Strengthening Ties Among Farmers in Northern Maine

Strengthening Ties Among Farmers in Northern Maine

	Photo courtesy of Kathren Albert.

Catherine Albert has a New Englander’s fierce commitment to community. Albert, whose forebears settled in New Hampshire in the 1600s, farms in Madawaska, Maine – a stone’s throw from the Canadian border – on the 214-acre family farm homestead of her husband, Ben, and his mother, Kathren, in Aroostock County.

With soil temperatures that don’t warm for planting until mid-May and frosts that start nipping crops in late August, northern Maine doesn’t overwhelm its small farmers with planting options. However, Albert, who excels at pulling the community together, has made diversifying northern Maine crop options her latest priority.

Her new venture: developing Maine-grown poultry feed.

“There’s a very strong interest in buying local products in our state,” she said. “I buy my maple syrup from somebody in the next town. As we all realize, to survive as farmers, you need to support other farmers.”

Need organic poultry feed? Make your own
Catherine teaches forestry part time at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, and Ben works at the local paper mill. Together, they raise beef cattle, laying hens, turkeys, timber and conventional and organic grains, expanding their farm with tillable rented acreage. They sell their turkeys locally at Thanksgiving, and – like the milkman of yore – Catherine delivers farm-fresh eggs to their customers weekly.

But when the Alberts were sourcing organic feed for their soon-to-be-organic chickens, the closest suppliers they found were in Vermont and Quebec. They decided to produce their own.

After extensive research and testing, funded by a SARE grant, Catherine and University of Maine animal nutritionist Linda Kling developed feed formulas for the layers, broilers and turkeys. The process was not without challenges: Field corn wouldn’t grown in the cold climate. Barley was no good, either—to be digestible to chickens, it needs an added enzyme. Instead, the women based their formula on hull-less oats. The formula also includes protein-rich soybeans, which Albert hopes she’ll soon be able to grow. She supplements the feed with vitamins imported from Wisconsin, and, to ensure the yolks will be a “real yellow” that corn feed puts in eggs, Albert spent six months finding a certified organic marigold.

Fellow producers confirm the need for feed
The Alberts will license, mix and sell their organic poultry feed to other Maine growers through their new business, which the couple calls Northernmost Feeds. Albert is optimistic: Surveys of the Maine Alternative Poultry Association and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association revealed “strong interest from people who had 15 to 25 birds all the way up to people who raise 1,000 birds,” she said. “There are more than enough people in the state who are interested in Maine-based poultry feed to make this feasible.”

It isn’t just the organic poultry producers who will benefit, Albert notes. “This is an ideal opportunity for organic farmers in Aroostock County. They need to find economically viable organic rotation crops. You can’t grow potatoes every year on the same piece of land.”

Nor, of course, can you grow oats on the same acres every year, so Albert plans to rotate with green-manure clover and eventually with short-season soybeans. The Alberts’ beef cows provide the farm’s fertilizer.

Albert looks forward to the day when Northernmost Feeds is large enough to source all of its inputs locally. She’s put out the word to organic potato growers that she’ll buy their organic oats.

The Alberts hope the feed business will provide jobs for other members of their community, where population has declined due to lack of employment opportunities. Farming in Maine’s northernmost county remains their top priority: “It comes down to what’s in your blood,” Albert said.