Culture

Lessons From the Pandemic: Maine’s local food system during Covid 19: Tuesday Dec. 8

Editors’ note: Hat tip to resident Penny Hilton for sharing this event. Hilton’s note to NGX described her recent conversation with a New Gloucester farmer who had seen strong support for locally grown food at the outset of the pandemic, when residents avoided the larger grocery stores. But now that people have largely gone back to grocery stores, local farmers are “once again having to struggle to stay afloat,” Hilton said.

Lessons From the Pandemic: Maine’s local food system during Covid 19

What lessons can we learn from the pandemic that will help us better support Maine’s farmers and local food system?

In 2021, four nonprofits, The Cooperative Development Institute, Coastal Enterprises, Inc., Maine Farmland Trust, and Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association, joined forces to survey how Maine’s food system is being impacted by COVID-19. While the pandemic is not yet over, and it’s too soon to draw conclusions about long-term impacts, the survey results give farm and food business service providers, as well as consumers, unique insight into key areas that need support. Join us for an overview of the resulting report and its key findings, which we hope will help inform a community of practice around ways farms and food businesses and their ecosystem can empower greater resilience for if/when there is another crisis that impacts our food system in Maine.

To register for this free online program, click here.

Photo and program write-up from mofga.org