Jessie Dowling, Fuzzy Udder Creamery + Sam May, Maine Harvest Credit Project

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Jesse Dowling is the owner of Fuzzy Udder Creamery in Whitefield and president of the Maine Cheese Guild. Sam May is the advisory board chair at the Maine Harvest Credit Project, an organization aiming to open a credit union supporting small farms and food businesses. Thank you for coming in.

Sam May:

Thank you for having us.

Jessie Dowling:

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm interested in what you're doing because we talk a lot about creating sustainability for small businesses and this is a very important step making funds available through a credit union, which is interesting.

Sam May:

Yeah, well, it's very interesting. It's also it's an innovative approach. Main farms and food businesses definitely need access to appropriately priced and scaled financing and Main Harvest Credit Project, which is looking to form a credit union statewide under the auspices of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners association and Maine Farmland Trust MFT to provide to create a financing platform that can be available to farmers for farmland access and food producers on a statewide basis.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So why a credit union versus just a small bank?

Sam May:

Well, the short answer is that we're raising 2.4 million to start a credit union. To start a new bank would be 25 to 35 million, so it's an order of magnitude less. And we believe a credit union is the right platform to use. Obviously it's less expensive. It also is a member governed, cooperatively structured institution so it can use a lot of has access to a lot of resources that would that in the form of a bank would be too big for the scale of the problem in Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Jesse, tell me what your Experience has been with this organization.

Jessie Dowling:

Well, I've been in communication with Sam A. And Scott Buddy and I've been really excited about the potential for a credit union that's focusing on farmers and farm based businesses because farmers like me end up in a situation where we have a hard time finding the credit for the projects that we're doing. You can get a mortgage from the Farm Service Agency, but there's a lot of red strings attached around how much know, milk you produce on your farm if you're making cheese, or how much of the raw product you're producing if you're doing a value added product. It might not make sense to produce it all yourself right away as you're trying to build your business. So that's where I've been really interested in the Mane Harvest Credit Union.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It sounds like what the Maine Harvest Credit Union would be able to offer would be kind of a something more along the small scales that small farms and small businesses would need.

Sam May:

Well, we think it's appropriately scaled. So we envision three loan products. One is a land loan product in the $250,000 range and then business loans in the $100,000 range and equipment loans in the $25,000 range. And your typical evolving farm, diversified farm in Maine often is looking at farmland in the 2 to $300,000 price range. So. And we can offer a product that would be very compelling with excellent rates for that sort of access. And then in Jesse's case, main cheese producers, a lot of our stronger, evolving, smaller foodstuff manufacturers that are concentrating on very high quality local products sourced from local foods, from local products, they really are looking at business loans for expansion of a cheese room, a dairy room in the, you know, in this, in the 50 to $150,000 size. So we're going to be appropriately, that's going to be right in our sweet spot in terms of what we lend. So it's not for really big, big, big projects, you know, they will move on to commercial banks. But for the, you know, evolving small food producer in Maine that needs a new cheese room or a new cider processing facility for hard cider, some of the craft distillers, distilleries, they are in need of funds. That would be right in our sweet spot.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Jesse, how did you choose to focus on cheese?

Jessie Dowling:

Oh, well, I did a master's in food policy in London and was learning about kind of food issues and food insecurity and issues of industrial agriculture on a global scale. And I felt like the best way I could really make a difference was to become a farmer. And I worked on a lot of different farms and I found myself through the Mofka Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association's apprenticeship program. I found two apprenticeships. I wanted a sheep dairy and one at a goat dairy in Appleton and Union. And I just, it just clicked. I started working for Appleton Creamery and I stayed there for five years until I learned that I wanted to do on my own.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I see that you have a goat tattoo on your arm, so I'm assuming you must have an affinity for that particular animal.

