Finally, I’ve come up with a project description for my thesis / New Media capstone!
In a 2006 address to a Slow Food assembly Jim Gerritsen, a potato farmer in Aroostook County, comments on the disappearance of small-scale potato farms from northern Maine. According to Mr. Gerritsen, a growing trend in agriculture is one that favors large-scale food production,
“One economist has projected that if current trends continue, Maine’s 60,000 acres of potatoes will one day be grown by just 20 farmers each growing 3,000 acres”.
The trend in the potato farming industry is widespread; New England has lost two-thirds of its dairy farms in the past 20 years.
The loss of family farms in Maine, according to Mr. Gerritsen, is due to trends in the marketplace. Large grocery store chains are stocking food regardless of growing season; consumers expect to be able to buy blueberries in the middle of February. This factor, of the ability to buy produce regardless of season, has pushed the wholesale market to favor large producers in moderate climates that can provide a variety of foods to one grocery store chain; “..they [grocery stores] just don’t want to mess around with local growers that can provide broccoli 3 months out of the year – they want one farmer to stock their stores year-round”. The future, according to Mr. Gerritsen, is in retail – of farmers directly selling their produce and food products directly to consumers; it’s what he calls “food with a face”.
Mr. Gerritsen has outlined three critical elements necessary to market the food produced and manufactured by Maine’s small scale farmers, (i) authenticity, (ii) facilitating relationships between farmer and consumer, (iii) education. With these three critical elements in mind, and others that may develop from additional research, my thesis will explore the role of new media in promoting family farms and other small-scale food manufacturers and producers in the state of Maine.
