Buy Maine
By Sarah Wolpow
January 26, 2004

Last summer I took my three-year old daughter strawberry picking at a nearby farm. It was a hot day and I didn't think she'd last more than a half hour. She did. Looking at her fruit-smeared face, the checkout people joked that they should have weighed her before and after, and added the difference to our bill. We picked over 40 pounds of berries, from which we made pots full of strawberry jam.

Canning jam is a sensuous process, filling the house with a dark fragrant smell. By the end of the day the sugar canister is empty, cutting boards and fingers are stained red, and sparkling jars line the counter. My mother canned jam, as did both sets of grandparents. This shared experience connects me to my heritage: small farms in Denmark and villages in the Ukraine. Making jam from local fruit adds a layer of richness to process, allowing me to infuse these old traditions from distant lands with new life from Maine’s rocky northern soil.

Local strawberry fields, apple orchards, farms, and dairies, are part of why most of us love living in Maine. We love the hay bales curled sleeping in the fields after early frosts, we love the fences running up and down the hills, we love that our kids count cows on the way to school. We are disturbed as farms are replaced by subdivisions and, to quote Joni Mitchell, paradise is paved over for parking lots. Although development of rural and forested areas sometimes seems inevitable, there is widespread agreement that strong local markets help preserve rural landscapes and rural character. Russ Libby, of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, suggests that each Maine family spend just $10 a week on local food; right now, we're spending about $2.

One barrier to buying local products is that they often appear to be more expensive. But consider the following. If we buy local apple cider instead of Florida orange juice, we will get the unrivaled pleasure of flowering apple trees in spring. If we make our oatmeal with milk from New England instead milk driven 3000 miles in a refrigerated truck, our neighbors may keep their farms, our rural communities could thrive, and our highways will be less congested. Opt for blueberries from Washington County rather than Chile, and we get hillsides dyed that indescribable red-purple-blue of fall blueberry leaves. Support local strawberry farmers and our children can pick their own breakfasts. Forgo old-growth timber from British Columbia and buy instead from our local small woodlots, and we'll receive walking trails, clean water, wildlife habitat, and places to hunt.

A few months ago I noticed that a favorite brand of bread was trucked in from Pennsylvania. These days, instead, I put my kids in a sled and pull them along a woodsy snowmobile trail to a bakery near our house. I keep their spirits high with promises of fresh cinnamon raisin bread, or a golden sugar cookie. The bakery owner tells me she loves to come home and see our sled tracks across her lawn. When I think about trails through the woods, supporting my neighbors, a rich experience for my kids, and helping to preserve the rural landscape, the local bread has no competition. And, unlike Maine strawberries, you can buy it in the middle of January.

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