Community Food Systems in Lewiston/Auburn and Maine

Accomplishments, challenges, and goals to improve food security and connections within our food system community

By Kate Loughlin

January 29, 2021

What's the problem with our Food Systems?

Within the last seventy years, the food and agriculture systems of the United States have increased industrialization across the nation.

This means large farms have specialized their crops, only producing one type of food and selling this product all over the country.

Increase in crop specialization (monocropping) and corporate control has caused many environmental and social health problems across the country.

Capitalization within the agriculture industry has led to the loss of thousands of U.S. farmers annually, with this number increasing every year (2) .

Local farmers can no longer survive because consumers are purchasing from large, corporate farmers through large-scale grocery stores and national producers.

Not only are consumers looking for the cheapest option, but they are also losing connections with their local, healthy produce and local farmers. With a lack of community support for local farmers and producers, farmer numbers are expected to continue to decrease.

In order to restore and support vital local aspects of our food systems, it's important to understand the challenges our farmers face, and how community consumers can help alleviate some of these challenges.

Stat sourced from 2017 Census of Agriculture (6)

With an aging farmer population in Maine, along with lack of retention of generational farmers, Maine is working extra hard to preserve the viability of farming within the state through education and community support (1) .

The movement toward more community-based food systems is gaining momentum as more consumers begin to understand the direct health and economic benefits for themselves and their community. (5) Along with health benefits is the ability to increase access to local, healthy produce for lower income members of the community.

So, What is a Community Food System, and How Can it Help?

Community food systems are used to improve the health of one’s community by increasing access to affordable and nutritious produce from within their own community.

Definition sourced from *Growing a Community Food System* *(1)*

Community Food Systems, or CFS, have been implemented and elevated in order to reverse these effects of industrialization of food systems in the United states (1) .

Re-circulating financial capital within the community is the first step toward creating a beneficial CFS. This process comes through purchasing directly from local farmers, educating oneself about their farming practices (organic/chemical free), and creating a sustained relationship with the farmer (1) .

Information sourced from *Growing a Community Food System* *(1)*

Within Lewiston and Auburn, the support of family farms within the community through farmers’ markets and direct sales has improved the community food system. Although a shift toward more community food system support seems obtainable, there are a few challenges connected to the inclusivity of this movement.

What Types of Challenges are Preventing the Growth of Community Food Systems within Maine?

Many financial challenges arise when asking a community to prioritize local produce when choosing what products to purchase for their families. Many low income families are unable to afford local, healthy produce. They depend on big-brand stores like Walmart and Save-A-Lot to feed their families. (3)

Without widespread community support, community farms do not have enough consumers for long-term viability. Farmers therefore lack the ability to make a living wage, jeopardizing their livelihood and family (4) .

High costs to produce and transport goods outside of the county makes reaching more consumers very difficult for small-scale farmers. The low market prices that big-brand stores can offer make these efforts ultimately more costly than beneficial.

Along with transportation costs, environmental sustainability practices (organic, chemical free farming, etc.) are not inexpensive, so farmers must make trade-off decisions about what they value in terms of production and effects on the environment (3) .

With more education about dietary choices and assistance in purchasing local goods, the economy within the community is bound to improve. More consumers buying on a local level will increase the circular economy within the community.

What Can Be Done to Improve Our Community Food Systems?

Framework credited to Maine Food Strategy (9)

What projects within Lewiston and Auburn are working to improve our CFS?

Community Supported Agriculture

Image sourced from Bumbleroot Organic Farm

An easy way to directly support local farmers is through Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA. These programs connect the farmers directly to consumers, with the consumer paying an upfront seasonal cost to receive produce on a regular schedule from area farms.

The goal of a good community food system is to improve self-reliance within a community. When local farmers have a reliable, regular customer base they can count on, self-reliance becomes a real possibility.

Shares of farm-based products are sorted into boxes and are usually picked up by the consumer at the particular farm. Depending on the farm, there is the possibility for delivery or assistance in receiving one's box of CSA goods (8) .

Not only does this program assist farms, but it also directly provides community members with healthy, local food. Reciprocity on both ends is supported through the trade of economic support for healthy goods.

Example of a CSA set-up from Bumbleroot Organic Farm

Challenges of Community Supported Agriculture

One challenge to this system is the common necessity to travel to these farms for one's CSA pick-up. This may pose a challenge to those who lack reliable transportation. Along with transportation challenges, the up-front cost to the consumer for a season of weekly packages tends to be $200-$500, paid at one time. People who are not financially capable of paying up front are not able to afford this program. There are some community programs working to incorporate SNAP/EBT benefits into CSA, so hopefully this service will become more inclusive as the seasons go on. Luckily, the Lewiston Farmers' Market can help with some of those challenges.

