Maine farms outproducing the other New England states

WEST SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – As a million visitors wend their way through the Maine building at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield over the next two weeks, they will get a glimpse of Maine tourism, art, culture and education, but the overriding theme of the Maine exhibit is agriculture.

With Maine holding the honor as the state with the largest agricultural contribution to the regional economy, the theme is repeated differently in the other five state buildings.

“This is the first time in a decade that we have been Number One,” Robert Spear, Maine’s commissioner of agriculture, said Monday. “Our building at the Eastern States reflects the reason why – diversification.”

Maine has had a building at the exposition, the nation’s 10th largest agricultural fair, since the early 1900s. The climate inside is clearly different from the overwhelmingly commercial atmosphere in the buildings of the other states.

The Maine building, renovated two years ago for $1 million, is more open and user-friendly. The first exhibit encountered upon entering is a list of the state’s annual agricultural wealth: $95 million worth of cattle, $720,000 in cranberries, 1.1 billion brown eggs, 230,000 gallons of maple syrup, 75 million pounds of wild blueberries, 33 million pounds of apples, and 62,000 acres of potatoes. Wide aisles allow easy passage around booths featuring maple syrup, wild blueberries, farm-raised salmon and the famous baked potato sale.

“Quality from Maine, Naturally” the banner reads, and the latest numbers from the New England Agricultural Statistics Service back that up. Cash receipts from 2003 generated from fall potatoes, a 33 percent increase in egg sales, and a 60 percent increase in wild blueberry sales secured Maine’s place as first in the region in 2003.

All agricultural commodities in the state totaled $499 million, a full 7 percent above the previous year.

Each of the six New England states and their 2003 agriculture cash receipts were: Maine, $499 million; Connecticut, $484 million; Vermont, $482 million; Massachusetts, $385 million; New Hampshire, $150 million; and Rhode Island, $57 million.

Spear said Maine is leading because it isn’t putting all its eggs in one basket.

“Vermont, for example, has 71 percent of its agriculture industry tied to milk,” the commissioner noted. “We cannot rely on just one area.

“For example, our maple syrup production has doubled in value in the last five years.”

Oats production also has doubled, as has the production of fruit, berries and poultry. Brown eggs are rebounding dramatically after a drop over the past three years.

Although potatoes and milk continue to lead Maine’s cash crops, in the other New England states, the crops that feed people are falling far behind greenhouse and horticulture sales. Those lead all other agriculture sales in four of the six New England states: Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire.

Each of the other states’ buildings at the Eastern States Exposition has a large agricultural emphasis as well, including a farmers market in the Massachusetts building; Rhode Island’s emphasis on its own brand of milk and native quahogs and seafood; Vermont’s offerings of cheese and cider; and New Hampshire’s maple syrup, butter and fresh sweet corn.

In contrast, the Connecticut building had a large Department of Agriculture booth entirely devoted to animal welfare and abuse, a major problem in the state.

“In Maine, we are still an agricultural state,” Spear said. “Our emphasis on it at the Eastern States and the statistics prove that.”

Rhode Island, with only 20 dairy farms left in operation, is an example of the shift from food production to horticulture. Kenneth Ayars, chief of agriculture for the state’s Department of Environmental Management was quick to admit in an interview last week that the face of agriculture in Rhode Island is changing.

“Our land prices are tied behind Connecticut as the highest in the nation,” creating an incentive for economically depressed farmers to sell land for house lots, Ayars said. The agriculture chief said agri-tourism and land protection are getting a lot of attention from state officials.

“We are doing everything we can to stop our agricultural industry from slipping away,” Ayars said.

Massachusetts’ traditional agriculture industry also continues to erode. According to the New England Agricultural Statistics Service, milk and cranberry sales dropped last year while the shift to greenhouse and nursery sales continued to rise, becoming the top cash contributor to the Massachusetts agriculture industry, just as in Rhode Island.

Like the subtle shift in direct marketing in Maine, Massachusetts also has been capitalizing on consumers’ desires for local food. Thirty-five percent of all agricultural sales in Massachusetts, some $20 million annually, are direct sales to consumers.

As Maine looks to the future, said Spear, diversity will continue to be the key.

“It will be everything to the viability of our agriculture,” he said.