The RegenNarration Podcast
The RegenNarration podcast features the stories of a generation that is changing the story, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet. It’s ad-free, freely available and entirely listener-supported. You'll hear from high profile and grass-roots leaders from around Australia and the world, on how they're changing the stories we live by, and the systems we create in their mold. Along with often very personal tales of how they themselves are changing, in the places they call home. With award-winning host, Anthony James.
The RegenNarration Podcast
226. An Independent Farmer Wins in Maine: Transcending the 'battleground', with Bill Pluecker (& Chloe Maxmin)
There’s a ‘so-called’ battle for rural America at the heart of the coming federal election. But what if it needn’t be a battle? And in fact, what if heart is what’s really at stake? People who love their places – places, by the way, that constitute 20% of the vote, and 97% of the land in this country. After the recent Vice-Presidential debate here in the US, featuring two men speaking to their roots in rural America, it is still reported that people are not seeing themselves well represented in either major party’s characterisations of them. Enter, this week’s story.
One of my favourite episodes on the podcast featured a woman I learned about back in Australia – Maine’s youngest ever female state senator, Chloe Maxmin. On arrival at Begin Again Farm, we also met her partner Bill Pluecker. And as he and Chloe showed us around the farm, we learned of his incredible journey as co-owner and farmer here, former manager of a successful Community Supported Agriculture program, and subject of a Maine state legislature love story. For that’s how Chloe and Bill met, when they were both elected to the House of Reps in 2018.
But while Chloe’s sights were on bringing the Democratic Party back to rural people, Bill stood as an Independent in his conservative district, and won - despite an electoral system not designed to enable that. Six years on, he’s still there and is now running for a fourth term.
Bill was also named in the Grist 50 for 2024.
Chapter markers & transcript.
Recorded 8 September 2024 (intro in Baltimore).
Bonus 5 minute episode on the Common Ground Fair.
Title slide: AJ & Bill (pic: Olivia Cheng).
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Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.
The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.
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Hey how you going Ruff yeah hey.
Bill:Sorry about the welcome. We're used to it.
AJ:Hey Anthony, hi Bill.
AJ:Nice to meet you. Bill, Thanks for having us here man, yeah, yeah, glad to be here.
AJ:Yeah, hey, chloe, how you going? Welcome, thanks, anthony, chloe.
AJ:Nice to meet you, nice to meet you.
AJ:This is olivia .
AJ:CHLOE: hi, this is elsie . She's very barky but very . friendly
AJ:Clearly, jeez, don't bite my hand off easy tiger g'day.
AJ:G'day, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration. Ad free, freely available and entirely supported by listeners like you. So thanks a lot Alison Lullfitz, Alison Worthington, Sally Fields and Kristy Stewart for being subscribing members for over two years now. I really appreciate your commitment to such support. You help keep food on the table and feed the soul. If you too are finding value in this, please join the Alisons, Sally and Kristy, part of a great community of supporting listeners, by just heading to the website via the show notes regennarration. com forward slash support.
Bill:And so preserving that, It's under assault. I feel like it's under assault and I think the people and you can get into the politics later, but my community is quite conservative and so they feel under attack by values coming from other places. And so working with my conservative community, working to protect my conservative community, but at the same time, say that there is a politics that will help you, that isn't far right. A nd that's a big part of what I do and saying I'm a, you know, I can be a progressive, but I can also be pro-farmer and helping us take care of our land and take care of our way of life that's been this way for so long.
AJ:There's a so-called battle for rural America at the heart of the coming federal election. But what if it needn't be a battle? And, in fact, what if heart is what's really at stake? People who love their places. Places, by the way, that constitute 20% of the vote and 97% of the land in this country. After the recent vice-presidential debate here in the US featuring two men speaking to their roots in rural America, respected Australian journalist Geraldine Doogue shared a sense that perhaps the States is in better shape than many have come to think. A nd that people generally want to move beyond divisive tensions. This has been some of our impression too, travelling across the country. And it was affirmed on the New York Times election podcast, The Run-Up by host Astead Herndon, who visited a debate watch party in Minnesota with people across the political spectrum. When all was done, he reported an overarching sense that people are still not seeing themselves well represented in either major party's characterizations of them. Enter this week's story.
AJ:Last week I kicked off our October series of pre-election stories here in the US with one of my favorite episodes on the podcast. T hat featured a woman I learned about back in Australia, Maine's youngest ever female state senator, Chloe Maxmin. On arrival at Begin Again Farm, we also met her partner, Bill Pluecker, and as he and Chloe showed us around the farm, we learned of his incredible journey as co-owner and farmer here, former manager of a successful community-supported agriculture program, and subject of a Maine state legislature love story, for that's how Chloe and Bill met when they were both elected to the House of Reps in 2018. But while Chloe's sights were on bringing the Democratic Party back to rural people, bill stood as an independent in his conservative district and won, despite an electoral system not designed to enable that. Six years on, he's still there and is now running for a fourth term at the coming election. Let's go for a walk around the farm and hear about it. Oh, and, before we do, just to be clear, I've never been a member of or been allied to any political party back in Australia or here. I guess I've never really felt that well represented by them either, and increasingly I've had my eyes on how democracy can function better as a whole for people and places everywhere. On that note, then, here's Bill.
