Category Archives: Learning

FDA Listening Session on Proposed Food Rules

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US Food and Drug AdministrationMOFGA will sponsor a “Listening Session” with FDA representatives at the Augusta Armory on

August 19th between 9:30am and 12:30pm

This is the only session scheduled in Maine and one of only three in New England. This is an important opportunity for growers to communicate directly with FDA on the proposed rules.

The FDA has extended the public comment period, so those who cannot make the listening session can submit comments by Nov. 13, 2013.

Dave Colson, MOFGA’s Ag Services Director has put together a summary of the talking points that MOFGA has generated after reviewing the proposed rules that might be helpful.

Maintaining Herd Health on a Sheep Dairy Farm

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MESAS (Maine Sustainable Ag Society) is sponsoring an event on Sheep Dairy Herd Health that is free and open to the public (NO pre-registration required) on

Saturday, August 17th from 2:00pm to 4:30pm at
Northern Exposure Farm
18 Country Lane, Dedham, ME

There will be a tour of their livestock and milking facility, as well as a discussion of the farm’s approach to biosecurity, disease management, and identifying healthy foundation stock.

For questions, contact Dick Brzozowski: richard.brzozowski@maine.edu or 207-781-6099

Monroe Cheese: A Delectable Memory

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Cheese Skipper, or BlowflyThe following is from a story written for the Monroe, Maine town archives describing the Monroe Cheese Factory, which operated for at least 50 years in the center of Monroe, near the falls, until 1936. It includes a description of a very particular product — Skipper Cheese — that they specialized in “before the days of food laws.”

You may remember the “Good Old Days” when you could walk into any grocery store around [Maine] and order a slab of Monroe cheese.

Though the age of automation has brought to humanity untold comfort and pleasure, the days of horses and hard hand work had their compensations. Monroe cheese was one of them.

Like the nine mills that once flanked Monroe Stream, the cheese factory was of an era that saw Monroe become a prosperous center of activity. It was the age when people worked from dawn to dusk, wood was sawed by hand, and a farmer milked by hand and drove the milk by horse team to market.
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