A municipal committee is addressing the feasibility of counting alewivesfor the purpose of discovery to see if runs provide enough fish for an eventual towncommercial fishery plan. For the 191-acre Wight’s Pond, the alewife sea run must be atleast 44,885 before harvest. Reaching Pierces Pond, which is 100 acres, the before-harvest run must be at least 25,850 fish as reported in the in late February.The Penobscot Alewive Committee volunteer counters must be licensed by the Depart-ment of Marine Resources (DMR) and they will catch them by nets at night rather than

by hand so the fish will not be affected in habitat. Currently, a licensed fisherman may takeup to 25 alewives daily for personal use. A town may be licensed for commercial harvest-ing, per the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Shad and River HerringAmendment, adopted in 2010 and supported by state statute, if it shows:

Separate from the count, DMR wants scale samples collected from which fish ages are usedto calculate mortality estimates and the number of years samples reveal a spawning history.

Alden “Artie” Mingo thinks that GlobalWarming will eventually shift the agriculture of cranberrygrowing northward out of Massachusetts and Wisconsininto Maine. With Maine’s posture in cranberry production

already fixed mostly inWashington County, Mingohas been working to shifthis practices from wet cran-berry fields to dry as someyears, like last year, thebees just do not cooperatethe way they should and wetgrown berries are often just

a wholesale market dollar item. Compared to wet, drypicked cranberries have ready markets at grocery stores,farmers markets, farm retail outlets and websites. Nation-ally, cranberries are a four-billion-dollar industry andwhile Maine values itself at about $1 million in a goodyear, wet berry practices are a costly affair to start from

from scratch and first year production is often a four yearwait for plant growth to root and flourish. New farmersusually start with about one-half acre developed and latermove to three acres or more as time and weather, invest-ments allow. The trend - depending upon the available land- is headed towards a mix of dry harvest and wet harvestproduction in Maine, reducing the bog production to thevagaries of weather and pollination. The example of Tropi-cal Storm Arthur arriving around the Fourth of July, 2014was one where much of the bee pollen here was washedaway limiting the sunny days for bees to be attracted. Withnot much beyond 200 acres in total production in Maine andmost of that land in Washington County, the costs of irriga-tion lines, a growing medium of sand and the cost of vineshas new farmers pushing dry organic berry production as ameans of manageable payback. The Maine 2014 harvestwas down as much as 70% due to insects and weather issues.M Mingo has 17 acres in berry production and otherwiseoperates a business of making evergreen products.

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A District court has dismissed a Coun-try-of-Origin Labeling lawsuit brought by US meat inter-est groups against USDA regarding COOL, filed in theDistrict of Columbia, for American Meat Institute et al. v.USDA et al following the COOL opponents’ decision to

drop the case for the present. Some Ameri-can meat groups say COOL violates the con-stitution by mandating speech without apublic interest. They said the policy createsunnecessary, costly burdens for producers

and packers.

A World Trade Organization dispute on the rulecontinues also and Canada is in opposition to COOL,arguing that it creates a technical barrier to trade that is in

violation of WTO rules. Gerry Ritz, Canada’s AgricultureMinister, along with members of the Canadian Cattlemen’sAssociation, Canadian Pork Council and Canadian MeatCouncil are heading to Washington to discuss Canada’sopinion. COOL is a USDA initiative where any meat soldin stores is required to identify where the animal was born,raised and slaughtered. Canada continues to call upon theU.S. to comply with WTO and eliminate COOL labels onmeat products saying this discriminates against imports.Agricultural trade between Canada and the United States in2013 totaled $44 billion. Meanwhile US meat interestgroups are also not happy about USDA compliant labeling,rulemaking actions, but have been unable to beat them in thecourts, over the past several years with orchestrated delays.

Article and photos by Dr Brian Beal

e began in 1987as the Beals IslandRegional ShellfishHatchery with thegoal of helpingclammers and com-munities by produc-ing clam seed (clamsthat are about thesize of a squashseed). Early on, weworked in the six

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Downeast Institute Hatchery spawnsdestined for planting on Maine mud flats.

a self-sustaining alewife population that is not dependent upon stocking;a total alewife count to equal or exceed 235 fish per surface acre; anda high alewife survival rate and “good representation” of older alewives;a high repeat spawning ratio

2015 S P R I N G ISSUE Mainely Agriculture || Equi Ag & Livestock || Aqua Agriculture 9

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