Courtesy / MOFGA
The Common Ground Country Fair, held the third weekend of September in Unity, will be online this year.
September 4, 2020
Common Ground virtual edition to extend marketplace to January
Courtesy / MOFGA
Leah Penniman will be the Friday keynote speaker at the virtual Common Ground Fair Sept. 25.
By Maureen Milliken
The Common Ground Country Fair, a virtual event this year, will highlight diversity in farming and also extend its marketplace for vendors through Jan. 8 to make up for the hit they will take by the lack of an in-person fair.
The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association on Thursday released the schedule for the state's long-running fair — still a three-day event, though online, but also with a variety of longer-running online options.
"While we can't gather together in person this year, many aspects of the fair will be available online, including iconic and educational content that folks look forward to year after year," said April Boucher, MOFGA's fair director.
The fair, in its 43rd year, will be Sept. 25-27, and will include an online marketplace that begins Sept. 25 and runs through Jan. 8, offering participants "the opportunity to support local businesses that would typically participate at the fair, including farmers, crafters, nonprofit educational organizations and more," MOFGA said in a news release. The fair normally has an extensive vendor and farmers market area, with 160 farms, business and organizations participating last year.
The schedule of live presentations released Thursday offers three full days of content related to gardening, farming and sustainable living. Video will be streamed at fair.mofga.org and on MOFGA's Facebook and YouTube pages.
The fair, held on MOFGA's 200 acres in Unity, usually attracts more than 60,000 and is a celebration of rural life, with agricultural and animal demonstrations, keynote talks, livestock shows, music performances and organic food, alternative energy demonstrations and information, craft and advocacy vendor booths.
This year's keynote speakers highlight national perspectives on diversity in farming and gardening.
The speaker Friday, Sept. 25, will be Leah Penniman, the author of "Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land" and activist based in Grafton, N.Y.
Saturday's speaker is Barbara Damrosch, farmer and co-owner of Four Season Farm in Harborside, and author of "The Garden Primer" and "Theme Gardens," and co-author of "The Four Season Farm Gardener's Cookbook." She is a past MOFGA board president.
Sunday's speaker, Winona LaDuke, is a rural development economist and author, working on issues of Indigenous economics, food and energy policy. LaDuke lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota and is executive director of Honor the Earth.
In addition to keynote addresses each day at 11 a.m., there will be a mix of educational and entertaining content, including the ever-popular sheep dog demonstrations.
More online content available
"We're hoping that the online fair will still provide a sense of community and engagement related to everyone's favorite activities from the fair," said Sarah Alexander, MOFGA executive director.
Members of the MOFGA community are developing additional content that will be available via an online library on the fair website. All members are being encouraged to grow and submit items for the online exhibition hall, submit photos for the online garden parade, share poetry and fair stories and more.
Two fair boxes are currently being sold via MOFGA's online store, store.mofga.org, to celebrate the spirit of Common Ground at home. The Marketplace Sampler Box features a variety of products from marketplace vendors and the Common Ground Country Store Sampler Box features MOFGA and Common Ground Country Fair merchandise from past and present.
"The special edition fair marketplace boxes help support both our local vendors and MOFGA's work," Alexander said. Proceeds from the boxes will help fund MOFGA's year-round educational programming for farmers, gardeners, homesteaders and consumers.
The fair began in 1977 in Litchfield, as a MOFGA fundraiser, and took place in Windsor from 1981 to 1995. The organization bought 200 acres in Unity in 1995, and the fair has taken place there since 1996. Beginning in 2017, it has been fully powered by alternative energy, including a 102-Kilowatt solar array, heat pumps and a wind turbine.
In 2018, the last year for which numbers are available, the fair grossed $674,500, according to MOFGA's yearly timeline. It had 790 workshops and classes, 670 exhibitors and 90 social and environmental organizations. The Common Kitchen at the fair served more than 5,500 meals.
It hosted 36 farmers’ market booths and 85 exhibitors selling food made with organic ingredients. More than 500 booths featured local artisans, craftspeople, skill schools, sustainable technologies and young entrepreneurs.
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