Bill:So this is Begin Again Farm and we own about 100 acres here. Of that, about 26 is open and of that we're only farming maybe a quarter acre at this point in time. So most of it is the woods that are all the way around us and the land has been, has been like, farmed or settled for about for a little over 200 years, and this house one small portion of it is is over 200 years. They say 1790 is when it was built and um, so there's a lot of history, um, of this land being growing food.
Bill:You know, from from that time and from obviously even before that. AJ: well, that's right.
AJ:Do you know much about before that and contact with relationship with any of that?
Bill:yeah, I mean the wabanaki nation, uh like kind of was multiple different tribes that were all together in this in the land here and we still have. We have three federally recognized tribes and there's one more which is not quite federally recognized and they, you know, tend to. Obviously they moved inland for wintertime and then moved to the coast for summertime for fishing and harvest from the shore and things like that. I can talk more about modern politics than I can talk about what was going on 200 years ago. So Maine just I'll touch on that in case we want to hit it later. So Maine is the only state in the country that doesn't recognize the sovereignty of the tribal people.
AJ:The only state in the country. Yeah, I wouldn't have pegged that for what seems like a broadly sort of progressive area of the country.
Bill:Yeah, somehow, like a weird tweak of fate of history, happened. So then, in 1980, there was a Land Claims Settlement Act which was set up to resolve land claims by the tribal peoples, which basically said if you follow back these treaties, we should control two thirds of the state. And they were found in court to have control of that much of the state. And so then the white people in the state started freaking out how are we going to lose two-thirds of the state to to the tribal peoples? And so um. So then it ended up being resolved on the federal level by the land claim settlement act, and what that did was it sent a lot of, gave some money and I don't require recall how much to the tribes, but in exchange they couldn't um, have any, have any ownership of the. They could have ownership of the land, but they can't have like, make it reservation land, um, unless the local governments agree to it.
Bill:So the local governments had never agreed to it, um, and also at that time, when they were signing the to recognize the sovereignty of all the tribal peoples across the country, something happened behind some dark black hole of a room in Washington DC that said they recognize it for every state, except for, except for here, except for Maine. So we've been in a fight for at least going on six years, eight years, to try to get um federal federal recognition, or there is federal recognition but there's no state recognition of their sovereignty. And, um and uh, we have not. We've been vetoed three times by the governor, our democratic governor, janet Mills. Wow.
AJ:Wow.
Bill:Yeah, yeah. AJ: the complexity of the layers.
AJ:Yeah, wow, yeah, okay so coming back to where we are now, for the moment.
AJ:We might circle back. I dare say. Chloe, how did you connect in with here then?
Chloe:I grew up in a town just 15 minutes south of here, and so I grew up on my family's farm, so I've always loved farming and land and just this part of Maine in general. And we were both first elected in 2018 and both placed on the Agriculture Conservation Forestry Committee, and the hands of God sat us right next to each other, so we had some like distant mutual connections and kind of like knew of each other. But, um, yeah, that's how.
Chloe:That's how we met and we call it the most romantic spot in the world. BILL: the most romantic spot in the state house. CHLOE: dingy dingy rooms of the Maine state house. AJ: I love that.
AJ:Yeah, I was almost going to introduce it as a love story and you've done it for me. So we'll get more into this too later. But you served four years in varied forms and Bill the same? BILL: Six. AJ: So is that to say you're still incumbent? BILL: I am. AJ: Standing again?
Bill:Yes, in November for the November election. AJ: al right.
AJ:So when did you move here, Chloe?
Chloe:I moved here in October last year. But this is our third year farming this land together.
AJ:It is.
Chloe:Yep, and yeah, bill's been farming here for a long time. Yeah, really so his connection to the land and the knowledge of the land and his knowledge about farming is, you know, the best in the state. He knows a lot, yeah.
AJ:What does it feel like for you to be back on a farm?
Chloe:So nice yeah.
AJ:Did you expect that?
Chloe:Um, I did cause. That's kind of what I wanted for myself. It's like you know, as fast as I could, I wanted to farm again. So it feels, yeah, I feel very, very blessed, very lucky, and uh, yeah, it's just a way of life, yeah, beautiful.
AJ:And bill then for your family. When did your family start farming here?
Bill:yeah, about 16 years ago. Yeah, 17, 18 years ago, somewhere in that, because we leased it for a few years before we purchased the property.
AJ:Well, I'm equally curious in that, knowing how hard it is for younger people to get into farming for land and capital access, let alone other stuff For you. So you leased first and that just led to relationship, or did it lead to a good deal? Or how did you manage to acquire?
