine Academy of Nutrition and Dietetic Association; Ron Adams, who previously ran the Portland School Department food program, where he worked to increase local purchasing to 35 percent; John Entwistle, former director for the Maine Small Business Development Centers at the University of Southern Maine in Portland; and Gloria LaBrecque, Maine loan and outreach adviser for the Cooperative Fund of New England, a 40-year-old fund that has made more than 700 loans resulting in the creation or retention of nearly 10,000 jobs.
On Dec. 9, the three vendors will present their cases to the University of Maine System. Can the Maine Farm and Sea Cooperative make it to the finish line? A lot depends on what happens in the next two weeks. Specifically:
1. To what extent do the committee members evaluating the proposals understand the fundamental difference between a locally owned cooperative committed to providing for the needs of people and the planet and a from-away corporation committed to maximizing profits for major shareholders?
2. How much do they realize the enormous rise in collaboration among farmers and food workers the co-op represents?
3. How much do they understand that opening member ownership to any resident of Maine — which includes an equal vote for board members and a fair share of any surplus — ultimately means that the university system’s food system can be 100 percent Maine-owned, providing 100 percent of the food our students eat?
4. How many Maine people contact the University of Maine System office before Dec. 9 asking that the co-op be awarded a contract for at least some of the campuses in question?
Regardless of how many campuses, if any, contract with Maine Farm and Sea Cooperative, the co-op is already in discussions with other Maine institutions about providing them with fresh, local Maine food and establishing a truly local food system.
Jane Livingston of Veazie has been an editor, marketing consultant, publicist, event coordinator, workshop presenter and journalist focused on the cooperative enterprise sector since 1993. In 2007 she produced the Maine Feeds Maine community teleconferences, funded by Maine Community Foundation and Northeast Farm Credit.