County farms MOFGA’s focus of annual tours

MOFGA’s annual Farmer to Farm Tours will be in Piscataquis County on Friday, Nov. 6. The Ripley Farm Tour in Dover-Foxcroft will be held at 1 p.m. and the Checkerberry Farm Tour will be held at 3 p.m. in Parkman.

These tours are an exciting learning opportunity offered through MOFGA’s 2015 Farmer to Farmer Conference, and are open to all and are free. For more information on MOFGA’s Farmer to Farmer Conference visit http://mofga.org/Default.aspx?tabid=293.

The Ripley Farm is known for its picture-perfect, MOFGA-certified organic produce, beautiful farmers market displays and wildly popular summer and winter CSAs in rural Piscataquis County. Come see how Gene and Mary Margaret Ripley have grown their farm over the past seven years to a total of five acres of mixed vegetables and cover crops. The Ripleys expanded again in 2015 by hiring their first full-time employee, increasing their winter storage and fine tuning mechanical cultivation on their organic farm.

The Ripleys are quoted as saying, “We’re really excited that out of their over 450 Certified Organic farms in the state of Maine, MOFGA has chosen to highlight two Piscataquis County farms this year at their annual conference.”

Jason and Barbara Kafka of Checkerberry Farm have been developing their farm and homestead since 1981. They have been MOFGA-certified organic for 25 years, and during that time they’ve transitioned from raising livestock and vegetables and selling at farmers’ markets to wholesaling vegetables that are grown in greenhouses and high tunnels, and on 20 acres of fields.

The Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District is serving as a local co-host for these farm. For more information, email  info@piscataquisswcd.org or call 564-2321, extension 3 . The tours will be held rain or shine.