Bill:Yeah, so there was a program in Maine called Maine Farm Link. It's run by Maine Farmland Trust and the idea is to pair younger folks who are looking to farmland with older folks who are ready to transition out. And so there was an older couple who lived here and we just got an email from them the other day that the man who lived here for 30 years before we bought it he's 103 now.
Bill:he wants to come back and visit oh, that's really sweet yeah and uh and it's also part of the story is this land's been managed organically for going on 50 years now yeah, which is really great is that to say. He started it like this gentleman. Yeah, so he started with the certification with MAFCA. He did, mafca being main organic farmers and Gardeners Association. Okay, yeah.
AJ:Amazing. Yeah, let's say something about those trust organizations too, hayes.
Bill:Yeah, yeah, really important.
AJ:They seem to be important.
Bill:Very important.
Bill:So, I also work for Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, mafca. From here on out, gotcha, thank you, and from here on out, thank you. And so, um, and so they ran we I was first, like, started farming as an apprentice with them and working at other farms and coming up through that system, and then I worked as a journey person, also through the same system managed by that organization, by mafia um, and then fast forward five years later we had apprentices and journey people here also, and so we've, through the years, we've had dozens and dozens of folks that we've trained here, who lived here in the house with us and cabins in the woods and then are now farming in the area too so are they managing to then acquire their own farms too, or is that sort of a separate?
AJ:it's yeah everybody's different.
Bill:Yeah right, so we've got some folks who actually so I mentioned that we sell. Our primary market is Mainers Feeding Mainers, which is a program run by the state of Maine, gives money to the statewide food pantry which buys food from local farmers to redistribute to the local pantries. And so we actually sell food to a food hub which is managed by Mainers Feedingeding Manors, which is also managed by a former apprentice here, and so she's working and in farming land that's run, owned by a non-profit and so she pulls a salary and distributes and does that work. And then there's other folks who have managed to buy their own land and build their own homes and and slowly over time get into it.
AJ:That is fascinating, really interesting to hear, so as we stand here at the house. What's the spread of the land that you're broadly describing before? I guess we're looking back at the forested part.
Bill:Yeah, so that way, about a quarter mile is a pond. It's called Seidensparker Pond, but some people would call it a lake. It's not that pond lake. It's Maine, it's a pond a pond, but other places it'd be a lake and uh yes, we've been through the states that claim upwards of 10 000 lakes yeah, it's plural yeah, where the minimum size is for that yeah, yeah, exactly, and so, yeah. So there's about 80 acres of woods, as you, as you look that way, which is which is west, and then to the.
AJ:The road here borders to the east, okay, so and do you look at I'm curious just while we're on it do you look at conservation covenants or any of that sort of thing for the land not in production or not in you know, overt human production?
Bill:yeah. So the 26 acres that's open was the first piece we purchased and was put in conservation easement as a forever farm they call it, and so has to be an organic production for the rest of its, of its cycle of of life, I guess. So that still still is there and there isn't any uh like formal conservation on the rest of it. In maine we do have a program called tree growth, which is like a tax abatement, and so if it were to be taken out of tree growth, if you were to try to develop it in some way, then it would you need to pay back taxes, which at this point would be very prohibitive to do Really interesting, okay.
AJ:and as we look the other way, away from the hearth.
Bill:Yeah, so we've got the, the barn that's been pieced together through the years by many farmers, and we've got a greenhouse here that doesn't have plastic on. That was paid for by NRCS, which is the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which is a program funding arm from the USDA. And then the larger greenhouse over there to the right is one that we built about 15 years ago, and right now all the Jerusalem artichokes are in bloom, which is really beautiful and fun, and we've got some round bales put by for feed for the cows. And then our monstrosity over there, attached to the tractor, is a chopper blower that we use for chopping green feed for the cows, and also we use it for making mulch for the crops. Cool, cool, yeah. Should we have a walk?
Chloe:Yeah, Whenever you do a podcast, are you visiting farms? Is it all farm-based?
AJ:No, it's not all farm-based. It's a good question though.
Chloe:Yeah.
AJ:Some people feel like it's a regenerative agriculture podcast, even to this day, but to me, perhaps you can sum it by saying I'm interested in how all the pieces weave together. In fact, someone reflected it back to me, nice, the other day. He said so it's about the human presence on the planet. Yeah, that's what it's about, and how we do that.
Chloe:Well, cool that's what I'm interested in.
AJ:So it's, it's everything that's amazing yeah, which is probably why our conversation is gonna duck and weave out of the actual farming and then the context, political and funding, and you know economic the whole bit.
Bill:We've got a guest star to the right oh yeah yeah, yes we've got lots of roosters around here Too many roosters.
