Why plan for growth and change, when it seems so much easier to simply react? When there is a distinct and shared vision for your community - when residents, businesses and local government anticipate a sustainable town with cohesive and thriving neighborhoods - you have the power to conserve your beautiful natural spaces, enhance your existing downtown or Main Street, enable rural areas to be productive and prosperous, and save money through efficient use of existing infrastructure. This is the dollars and sense of smart growth. Success is clearly visible in Maine, from the creation of a community-built senior housing complex and health center in Fort Fairfield to conservation easements creating Forever Farms to Rockland's revitalized downtown. Communities have options. We have the power to manage our own responses to growth and change. After all, “Planning is a process of choosing among those many options. If we do not choose to plan, then we choose to have others plan for us.” - Richard I. Winwood And in the end, this means that our children and their children will choose to make Maine home and our economy will provide the opportunities to do so. The Summit offers you a wonderful opportunity to be a part of the transformative change in Maine that we’ve seen these gatherings produce. We encourage you to consider the value of being actively involved in growing Maine’s economy and protecting the reasons we choose to live here.

2. •University of Maine
•B.S. Soil Science
•B.S. Civil Engineering
•Registered Professional Engineer
•Certified Soil Scientist
•Co-owner of Laughing Stock Farm since 1997
•Currently growing 12 acres of vegetables
•6 year round greenhouses
•Recipients of the Commissioner of Agriculture’s Distinguished Service Award, 2014

3. A farm is a BUSINESS

4. The first rule of sustainability -

5. We have to make enough money this year to farm again next year

7. •Last frost of the spring, first of the fall -
•First planting date
•What late crops to risk
•What will live through the winter
•Labor requirements
•When do the weeds die

8. Too hot (global warming?)
•Plants transpire more, soil water evaporates more, farmers need to water more
•Greater cost, moving irrigation pipes
•Need an adequate water supply
•Shorter harvest window each day

9. •Harder on employees
•Harder on livestock
•Organic nitrogen is available more quickly
•More disease pressure in wet years
•New and different insects and diseases

10. So –
Vote YES on 2

11. Customers don’t shop in bad weather

13. Portland data
rainfall in inches
Mar
Apr
May
June
July
Aug
Annual Total
Departure
30 year ave
4.1
4.3
3.8
3.3
3.3
3.1
2009
2.7
4.6
4.5
8.6
8.6
5.2
58.61
+ 12.78
2010
11
1.5
1.8
3.5
4.1
3
52.52
+ 6.69
2011
4.9
6.4
4.3
3.6
4.6
5.2
51.77
+ 4.52
2012
2.1
4.8
5.9
8.6
4.3
6.2
54.47
+ 7.22
2013
1.7
2.1
4.6
7.3
3.4
3.1
43.87
- 3.38
1981 to 2010
47.25
1961 to 1990
44.34

16. Raised beds – 1 to 4 passes to make each bed
not enough time to do all the work with 1 tractor

18. Question the conventional wisdom

19. Natural Resource Conservation Service (USDA) gives farmers money for contour plowing. But not if the contours allow for drainage.

20. One size does not fit all.

24. Some answers are simple

27. •No. 2 fuel oil cost 80 to 85 cents/gal a gallon in 2001 when we started this
•Used cooking oil now costs us $1.85/gal plus handling, so we use propane

28. •Problem- federal subsidies for renewable transportation fuels – right now over $2 per gallon
•Tax $$ being spent to support biodiesel, when our solution worked without ongoing support
•“Picking winners and losers”

29. •Stable economic climate
•Stable regulatory climate
•Stable climate climate

30. Farmers know best what farmers need Vote YES on 6 Above all – do no harm