Jessie Dowling:

Yeah, I started with goats. I also love sheep equally. Yeah, sheep and goat's milk is awesome. I also use cow's milk cheese. I'm pretty into milks.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sam, is this part of the business important to you? I mean, I know that you are on the board of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. You're also on the steering committee of the SLOW money main organization. Is food important to our economy?

Sam May:

I think food is very important to our economy. And a relocalized food system in Maine, it'll have a lot of, it'll have a lot of health benefits for people. We know that nutrient dense food is much is, you know, incredibly important for people's health. And then I would just back up and say a word about MOFCA and MFT Maine Farmland Trust. You know, we're very blessed in this state to have very strong institutions that have been working very hard for a long period of time. Time. MOFCA through its journeyperson program is training new farmers. Maine Farmland Trust is helping to find access to farmland for farmers. The restaurant community here in Portland is a huge. Is hugely important in this sector. Mainers have an appreciation, We've always had an appreciation for local food. Blueberries, lobsters, fiddleheads. You know, we like to eat food in season and. But we import 95% of the food that we consume comes from out of state. And. But there's a keen interest in a revitalized food system in Maine. And that's, you know, the Portland restaurant scene definitely showcases all of that. But we have a lot of producers working hard that have been trained through MOFKA Maine Farmland Trust to be on the land to be producing food and now making value added great tasting cheeses, craft brews, craft distills, foodstuff, you know, food products. And we have a lot of work to do to revitalize that infrastructure and those production facilities. And we need, we need access to fairly priced capital for growth to occur in those sectors.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is There something about the emotional connection that we make with food and specifically locally produced foods like goat's milk cheese or sheep's milk cheese or even a cow's milk cheese that is going to help us be more successful in the future at getting locally grown and locally created products available on a more year round basis.

Sam May:

Jesse, do you want to speak to that first because you're a producer?

Jessie Dowling:

Yeah, I mean, I would say yes. Obviously I'm biased, but I do believe that, you know, farmers are the best stewards of the land and if we take care of our land environment, we'll be able to produce more food for people for multiple generations. I think industrial agriculture has proven time and time again that, you know, it's not sustainable. And so not only is it better for the environment, but knowing who's growing your food, knowing how they're taking care of their animals, knowing about where that food is coming from, I have to believe that that is going to make a difference in the community future.

Sam May:

Yeah, I think it's going to make a tremendous difference. The interests consumers have a real desire to eat locally sourced food because they understand the health benefits of that. They also understand the community benefit of that. I mean this is about, it's a relocalized food economy which will help to revitalize our rural economies and it will also help with population health, you know, and people understand that. Look at the growth in fermented foods to people, the connection to the microbiome, to the important health considerations for eating fermented foods, for personal health. But I think a lot of people are responding to fermented foods. There's an explosion in fermented foods. We have some great producers of a wide variety of fermented food products. Do people, are they, are they going out and shopping because they want their microbiome to be healthy? No, but they do know that at some intuitive level. And I think that's an important, you know, people want to eat a locally produced cheese, a locally sourced milk. People are interested in terroir and their wine. Well, why shouldn't they make that connection to their parsnip? You know, it's the same set of features. You know, it's a, it's a revitalized soil that is producing the health benefits and the foods that people are eating. And then you have all the economic multiplier effects of sourcing, producing and sourcing food that's local.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In many of the conversations I've had recently, I'm running across people similar to you, Jesse, that have an academic background in the subject, but also a very practical interest in the subject of food systems. And it seems like this is becoming more and more important that the two worlds need to coexist, actually, along with the idea of being able to finance things.

