Blog

This is a guest post from Ned Swain, owner and operator of Devenish Wines. Devenish Wines is a small, dedicated distributor of fine wines in the Greater Portland area. Devenish believes that wines should taste like where they come from –wines that in some way embody the unique climate and environment from which their grapes…

Wolfe’s Neck Center (WNC) is seeking to transform our relationship with food and farming for a healthier planet. To help achieve this, WNC is researching soil carbon sequestration as a way to reduce agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions and impact on our planet. Read on to learn more about soil carbon sequestration at WNC.  Carbon sequestration…

As the growing season winds down at Wolfe's Neck Center, we asked the apprentices in our Fruit and Vegetable Production Farmer Training Program to reflect on their experiences here. This six month, on-farm training program covers all aspects of organic fruit and vegetable crop production with a focus on regenerative agriculture techniques and includes classroom time and site visits to other farms. Educating and inspiring the next generation of leaders to shape our local and global food system is at the heart of our mission, and this year's crew is leaving here with renewed commitment, hands on experience and a passion for agriculture.

The staff at Wolfe’s Neck Center share a profound and meaningful commitment to our work, each other, and our community. On this day of Thanksgiving, we wanted to share with you our gratitude for being a part of this amazing place; looking at what brought us here and why being a member of the team is important to us.  

Over these past two weeks, COP26, or the Conference of the Parties, held its 26th annual meeting in Glasgow, Scotland. Also known as the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26 is where nations, indigenous peoples, organizations, and individuals meet to negotiate and discuss how to best mitigate climate change. Conversations such as these are critical to mitigating the ongoing climate crisis. As world leaders prepared to meet in Glasgow, the OpenTEAM Secretariat convened at Wolfe’s Neck Center to reflect on current collaborative approaches, discuss potential opportunities for increased training and certification in soil health tools, and begin to develop a strategy for scaling.

Earlier this year, our cows here at Wolfe’s Neck Center were part of a research initiative to fight climate change. Half of our milking herd were given a local seaweed variety in their diet to measure the impacts of that local seaweed on the amount of methane the cow produces. WNC and project partners will be continuing this work over the next 5 years!

Our cows got some new bling! The SenseHub Dairy activity monitors give our dairy team real-time updates and measurements, helping them to track both cow and herd health as closely as possible. The dairy team uses the monitors to record the herd’s daily movements across Wolfe’s Neck’s pastures, track their dairy production, notify best breeding time for each cow, monitor their digestion, and observe overall health measurements like respiration. 

As we all enjoyed the warmer weather back in May, our Dairy team was already looking towards the winter months as they prepared bales of hay that would feed our cows. As the weather gets colder, we move our cows into the dairy barn to keep them warm and cozy. But, with less ample opportunities to graze, we feed our herd with the hay we bale throughout the winter season.

This October, we are celebrating OpenTEAM’s second anniversary! Open Technology Ecosystem for Agricultural Management was founded in 2019, by Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment, Stonyfield, Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, and the United States Department of Agriculture’s LandPKS. Based here at the farm, OpenTEAM is a farmer-driven, collaborative community of farmers, ranchers, scientists, researchers, technologists, farm service providers, and food companies who are co-creating an interoperable suite of tools that provide farmers around the world with the best possible knowledge to improve soil health. 

Originally from the great state of Connecticut, I've lived on two continents, traveled in four; but, I keep coming back to Maine and its irreplaceable mountains, forests, and seacoasts. A graduate of the University of Southern Maine, I've taught many subjects and both at home and abroad. This time, it's my turn to be taught again.