Bill:Yeah, so these cows are across of Dexter and Jersey, and so Dexter is an older, dual purpose breed, shorter and just a little bit nicer for home use, and so dual purpose for both dairy and beef production. Some people say they're triple use because they've also been used as oxen and that kind of thing. Oh, there you go. But then so I started with Dexter's so that I could really have a manageable. They're more efficient, you know they eat less and just better about like, feed conversion and also just not our, as you can see, pasture isn't um, isn't wonderful pasture, lots of weeds, and so they're better about eating weeds and that kind of thing yeah, yeah and then as we transitioned out of home use.
Bill:As we transitioned out of home use uh into commercial, um started, we started. We had a licensed dairy for a period of time and started breeding in the jersey to increase the milk production. So for most of my years on the farm we've had a csa program community supported agriculture program and at its height we had 250 families who were members and so we would sell the milk through the vegetable.
Bill:Csa is how we did that yeah modeled it here and and sold it directly. You stopped that we did. Yeah, how come it's so much work? Yeah, uh, yeah, part of my story also is that, uh, I like late 30s I started. I had multiple knee surgeries and eventually my late 30s of my life and then uh, and then started having a lot of back back problems and have had back surgery, different surgical interventions through the years.
AJ:So around that time was also when I needed to step away and start doing less farm work yeah, yeah, and so there wasn't an appetite for others to come in on it, or it just it wasn't viable enough yeah, not enough.
Bill:We weren't making enough money off of it.
AJ:It was like labor of love, um yeah yeah, it's a pity to lose those things all the same, isn't it from communities?
Bill:yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And and if we want to go into the politics of dairy in maine, I can talk to you for way too long about that yeah, really we, we were just at, we would just work around that yeah, we were just at church, town dairy in new york state yeah, and they have an outlet there.
AJ:They sell, but of course it's it's backed. Yeah, um, it doesn't need to. It's not necessarily modeling. It's modeling a way of doing it, which is awesome.
Bill:It's not necessarily modeling a way that people like yourself can keep going with it, and so even around there it's littered with dairy's closing yeah even with these outstanding exemplars, yeah, which are showing such extraordinary outcomes in the food and the animal welfare and the human health and the lot, there is a big story there, clearly, yeah yeah, and it's the consolidation of the dairy industry in the United States, the consolidation of agriculture in the United States and our dairies even our largest dairy in Maine is the size of a small dairy on the national scale, and so we just can't compete with them on the scale, economies of scale and whatnot. Also, maine is at the end of the line in terms of shipping feed from the Midwest, in terms of shipping milk from here back to markets, so our cost of production tends to be higher Also, just we have faced some troubles with the shorter growing season, so just our cost of production is higher and it's just harder to compete. And so, and then we're smaller than anybody else.
Bill:We're smaller, we keep walking away too, we're smaller than anybody else, and so they just don't prioritize us when it comes to subsidies, grants, technical assistance and that kind of thing on the national level. So as a state, we do a lot to try to protect our dairy farmers and keep them viable, but it's a losing battle right now.
AJ:Really yeah. Even in the context of national farm bill and all this other stuff, we hear about more money coming in, even to rural areas I was hearing coming across.
Bill:Even in that context, it's still true there's still like the most of that money is still going to consolidated industry is it really right? And so, yeah, we just can't come. There's so little money coming to folks like us, we're considered inefficient and more expensive, and so um, trying to compete, and we're just not able to do it in the same way, isn't it interesting that the paradigm, if you will, that brought landscapes and communities to their knees is the one we back in to repair it?
AJ:yeah, it's an. It's an interesting faith.
Bill:Yeah, yeah, to have well, I mean we're now. We're not talking about land, but but it's the.
Bill:I mean it's the, it's the capitalist model, right like so, like those with wealth are gonna consolidate their wealth and make more wealth off of the wealth they already own, and those who don't have the wealth, like the farmers in Maine, who don't have the access to capital, who don't have the land access. We just get left out of the conversation and it's intense when you see it from this like national perspective, where Maine is just a small, relatively poorer state compared to these other big agricultural states, and so we just get left out as a whole. You know, I'm also the chair of the agriculture committee in the state house.
AJ:Yeah, okay, and you're here all the time. Yeah, you're here and doing it which?
Bill:is really something as you can tell, this barn serves many purposes, one of which is a chicken coop.
AJ:This is cool. I like it.
Chloe:Here are the baby cows. That one's just a week old. Oh yeah, that's its mama.
AJ:Yeah, yeah, so cute, that's beautiful.
Chloe:Yeah, look out, his name is Munchkin. Munchkin, this is so small.
AJ:Pity, yeah, oh, there is no end of joy, and I'm talking about from a personal perspective, having grown up in a city or cities. There's nothing like the joy especially in the context you were just describing of animals like this, mr Charlotte's web With their families. A little line with yours yeah, yeah Beautiful, yeah, yeah Beautiful.
Bill:Yeah.
AJ:Cool.
Bill:Yeah, so the barn's from 1890, and it's just held together with hope and prayers mostly.