Jessie Dowling:

Yeah, I think that the more, you know, the more you realize you don't know. And I felt like learning how to actually produce food was the best way to influence farm policy. That's why I'm really excited to be working with the Maine Cheese Guild to promote cheese in Maine. We're really hoping that when people look at Maine and they think, I'm going to come to Maine for vacation and you know, they think lobsters and blueberries, they're also going to think, you know, Maine has these amazing cheeses. We're the fastest growing state in the country for cheesemakers. We have probably more cheese makers per capita than anywhere. There's almost 100 facilities in Maine that are making cheese and they're all small scale. And it's a very exciting time to be a cheese maker. But I think the biggest issue with cheese making in Maine right now is we have all these new producers. And as we all are learning to grow our businesses, we're finding that like the going from a small scale to mid scale to kind of trying to like long term age our businesses is very difficult in this current economic climate. Which is why I'm so excited to be talking more to the Maine Harvest Credit Project.

Sam May:

So, Lisa, on the, you know, the sort of, the new immigrants to Maine, you know, the well educated people that are coming here and looking at putting down some routes to become farmers or food producers, you know, that's an incredibly key aspect. Mofka's Journey Person program is there. Our traditional ways of passing on farming knowledge from one generation to the other have been broken by various larger economic forces. And now we have a lot of young people that are college educated and they show up with a lot of interest and knowledge about global food issues, but they don't know how to fix a John Deere tractor. And so we have, you know, we have big infrastructure and educational gaps that have to be filled. If we're going to bring this thing home and really revitalize and relocalize our food economy, then we're going to have to have infrastructure elements there. Maine Harvest Credit Project, Credit Union being one of those, we're blessed here in Maine to have some very important institutions that have been working for a very long time. Specifically MOFCA and Maine Farmland Trust that have been working to help Provide training for young farmers to help grow our markets. There's a lot of support for our farmers markets and for our food distribution system. Maine Farmland Trust has a lot of very key programs for not only protecting farmland, but putting that farmland back into the hands of young farmers for production. We also have our Slow Money Maine chapter here in Maine is one of the largest in the country and has been working for several years, many years now, to help provide financing for food entrepreneurs and a lot of other parties that are working on this very difficult problem of how do we actually reconstruct a local food system and have that food system underpinned by some of the elements of infrastructure that are so key, whether that's new slaughterhouses or whether that's some grain processing. I'm thinking of the Somerset Grist Mill and Skowhegan, which has emerged as a very large player and is now contracting with farmers to grow human grade grains for milling and production. We also one another instance I can think of is some of our barley malt producers, Blue Ox nearby in Lisbon. You know, our growth growing Maine Craft brewers are now able to source barley malt that's grown in Maine and produced into barley malt here in Maine. So they can produce a 100, well, 100% locally sourced barley malt for their beer. So those, all those businesses have taken significant infrastructure upgrades that have required capital. And I think that's what we're talking about. It's very difficult to rebuild some of the elements of infrastructure that will underpin a relocalized food system.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Jesse, you said that you spent time learning about the trade from a local farm and that was very important to you. How did you find out about the local farm needing someone who could take part in their organization in this learning capacity?

Jessie Dowling:

Right. Well, that was one of the reasons why I was farming in Maine is that I had heard about Mofka's apprenticeship program and it was really easy online to read different listings of different farms. And I visited about 12 farms in 2007 when I was looking to apprentice. And I ended up settling on Appleton Creamery and Ells Farm Sheep Dairy, which were in neighboring towns and split my time between the two. But the listings were really helpful and I was able to then visit the farms and kind of make the right fit.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is this something that you had any experience with growing up when you were in school? I'm not sure exactly where you're from.

Jessie Dowling:

Yeah, no, I'm originally from right outside Washington D.C. on the Virginia side.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So there's not a lot of Cows out there?

Jessie Dowling:

No, there's actually no livestock in Arlington County. But when I went to college in California, went to one of the Claremont Colleges in Claremont, California, and there was a student led guerrilla garden that became part of the college's master plan on Pomona's campus. And because students were learning about farming on their own terms and then they planted like hundreds of fruit trees on this small several acre plot and the school saw how, how much learning was happening on this hands on way. It was a really exciting part to be part of. So then I was, I was hooked after that. I was like, wow, you can engage local community and through food. And that just sold it for me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And somehow you found your way to London.

