Community Agriculture Planning
The Cumberland County Soil and Water Conservation District (CCSWCD) worked from February, 2020 through June, 2021 to develop a “Community Agriculture Planning Toolkit”. The project was funded by the National Association of Conservation District’s Urban Agriculture Conservation grant program. The project built on CCSWCD’s previous community agriculture work which began in 2016 with a grant from NACD.
The Community Agriculture Planning Toolkit compiles information from previous agriculture work to provide municipalities with an adaptable template to implement community agriculture programs. It includes a Toolkit User Guide, 16 Community Agriculture Modules, a Community Agriculture Plan (CAP) Template, and several attachments to guide municipalities through the process to develop a CAP.
CCSWCD tested the toolkit in four pilot communities by writing a CAP for Portland, South Portland, Gray, and Gorham. This helped to refine the toolkit for practical application. Each of the pilot communities were also provided with support to implement a community agriculture project. Implementation projects included establishing a new food forest in Gray, coordinating a volunteer maintenance event at an existing food forest, and supporting a pilot program for compost drop-off locations. Municipal staff, regional organizations, and community members provided valuable support for this project.
In June 2021, CCSWCD presented an overview of the project that summarized the key deliverables and lessons learned. Throughout this project we worked to promote project sustainability. The CAPs are intended to be living documents, updated as community needs change and action items in the plans are completed. They are designed to be updated every 10 years, ideally with community needs input gathered at regular 2-year intervals through surveys or other engagement techniques.
Project manager Damon Yakovleff shared the following at a wrap up meeting for a municipal plan “I appreciate everyone’s hard work and time commitment to completing this project. Big picture, this is how we can work to meet the state climate change to increase local food production from 10% in 2020 to 30% by 2030. I also appreciate that the plan can help organizations work together more efficiently to create a more sustainable food system for us and future generations.”
A volunteer spreads seaweed to promote healthy soil during a “permablitz” to install a community park and food forest in Gray, ME.
Volunteers help to mulch the Phinney Park Food Forest in Gorham, ME.