Lewiston Farmers' Market

The Lewiston Farmers’ Market is a weekly event during the summer and winter growing months that meets in downtown Lewiston. Farmers from all over the state congregate together in the parking lot on Mill St. During the winter months, the Market moves indoors.

The Lewiston Farmers’ Market provides a place for diverse, small farmers to sell their goods to all members of the Lewiston/Auburn community. Many challenges connected to CSA are solved through this collaborative design, increasing accessibility for most community members.

Not only are the farmers all located in one place within walking distance of downtown Lewiston and Auburn, but they also offer SNAP/EBT benefit use, making the products more accessible to lower income community members. For some members, the hours of operation or location may pose a challenge to getting to the farmers’ market, but overall it provides a great opportunity for the Lewiston/Auburn Community to come together and support local farmers (7).

Lewiston Farmers' Market Website

Mainers Feedings Mainers

"Forming partnerships with the people who work the land and the sea, to provide food for Mainers facing hunger. Our goal: to get fresh and nutritionally balanced Maine-harvested food to Maine families in need."

Many Maine Food Banks, like the Good Shepherd Food Bank of Maine, receive food donations, but they tend to lack donations of healthy fruits and vegetables. In order to ensure those who were in need were receiving those healthier foods, the Good Shepherd Food Bank had to rely on large farms across the country to donate those goods. Although these efforts by farms across the country were generous, the transportation costs for GSFB were too great, so they had to seek other options.

GSFB wanted to reduce the distance between the farm and the food bank, which would in turn increase the quantity and quality of those goods for food recipients. So, Mainers Feeding Mainers was established--a program of buying local goods from local farms, which were then donated to Mainers in need through Good Shepherd Food Bank. This program is solving food injustice issues through business, closing the economic circle within the state, and increasing resilience and wealth within the community. "All that matters is that we get quality food to those who need it" (10) . Increasing market share for farmers and healthy foods for Mainers is greatly improving the Maine community food system all over the state.

Mainers Feeding Mainers

Mainers Feeding Mainers Website

New Roots Cooperative Farm

New Roots: Episode 1 of Local Foods in Cooperation

Located in Lewiston, the New Roots Cooperative Farm was started by four Somali Bantu farmers who immigrated to Maine from Somalia. The four farmers, along with others, left Somalia due to the civil war and met each other in a refugee camp they all lived in for a few years during their transition.

Eventually, the farmers graduated from Cultivating Community’s New American Sustainable Agriculture Program (NASAP), with a goal of integrating their Somali traditional farming with American agricultural processes.

Characterized by connection and interaction, New Roots Cooperative Farm “aims to build a business to make money, give back to the community, and support themselves” through farming and the agricultural market (11) .

“We have worked to learn the system of farming in this country so that once we learn we keep continuing farming the rest of our lives'' says Hussien, the son of New Roots farmer, Seynab.

Working through difficult times of transition and cultural change, these new members of the Lewiston farming community have worked hard to build connections through community and friendship, while supporting those around them.

Source Citations:

“Growing a Community Food System.” Accessed February 4, 2021. https://www.iatp.org/sites/default/files/Growing_a_Community_Food_System.htm.
Garrett, Steven, and Gail Feenstra. “Growing A Community Food System.” Western Regional Extension.
Langille, Lynn, and Peter Andree. “Challenges and Opportunities for Community Food Security: The Policy Landscape in Nova Scotia.” Community University Research Alliance - Activating Change Together. for Community Food Security, 2013. https://foodarc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ChallengesandOpportunitiesforCFSinNSAugust2013-rev.pdf.
“Statewide Convergence.” Maine Food Convergence. Accessed February 4, 2021. https://www.mainefoodconvergence.org/statewide-convergence.
Good Food Council of Lewiston-Auburn. “Community Food Assessment - Lewiston, Maine 2013.” Lewiston-Auburn, Maine: Good Food Council of Lewiston-Auburn, 2013.
USDA. “2017 Census of Agriculture - Androscoggin County Maine.” Androscoggin County: Maine USDA, 2017.
“Lewiston Farmers Market Summer Market!” Lewiston Farmers' Market. Accessed February 4, 2021. https://www.lewistonfarmersmarket.com/summer-market.html.
“Local CSAs.” Good Food Council of Lewiston Auburn, April 8, 2020. https://goodfood4la.org/resources/local-csas/.
“The Maine Food Strategy Framework - A Tool for Advancing Maine's Food System.” Maine: Maine Food Strategy, 2016.
“Mainers Feeding Mainers.” Good Shepherd Food Bank, September 24, 2020. https://www.gsfb.org/programs/mainers-feeding-mainers/.
“New Roots Biography.” New Roots Cooperative Farm, January 6, 2021.

Photo Citations:

Side-Car 1 - In order of appearance

Side-Car 2 - In order of appearance