Two young farmers have moved their farm to Bremen and hope their unique business model will serve as an example for beginning farmers across the state.
Michael Dennett, a science teacher at Thomaston Grammar School, and Ryan Fahey, a graduate student at the University of Maine, founded Crescent Run Farm in Owls Head last year.
As of January, the farm calls the property of Bremen resident and agriculture activist Eleanor Kinney home.
The collaborative project is “a model we’re trying to promote as a way for young farmers to gain access to land,” Kinney said.
Young farmers often struggle to obtain the land necessary for a farm. The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture offers low-interest loans for this purpose, but requires farmers to show a three-year business history.
The requirement creates a catch-22 for young farmers: in order to buy land to farm, they must first farm land.
One way for farmers to resolve this dilemma is to farm someone else’s land.
That’s where Kinney comes in. She wants others like herself – sympathetic property owners without the ability, inclination or time to farm their land themselves – to collaborate with young farmers.
Kinney’s property is ideal for such an arrangement. The property, on a hill overlooking Biscay Pond, boasts a barn, greenhouse and paddock, as well as a second house.
Kinney started looking for someone to farm her land last year. She met with a University of Maine representative and, the same evening, had her first conversation with Dennett and Fahey.
Kinney’s activism and desire to make her land productive and sustainable and Dennett and Fahey’s needs fell into “perfect alignment,” Kinney said, and the farmers moved into the vacant house in January.
Kinney and her young family already raise chickens, but she wants her children to experience life on a fully functioning farm.
“We’re very much excited about living with it and being involved with it, but it’s great to have Michael and Ryan as the ones with the 24/7 responsibility and initiative,” Kinney said.
Two months later, a census of Crescent Run Farm finds a population of six pigs and 26 chicks, including Araucana chicks, known for their blue eggs. Dennett and Fahey plan to add honeybees, more poultry and sheep in the weeks and months ahead.
They’ll cultivate produce, including carrots, herbs, leeks, lettuce and onions in a small patch on Kinney’s property and cucumbers, pumpkins and tomatoes on a one-acre annex in Waldoboro.
The farm will offer community-supported agriculture shares and sell some goods to local restaurants.
The farm will also, through the generosity of donors, supply the Waldoboro-Bremen Food Pantry with fresh produce throughout the growing season.
The availability of fresh, locally and sustainably grown produce at the pantry fulfills another goal of Kinney, Crescent Run Farm and the sustainable agriculture industry.
Local produce tends to cost more than the fruits and vegetables available at most supermarkets. “It’s really important that everybody of all economic sectors gets access” to local, sustainable goods, Fahey said.
For more information about Crescent Run Farm or to inquire about a community-supported agriculture share, email crescentrun@gmail.com or visit http://crescent-run.com.
Kinney serves on the Maine Farmland Trust Board of Directors. The nonprofit is developing a beginning farmer program to provide young farmers with access to land.
For more information, email Erica Buswell at ebuswell@mainefarmlandtrust.org.
