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
Common Ground Country Fair: A glimpse of an extraordinary 48 years
After recording with Bill and Chloe at Begin Again Farm for last week’s episode, Bill happened to drop word of an upcoming festival. And not just any festival, but the 48th annual running of the Common Ground Country Fair. It happened on 20-22 September this year, in the aptly named Unity, Maine, about 40 miles north of Bill and Chloe’s place. The Fair draws 60,000 people, features all kinds of programs, food and arts, and even makes money for its host the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) - the oldest and largest state organic association in the US (founded in 1971). That’s who Bill works for when he’s not farming himself, or representing constituents as an Independent in the Maine legislature.
So I had to ask him if he’d put the microphone back on and tell us about it.
If you’ve come here first, tune into the main episodes with Bill and Chloe respectively, ep226 ‘An Independent Farmer Wins in Maine: Transcending the ‘battleground’ with Bill Pluecker’. And ep225 ‘Democracy on the Rise – in the US? With Maine’s youngest ever female senator, Chloe Maxmin’. You’ll find a few links in the show notes as usual, along with transcripts, and a few photos on the episode websites, with more on Patreon for subscribing members.
For more on the Fair, watch their excellent 5 minute video.
And for more on the Real Organic Conference, which ran the week after the Fair, back at Churchtown Dairy (which we visited in August), you can now watch videos of that on their website.
This episode has a transcript too.
Recorded 8 September 2024.
Title slide image: from the Fair’s website.
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Music:
By Jeremiah Johnson.
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Bill, you've just landed something on me that I really want to bring into the record here. Did you say it was the Common ...?
Bill:Grou Common Ground, fair, been going on for decades now. It's run by MOFGA, maine Organic Farmers and Garden Association, who I work for. It happens the third week after Labor Day every year, the third weekend.
Bill:AJ: Which places it in a couple weeks time from here? BILL: Exactly, yeah, in Unity, maine, which is a pretty rural place, but 60,000 people descend there over the weekend to eat all organic food, all local food, um. And then there's workshops on how to, how to do homesteading, how to do commercial growing and farming, um, how to just kind of live in a rural way that's in touch with the earth. Workshops are running in probably ten different tents, from eight in the morning till four in the evening, for three days straight. Whoa, how long has this been going on for? I don't know Since the since the mid 80s. So it's an institution.
AJ:Oh, it's an institution.
Bill:Yep, yep, yep. And so, mafga, a big portion of what we do over here is put this fair on, yeah well, this is why we had to re-mic up.
AJ:I was telling you this. I feel like this is such an important piece and I've been seeing it coming on across the country in different places. Montana where was the other one? Oh yeah, at churchtown dairy oh yeah yeah. Unbelievable event space, and they'll have the real organic project event there the week after that. I'm going to be speaking at that one too Bang.
Bill:Yeah.
AJ:Okay, such an important piece, it's coming on in Australia as well, but to think that that's been going for so long.
Bill:Yeah, so Mafka came because there was the back to the land movement. I don't know much about this, it's so minestrone, okay. So so in the seventies people started leaving Boston, started leaving New York and moving back to the rural areas in Maine, and when these people came back up they brought a lot of the organic values with them of how to live on the land, the nearings and that kind of thing. And so they started this fair at that point and it was much smaller and just through and all volunteer driven. There's still going to be hundreds of volunteers that put this thing on in a few weeks time and and it's just grown since then and to this point where we're at 60,000 and people are going to come up from all over the country to come spend the weekend there. People camp out every. If you you get into the fair for free, if you put in four hours of volunteer time, you get a t-shirt and a free meal I was partly wondering how it's made to work, yeah, how it's viable, yeah.
AJ:So all those sorts of yeah hundreds of volunteers, which just takes a management hand, then, and state funding no, or so just admission yeah, admission, membership and you know, grants put on make help make mofka work.
Bill:It's a, it's a non-profit. Yeah, yeah, but uh, but this, this generates revenue for mofka it does yeah, it's not just a break even no, no, listen to this awesome.
AJ:That's great to hear. Oh, I'm then curious about how would you observe? Have you got a sort of a vision or a view on this? It's impact for one of a bit of word, like do you see people coming more into rural life?
Bill:well, on the back of it, for example yeah, you know, I think, going back to that apprenticeship program that mafka runs. So you know, you get free entry to the fair as an apprentice. You get free access to all those workshops as an apprentice, free access for anybody who walks into the fair. And so then you it's as a young person going in there you get excited about that way of life. You get excited about the knowledge and that can come with it. You get connected to people who can help you move further in your life. Learning about these things help you learn about a farm where you could go and get employment or go and wind up as an apprentice. And so for many years, uh, maine, we were the only state in the country that the average age of farmer was decreasing, and it's largely because of this apprenticeship program that mofka ran and the fair was a key part of that.
AJ:So what's the average now?
Bill:I don't know. The scary thing, though, is that like is that our age was. Number of farms was increasing, age was decreasing, acreage of farmland decreasing no. Acreage of farmland was decreasing also because the big farms are closing and we don't have the capital, as young farmers, to start up farms to take to, to take up that space as fast as we are losing it. So it's just this dichotomy.
AJ:Doesn't that just speak to the times where this bubbling up of a regenerative culture let's just say is there. Yet it certainly isn't a foregone conclusion that that's the future we end up with. Oh yeah, for sure. It's to be done at a political level. Yeah, conclusion that that's the future we end up with.
Bill:Oh, yeah, for sure it's to be done at a political level.
AJ:Yeah, and there's the segue to Chloe. Let's have a conversation about that. Yeah, you better A broader one, grab her quick. Thanks. Oh, by the way, while you've got the mic, bill, oh yeah, how do you pronounce your last name?
Bill:Pluker, I thought so, true Blue.
AJ:Pluker, I do outtakes now, you know. Oh, okay, good, that's probably going to be a bit weird.
