MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • January 16, 2022
What often goes unnoticed is the care and nurturing that open spaces in our beloved New England landscape require – care that is very often provided by a local dairy farm family. For years, our region has been losing dairy farms. It’s more than an issue of short-term market conditions but part of a much larger question of New England’s resiliency. We have a U.S. dairy industry that has prioritized inexpensive milk over everything: over regional independence, over environmental sustainability, over responsible government subsidies, over understandable pricing, over local buying options. This has led to the industrialization of dairy. New England can bring healthy dairy to millions of people on the Eastern Seaboard, but we need the investment in the infrastructure and people, to ensure we are a resilient and responsive region for a collective future. ~ Annie Watson, co-owner of Sheepscot Valley Farm, Whitefield