Jessie Dowling:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

To study this.

Jessie Dowling:

I worked at the center for Food Safety as an intern in 2004 and I was working on fighting genetically modified foods in D.C. and I found out about some master's programs in, in London that were on that topic. And it's very, very exciting time.

Sam May:

I think Jesse's, you know, her story is, is interesting and it's not all that normal. In some ways it's exceptional, but in other ways it's indicative of some of the strong work that's been done here in Maine by MOFCA and MFT and other institutions. Jessie went to college in California. She went to university in London. She's from Washington dc. How did she get to Maine and why did she come here? And there were institutions on the ground that were working at solving real problems that she could see from a conceptual perspective were meaningful and important. Why did she end up on the ground here? That's an interesting question. I think it's because we've actually been doing a lot of good work here in Maine from a very Maine perspective, to tackle problems locally. And the situation on the ground that she saw here in Maine attracted her from her big conceptual perspective of what the problems were in the world with the food system. And now she finds herself in Whitefield with sheep and goats and the neighbor's cows, producing some really good cheese that's resonating with the market. And that's what we have going for us here in Maine. And we need to have other elements of infrastructure to support the growth of her vision and her product, to take her craft artisan cheese to another level and allow her to grow to the level that she's comfortable with. That doesn't mean that she has to make the next largest nationwide cheese, but she has an opportunity to grow her business. And the Maine Cheese Guild is working hard to help Support all the cheese producers, Producers in Maine to reach their full potential. And that includes market development. And it's going to also require infrastructure in terms of financing to help fund that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the questions that I have been pondering as you've been talking is the fact that Vermont is known for cows and cheese. We happen to be known for lobsters and blueberries and, I don't know, yes, summer corn, but we've always had cows. So why did Vermont get to be known as the cheese place and the cow place? How did that, how did that happen?

Jessie Dowling:

It's a really good question. One thing that I do look at is that the way that government funding for cheese, there's. I'm not sure about the names of all the organizations, but there's no, there's no money coming from the main state government going to cheese. But I know that in Vermont there's, there's quite a bunch of funds that, that are going into. I don't know if it's going directly to the cheese council or if it's going to cheese makers, but I think that their state government is more supportive of their cheese community. And it might be because they do have that notoriety. I think they've had cheese making happening in Vermont, perhaps on a larger scale, longer. I mean, they have Cabot, which is a much larger producer than what we have in Maine. Our largest producer is Pineland Farms. And they're large, but I don't think they have the market reach that Cabot has. So I think we're a growing industry and hopefully over time we'll get more support from our state government as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it just speaks to the fact that there's a lot of backstory to all of these things. It's not as straightforward as Vermont has good cows and therefore the best cheese, and therefore that's what they've become known for. I mean, there are lobsters in other parts of the country and other parts of the world. And whatever it was about Maine, somehow that all worked to that benefit. And now we have to figure out how to make it work for, for other industries.

Sam May:

So the lobster business in Maine is about, I think the boat landing. It's about a half a billion dollars in 500, 600 million dollars. That's a large business, but it has an iconic place in our consciousness. We've got a number of small food sectors. How big is craft brewing now in Maine? It may be approaching that amount. Cheese is maybe a 20 million dollar a year, 25 million dollar a year business in Maine. It could be 125 million dollars a year in five years. But there's going to be. There's a lot of infrastructure required. So I think Maine's a large state. It's as big as the other five states of New England combined. We have twice the population of Vermont. There are a lot of other sectors that are vying and legitimately vying for, for mindshare in terms of how Mainers conceive of their local food. But, you know, I see no reason why artisan produced local cheese in Maine can't become a much bigger element of Maine's food consciousness. We have the land, we have the cows, we have the resources, and we have the young entrepreneurs, such as Jesse and older entrepreneurs that are also working on cheese production. So we want to be able to support the new food sectors that are going to emerge that take the best, that make the best use of Maine's resources. And certainly cheese is one of those. But there are a lot of other candidates here in Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Did we have to almost go through this, I guess this downplaying of the importance of local foods in order for us to come back again so strong? I mean, back in the 80s there with big agriculture, there are a lot of farms that failed in a very big way nationally. But I think also in Maine, it almost seems as though we had to get that far down to the bottom before we actually started to value small farms again. I'm just putting this out there.