AJ:Yeah, we've seen plenty collapsing across the country, but there's such beautiful structures it's great to see.
Bill:Yeah, the second floor and the third floor. We milled from the trees here on the property and put it in about 10 years ago. Cool, that was the biggest piece that we've added to it. But it's neat to think of the hundreds of years of farmers who have just added a little bit here, a little bit there, to keep it up through all the time 100% Cool, all right through all the time, 100% Cool.
AJ:All right, leave the choir yeah.
Bill:All the proud hens. This is really slippery the ramp, this bit yeah.
AJ:Bill old, sporting injuries or just farming?
Bill:Farming didn't help. It was the. It tore my ACL in my knee, oh, acl in my knee, and then it just never came back together correctly.
AJ:See, acl is the classic Australian rules, football, right, right.
Bill:So I know it too well, not from personal experience, thankfully, I had other knee issues.
AJ:Unfortunately that kept me down as a teen. But yeah, that's hard yards.
Bill:And that's the thing about farming like, especially starting off when you don't have all the resources, it just comes out of your body. You know for a long time and so you know. That's what happened for many years there.
AJ:Yeah, all right. So then, across from the barn, two greenhouses, one not in operation together Yep.
Bill:But the other one yes, yep, yep, the peppers are in there right now for the Mainers Feeding Mainers program.
AJ:Yeah, tell me more about that. Csa too. Hey, I'm really interested in how these are working. Not as big as it used to be.
Bill:The CSA is over. We're just selling wholesale now.
AJ:Really Okay. So why is that?
Bill:What worked and didn't work with the CSA. The CSA was beautiful in terms of like creating your own um, your own market, you know, and really being in communion with your own community and having them support you and you're giving back. You know, especially when the pandemic happened, like we were like so many people's source of, of produce and and, uh, fresh food and, and then they ended up coming to you for all kinds. I remember we got the phone call like I'm out of toilet paper. Do you have toilet paper?
Bill:You know it's like, just because you're a farm, you must have extra supplies, you know.
AJ:And DG.
Bill:Oh, yeah, of course, and I often also talking to Chloe sometimes you hear people talk about the pandemic and I felt like my life didn't change too dramatically, Like I just kept doing the things I've been doing the years before, had less physical contact with the customers when they came, but that was about yeah, otherwise you just kind of kept doing the same thing and kept supplying people and I think that speaks to the, to the, just the importance of resiliency to a community, to having your own production on a local level.
AJ:Oh, does it what? Yeah, so why did it end?
Bill:oh. So it was tremendous quantity of like consumer care, like taking care of customers. They'll will be so. What happened is they paid in the spring and then we they made deliveries. We made deliveries about 26 weeks through the course of the year, and so if somebody's gonna be out of, out of town, um, or then you hold their food for them, or they say, oh, I'll show up three days from now, or they say I don't have the money to pay right now, so I need to figure that out, or um, just the level of coordination that's necessary is very high, and of course it's. It's valuable for that reason, but we just didn't have the labor force.
AJ:Was that just on you.
Bill:No, I my, my ex-wife did most of that okay, but just on you guys as a family. Yes exactly.
AJ:We've seen a little bit of that across the country too, where they folded. It's because it was all that. Hard yards as he says is so concentrated, Does it make you think from experience that, given they're so valuable, it seems hands down something that we need more? Of given they're so valuable. It seems, hands down, something that we need more of. Yeah, that it's more dispersed, almost, I guess, like co-op type responsibilities across the board right.
Bill:Yeah, you know there are models. I don't know, have you heard of elizabeth henderson she? She wrote one of the first books in the united states about csa's and she's really has like more of a uh, socialist background as she approaches it and so she's. Her model is she's she's retired now but then eventually, like her, csa bought her out of her farm so that she had the money to retire. It was they had groups of people who were in charge of different aspects of what they were doing and really just handed everything over to the community when she was no longer farming she's in upstate New York and and.
Bill:Is that still going? I think her farm is still going. She's not as active. She's not the farmer.
AJ:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the CSA then still going, but with a different model.
Bill:I believe so.
AJ:Yeah, there you go, that's cool.
Bill:And great.
AJ:So over here then, is this sort of deliberate cultivation of some kind.
Bill:This is cover crop, this is buckwheat. And then, with some sorghum sprouting up through it, and that land had been in production for how many years in a row? Six, six years in a row. And so it really, and what happened was we were we had put down landscape fabric started using more and more landscape fabric as a means of controlling the weeds, so that there was less labor, because now it's just the two of us doing it, so we really need to to to rotate that out, and so that's what that is, and we I kept saying, if we don't mow it, then the weed, then the buckwheat is just gonna be super intense in the years to come.
Bill:And but we were so happy to have the bees that we just let it go, and so that will all be growing buckwheat, um, in a few, in in six months. So we'll, we can either. We can. So nowadays, what we're doing now is we're we're laying tarps to kill weeds as a kind of a no-till approach, and so what we'll do is we'll, we'll cover that with with tarps when the time comes, but we could also just let it go back to buckwheat as another cover crop.
AJ:That'd be great. Chloe, is there a part that you take up on the farm? Do you guys sort of have a specialised division of labour to some degree?
Chloe:I mean, I do more of the physical part of it, but I feel like we split it all kind of evenly.
Bill:I mean you're, you're the, you're the workhorse nowadays, yeah, yeah but.
Chloe:But now we're refining our system, so a lot of work we do together, because bill knows just so much that I'm still learning. So you know I'll do things that maybe weren't the best and good one it's so cool that you love that.
Bill:I would have let you. I would have done this in a slightly different way.
Chloe:Yeah, that's it, that's how he, that's how he gives us feedback so with production, then is it veggies.
AJ:Is that your main? Yeah, yeah yeah and selling them into sort of just side of street farmers markets or other forms Right.
Bill:So that was the difference, big difference, between the CSA and this also. So I grew everything. When people would say what do you grow, as a CSA farmer it's easier to say what I don't grow. I don't like parsnips, I don't grow parsnips, leeks I tended to have poor luck with leeks but basically everything else I grew. So now we're really down for in terms of market production. We're down to summer. Squash, peppers and garlic is really what we grow for sale. Okay, and where do you sell? And so to the local. We have one co-op just north of us which is Good Turn one to the south of us which is Rising Tide, and then the Mainers Feeding.
AJ:Mainers program is the majority of them. The cash cool, yeah. And is that to say that the farm is viable on the back of that? No, not at all yeah, no we and I, I instantly as I'm asking that, I expect not. Yeah, because this is what I've heard across australia too. Yeah, it's just not. Farms just aren't viable. How can that be? Yeah, we have you guys feeding us and repairing land, yeah, and keeping barns standing yeah, etc. Yeah and and not have that be viable yeah it's extraordinary.
Bill:So about 15 years during that, the csa it was, we were running, we were making our living off of the farm really so yeah, that's cool there's 250 c CSA shares at people paying about 500. It changed 400, 450 per share, so that was enough gross to make it work, but nowadays we really make most of our income comes from our off-farm jobs.
AJ:Interesting. So having the CSA made this a viable living but required so much admin. I guess partly, then, we're talking about the context of you being a representative as well. I guess if you weren't doing that, maybe you could grapple with this. Is that right you?
Bill:just had to jump in the surgeries and the surgeries, of course. Right, right, so I just couldn't do the physical work that I could once do Jeez that must have been tough. It was hard yeah.
Bill:I'm hearing you, and so then also, like I said, we had our apprentices through the years and it just became clearer and clearer that we didn't want to have apprentices anymore. They would start off this season making $100 a week. They'd end the season with $200 a week and they'd have room and board, which is really just. It's not like we're paying a living wage in that case. So we need to move away from that model. We always had regular farm workers here too, but when it was time to like, do I want?
AJ:to spend the rest of my life managing folks who are working on the property or while I'm not able to do it in the same way. That wasn't the choice I want to make. Yeah, and that's a whole other thing for us broader eaters in the world to contemplate what it means, like the whole other role it is, to be shepherding other people in yeah to the space yeah, yeah, yeah so, in terms of the off-farm income you in office, is that the job?
Bill:so I have a few jobs. Um I we make money off the farm. I work for main organic farmers and gardeners association, which is still my prime primary source of income. Yes, uh, I'm a state representative and then I do help freelance manage other farms.
AJ:Oh, you do as well, yeah.
Bill:Wow, so it all comes together to make enough. Yeah, so that's the main way is you? Very few Mainers just have one job where they make enough money. Down in Maine we talk about two mains like there's rural northern Maine and then there's southern Maine around Portland and stuff and their, their economy is much more similar to Boston and Massachusetts and our economy is is very rural, fishing based, agriculturally based and um, so when you get into that rural area there's very few people who just have one job that they do all the time that makes enough money to to. So people, people fish when they got a fish and they grow food when they got food and they help the tourists in the service industry when they got to help the tourists in the service industry. Then sometimes you just gotta, you know, go home and cut firewood till you till the winter's over you know.
AJ:So yeah, and chloe you um farming.
Chloe:And then my primary job is I co-direct a non-profit called dirt road organizing that supports rural progressive folks who are running for office or staffing campaigns. And then I serve as a very, very part-time advisor to a group called just me for just us that does rural youth civic engagement work in Maine.
AJ:We're going to talk more about that separately, but that importantly right in this context, that is a viable living for you. Doing that, yeah, that's cool in its own right.
Chloe:Yeah, it feels, huge blessing.
AJ:Getting people into those roles and empowerment actually does derive a living for you.
Chloe:Yeah, very, very blessed. Huge, huge Lots of gratitude for our lives, nice one.