Sam May:

I don't know if we had to. I mean, the Nixon's USDA secretary, Earl Butz, who was an economist, engineer from Purdue, I believe, or maybe Notre Dame. I think it's Purdue. He's the one who famously said, get big or get out. There was a Wendell Berry movie at Space Gallery a couple of weeks ago and they were very clear about, you know, yes, there was a lot of emphasis on the USDA's official government policy was we're going to scale up food production, we're going to reduce the number of farmers. As a result of that, the USDA has a rural program which actually supports housing for displaced farm people in rural communities throughout the country. There were a lot of economic forces at work to scale up food and to marginalize, to de emphasize and to put out of business small scale producers. That's come at a tremendous, tremendous cost to population health in the U.S. i mean, we have a crisis of obesity, diabetes, chronic complex disease diseases. Those are all directly related to the production of an industrial commodity agriculture product that is the biggest vector of public disease in the country I think that we've ever experienced. And we're not going to get out of that if we don't, you know, have a better local, nutrient dense food. And it could be local, it could not be local. It's not. But local is a good way to approach this. If you want to eat nutrient dense food that's actually good for you and not a vector of public dis ease, try local, organic, locally sourced food.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This isn't the first time that we've dealt with people who have come back to the land, essentially. I mean, Maine was known for this back several decades. And it seems as though there's almost a cyclical aspect to this. Would you agree?

Sam May:

Definitely not. You asked me about how I got to Maine. I came to Maine in 1954 because my father was the first instructor of woodturning at Haystack. Two years after it was founded. Haystack Mountain School of Crafts was a back to the land movement of post World War II urbanites who wanted to move to New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont. The Nearings moved to Vermont in the early 1950s. I grew up in the back to the. I was from Maine. I didn't have to move back to Maine, but when I graduated from college, everybody was moving to Sears, Mon, and Montville and Appleton. In the 70s and the late 60s, we've had successive waves. I mean, this is, this is a, this is a, this is a clear wave pattern. There's nothing you, you can't describe it as anything but a series of waves. And we keep coming back to this and we. But now we have a very clear, strong opportunity to catch this wave. Let's get, let's get all 10 toes up on front of the board and be going down the wave, not be swimming to get up the wave, you know. Yeah, we don't want to miss this wave. This is an important opportunity and we have, we're so blessed here in Portland. We have a food business here in Portland, a restaurant scene that's leading that way. We have a lot of consumers that are passionate about eating local food and we need to support the producers and the farmers and give them some economic vitality and viability. So I couldn't agree with you more, Lisa. This is just another, it's another wave, but let's catch it a little better this time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Jesse, did you know that you were going to be part of this movement or did you just have a sense that you were following what it was that you were meant to be doing?

Jessie Dowling:

Well, I think I had a political awakening when I was volunteering on a Native American reservation in Arizona when I was in college and seeing the connection between people and land and how important water was and how if we don't protect our environment, then people can't have the cultures that they have been having. And those connections just made me have a fire under me since then. So I'm kind of on a track to supporting small scale local agriculture. That's kind of my life goal.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate you both taking the time out of your very busy schedules to come in today. I've been speaking with Jesse Dowling, who's the owner of Fuzzy Udder Creamery in Whitefield and president of the Maine Cheese Guild, and also Sam May, who is an advisory board chair at the Maine Harvest Credit Project, an organization aiming to open a credit union supporting small farms and food businesses. Thank you so much for your good work and for your time today.

Sam May:

Thank you, Lisa thank you for having us.