AJ:So, overall vision for this, what animates both of your spirits in what's happening on this land now and into the future?
Chloe:I think we have like the farm. Well, the farm does not pay for our living. You know the income we make from the food we sell keeps the farm going, you know, covers all of our expenses. So that's nice Food. Yeah, and you know we love our Mainers Feeding Mainers program and it feels so good to make sure that folks who are attending our local food pantries have access to organic food, and so we're going to keep doing doing that.
Chloe:We also love growing garlic, so we're expanding our garlic, our garlic crop. We're gonna start some seed garlic next year. We're gonna get a beef bowl just kind of slowly, slowly grow, but it is, it is just the two of us and we don't want to really expand beyond that. So, um, just seeing what we can do together and then, um, yeah, the election is so crucial because if when, when bill's in office in session, he's gone all the time, um, you know, so it just helps us think about how to structure our farming season of course yeah, yeah I think now it's more about like how do we keep farming while we're doing these other things?
Bill:like for me personally, like just farming is my identity and so not having the farm would be, it would be just be really tough to deal with. And and it's how, like for all the I you know, for me it's really clear when I'm doing computer work which doesn't feel like real work versus I feel the same way.
Bill:Right Versus like actually growing food and producing value for people. Um, you know it's. It's so different too when, like you, get a paycheck in the mail, which is really great, wonderful, love that it feels so simple compared to having to, like you know, order the seed plant, the seed plant, the seedling, weed the seedling, harvest the eggplant, find the market for the eggplant, get the eggplant to the market and then get the money home and in the bank account so it can get spent again. You know, it's just completely different levels of of engaging with life.
AJ:Yeah, I hear about that identity piece, though as I look around and it looks so beautiful and even coming up the street, I was telling Chloe before coming up the street just so beautiful, it really does paint a picture. That again, as an outsider, I want it.
AJ:I want to see that picture in our rural landscapes healthy farms looking like this, producing good food, healthy food for communities. I also want to see them viable for those who would choose to keep going and be able to, of course. Is this I'm wondering for you, bill, given chloe and I'll talk more about the dirt road stuff later but for you, bill, is this partly what drives you, as a representative, around such a part of Maine as you described?
Bill:Yeah, 100 percent. This way of life has been sustaining to this community for hundreds of years and when you leave Maine you immediately feel that impact of life is commodified the malls, the shopping, all the signs and everything. And you come far enough north in Maine and that just falls away. And I hope you guys get a chance to go even farther north and you'll see that it falls away even more.
AJ:We've heard yeah. Which is amazing because we have heard this across the country From everyone. We mentioned the mere word main too. Yeah, uh, it actually elicits sort of beyond words reactions like oh my yeah, yeah, they're talking about what you're talking about they're not talking about, you know, the boston field right, right and so, preserving that it's, it's under assault.
Bill:I feel like it's under assault and I think the people and you can get into the politics later. But, like the, my community is quite conservative and so they feel under attack by values coming from other places. And so, like working with my conservative community, working to protect my conservative community, but at the same time say that there is a politics that will help you, that isn't far right. Um, and that's a big part of what I do and saying I can be a progressive, but I can also be pro-farmer and helping us take care of our land and take care of our way of life. That's been this way for so long.
AJ:That's so interesting on so many levels. Mostly, I think, when I look at you in this moment, I see someone who must be managing to do that to some degree, to have been in office for six years so far and going again.
Bill:Yeah, so there's some success you're having, yeah, in that way yeah and it's and once again, chloe will give you more details on this but it's about having personal relationships with people, so that you're not just a soundbite, so you're not just a republican, you're not just a democrat, you're, you're bill and bill. You're not just a soundbite. So you're not just a Republican, you're not just a Democrat, you're Bill and Bill. You're Bill, who's coming to knock on a door. Again. You're Bill, who you can pick up on the phone and call if there's trouble in the family. You're the guy who smiles. You know, when everything seems to be going to shit or going poorly, you can cut loose on podcasts Okay.
Bill:And you know, know, and so you try to be a human being. You know, and that's what people aren't used to their politicians being is humans you know, isn't that the truth?
AJ:yeah and all that is as a democrat. I'm assuming I'm an independent. You are an independent, yeah, this. This gets more interesting yeah always so, from six years ago yes, for six years.
Bill:For six years, so a broader back history. But when is this going out? I don't know. There's things I can say and you can't say. It may go before before the it may go pre-election I'm not sure we've got a visa extension application in process which person reads that and thinks have a look at the podcast.
AJ:Yes, I've been independent for six years, okay, that's interesting too, because that's in a context where, without the preferential voting the ranked choice, as you guys call it that we have at home, I wondered if it would be twice as hard to win as an independent.
Bill:In this district the last Democrat who ran lost by 20 points, by 20 percentage points, and so no Democrat has run since that last loss. So it's basically you as an independent and the Republican Wow.
AJ:Yeah, that's so interesting that the major well, one of the major parties has been left. Yeah, because there's an ambience in Australia that's not dissimilar, where the major parties are less and less membership, less and less people believing in them, trusting them, and independents have been elected en masse to the Australian Parliament in the last couple of years, with a sort of a broader 10 year backdrop to that as it's built and then went bang a couple of years ago in one particular election and I wondered if and where to them as it's built.
AJ:And then went bang a couple years ago, one particular election, and I wondered if and where it could play out here there's so much the like.
Bill:The structures of our country are set up for a two-party system. Yes, to penetrate the two-party system and break it down would be tremendously difficult yeah tremendously difficult yes, yeah, yet here you are on a small scale. In a one I represent 9 000 people, three towns in rural maine, you know so yeah, I wonder what your disposition is towards the bigger picture.
AJ:Then do you find yourself advocating for reform to parties, for reform to the system that might enable more independence.
Bill:We've tried in fact, that was a bill that you've sponsored.
Chloe:If you want to talk about it one of my um, one of my bills that I'm most proud of, was to create semi-open primaries in maine. So before if you were, if you were an independent, during a primary you could not vote in either in the democratic or the Republican primary. So it's just the party folks going to choose their nominee, which tends to create things on more of an extreme, because they're picking the most Democrat or the most Republican person and then independents can vote on that person in the general election in November in November. But my bill allows independents to go and take a Democrat or Republican ballot during that primary election which in other states lots of states have this program. It shifts everything towards the center, like in a more moderate communal way, so that we're not facing such polarization in our party. So that's cool.
AJ:It got through yeah it's a lot.
Bill:Yeah that's extremely cool, yeah, yeah and roughly one-third of mainers are independents.
AJ:We're like a very independent state and so essentially disenfranchise one-third of the population from that primary vote wow, yeah, it might be the perfect segue to talking about dirt road with you, chloe yeah but before we do that, I always close with a piece of music.
Bill:I don't know what. Did you already pick one?
Chloe:I didn't pick one. No, I was thinking about it and I didn't have a good one. The first one that came to mind was, um, uh, shaboozy it's been very popular this summer.
AJ:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good one, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bill:Do you want us to just pick one as a couple? That we'll both.
Chloe:We'll both vote for shaboozy yeah, but if you want me to pick my own, then I could figure out something else.
AJ:I'm always interested, but don't feel pressured, okay, if something comes to mind, let rip.
Bill:Yeah, well, we're some of the. I was thinking we were listening to the. Did you guys have like 90s grunge Mate? I was playing it.
AJ:Okay good. Yeah, I was in a rock band in the 90s. Oh, okay good.
Bill:So just last night we were listening to the satellite radio the lithium like 90s music.
AJ:I used to play that when I started oh lithium.
Bill:Yeah, literally that song, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing, that's awesome. Some Nirvana, some Nirvana, exactly.
AJ:Oh, you're talking my language.
Bill:There you go.
AJ:Thanks a lot you guys for showing us around and Bill for going into some detail around all that stuff.
Bill:Yeah, yeah.
AJ:Good luck come November. BILL: Yeah yeah, we'll see. AJ: We'll see. That was Bill Pluecker, farmer and independent representative in the Maine House of Reps, with partner and last week's guest Chloe Maxmin at Begin Again Farm in Warren, Maine. Bill is favoured to win again next month. But before we unplugged, when I asked how he felt about the upcoming election, he tellingly had this to say. BILL: the Republicans always put a very conservative person like a very conservative person.
Bill:I think if they moved towards the middle they'd have a better chance of beating me.
AJ:That's interesting. It's the same dynamic in Australia.
Bill:AJ: They keep digging the hole deeper. BILL: yeah they go harder. AJ: Yeah, they dig the hole deeper and it reaffirms the independents who say we want to yeah, speak to everybody. BILL: yeah, yeah, yeah, and especially in this community, like that's what works. AJ: For more of what works
AJ:if you missed my conversation with chloe, just head to last week's episode. A nd a reminder that the film of Chloe's election story, alongside best mate and campaign manager Canyon Woodward, is on tour one last time this week. That's in partnership with Patagonia and featuring panel conversations with Chloe, Canyon and some of the local candidates that have come through the Dirtr oad Organising Program. Screening dates and other links are in the show notes. We'll be at the West Virginia screening on Sunday 13 October. A s usual I've put a few photos on the website, with more for subscribing members on Patreon. In great thanks for making this episode possible. I hope you'll join us by just heading to the website or the show notes and following the prompts. Thanks, too, for sharing the podcast wherever you can. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden and, at the top, Green Shoots by the Nomadics. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening. By the way, while you've got the mic bill oh yeah how do you pronounce your last name? BILL: Pluecker.
AJ:AJ: I thought so. BILL: True Blue Pluecker!
AJ:I do outtakes now you know.
Bill:ow, okay, good.
