Episode 48: Field Notes: York County, Maine Agricultural Updates with Dr. Ankit Singh

On this episode of the Maine Farmcast, Dr. Glenda Pereira, Assistant Extension Professor and State Dairy Specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, has a conversation with Dr. Ankit Singh who is an Assistant Extension Professor of Sustainable Agriculture and Ornamental Horticulture at UMaine. Dr. Singh is based in York County, and has statewide responsibilities for ornamental horticulture.

Episode Resources

Automated Transcript

Glenda Pereira: 00:19

Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. This is your host, Dr. Glenda Pereira. I’m an assistant extension professor as well as the dairy specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, and an assistant professor within the School of Food and Ag. On today’s episode, we have a colleague of ours, Dr. Singh.

Glenda Pereira: 00:42

And Dr. Ankit is based in York County, but he’s going be sharing a lot about his focus as a sustainable ag professor and educator. Dr. Ankit Singh, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you?

Ankit Singh: 01:00

Thank you all for tuning in. As mentioned, thank you Dr. Pereira for having me. My name is Ankit Singh. I’m an assistant extension professor. My title is very long.

Ankit Singh: 01:09

It’s an assistant extension professor, Maine sustainable agriculture and ornamental horticulture educator. So, you know, a drink in you I always mix up the order, but I’ve been grateful for this opportunity. I cover all of Maine when it comes to ornamental horticulture and cover York County when it comes to sustainable agriculture. And I’m excited to be here.

Glenda Pereira: 01:34

Yes. Great to have you. On the Farmcast, we cover a variety of topics. But this one is certainly exciting because we haven’t had, somebody with your focus and expertise. So I’m excited to have this conversation.

Glenda Pereira: 01:47

So you said you’re based in your county, so that’s where folks can find you, but they can obviously, you know, reach out to you with horticulture or ornamental specific questions because you have statewide responsibilities. Let’s talk about, you know, you’ve been in this role for a year. What is some of the work that you’ve been doing?

Ankit Singh: 02:07

So one thing that’s really nice about our work with extension professors is we do a needs assessment. We go out in the community to understand what are the issues that people are facing. And by people, I mean stakeholders, growers. And what I found was a very exciting 2024 with a lot of driving and meeting a lot of people. So I was going to share the findings of my needs assessment in this episode where I talk about where I spoke to farmers across New England and a lot of it translates to experiences across the New England area.

Ankit Singh: 02:43

It’s safe to say while every experienced farm is slightly unique and different, And overall New England experience is similar when you compare it to the Midwest. We have smaller farm holding sizes. You have weather conditions that are not as consistent and an inconsistent soil. And therefore the challenges and the opportunities are unique. What allowed me to thoroughly enjoy this experience, I’m a social person so being able to go meet people, I had a great time.

Ankit Singh: 03:15

And to be able to understand where people come from, I didn’t want to just do a survey online to understand what the needs were. I thought it’s better to be able to be directly engaged with the stakeholder. So as of 2024, I did around 5,300 miles of driving just doing farm visits

Glenda Pereira: 03:37

Oh my God.

Ankit Singh: 03:37

Which was great because I’ve never done this much driving and Maine’s pleasant to drive in because

Glenda Pereira: 03:43

It is.

Ankit Singh: 03:44

Traffic’s not that bad. Right. And having lived in the DC Beltway region and

Glenda Pereira: 03:49

We’re so spoiled.

Ankit Singh: 03:50

Yeah. And the scenery is so beautiful in the fall, summer, spring Yeah. And winter. But I went to different farms and I learned I just asked them four simple questions. I began with my first question, what is going well?

Ankit Singh: 04:10

The reason I asked that question is because I tend to be, as raised by my mother, trying to always look at the positive aspects of things. So I begin with what is going well? The second question tends to be what are the challenges that you’re facing? The third question that I ask is what are the knowledge gaps that I may be able to help with? And the fourth question is, what is your perception of extension?

Glenda Pereira: 04:38

Oh, that’s a good one. Yeah.

Ankit Singh: 04:40

But, yeah, I’ve had a chance to put together a culmination of my notes that I wanted to be able to talk about in the hopes that people understand and either reach out, use this as an opportunity to reflect and to recognize the opportunities that exist out there. So especially with Maine, in the first question that I asked, which is what is going well for the farming community in Southern Maine? 1 thing that the pandemic brought about was adaptation and diversification. And when the pandemic hit, there was no other choice than to diversify as any financial consultant will tell you. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Ankit Singh: 05:25

So diversify operations, specialize in new crops. And that way it makes homesteading easy if you do that for a hobby. You’re able to I’ve spoken to so many diversified farms in York County where they tell me, oh, the peaches don’t do very well at least and they have the apples that make up for it or the blueberry or the raspberries or the strawberries and the picking of the pick your own, it just is able to fill in the gaps. Agritourism has also grown significantly and especially in Southern Maine.

Glenda Pereira: 06:04

Right.

Ankit Singh: 06:06

It’s a couple of hours from Boston. So many people want to be able to just get away for the weekend in Maine, drive up to an orchard, or even when they’re driving up to Acadia, there are so many farms along the way where you can go pick your own flowers, you can go pick up your own fruit, you have a pumpkin patch. Yeah. So you’re able to strategically grow multiple things which I found to be highly advantageous. And

Glenda Pereira: 06:32

so York County is Southern Maine. So it it borders right up to Cumberland, which then has Portland and then

Ankit Singh: 06:41

Absolutely.

Glenda Pereira: 06:42

You know, like a larger population too. So folks in that city, like, travel on the weekend or whenever to your county and take advantage of the folks growing in that community.

Ankit Singh: 06:55

And it also is the wealthiest county in Maine. So there is a little more money to be made by the farmers Yep. In York county.

Glenda Pereira: 07:03

Do you and so what are some of the specialties? And is there maybe one production item that you’ve seen that folks found a niche market for that you don’t see in other parts of the state? Is is there one?

Ankit Singh: 07:18

I don’t know. I guess I don’t know enough to fully answer that question. At least in my visits to all the farms I’ve been to, the perception was it’s highly diversified. I found apples and pears and raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries. So just a little bit in different ratios, but they are able to do it well.

Ankit Singh: 07:39

And now increasingly cut flowers.

Glenda Pereira: 07:42

Yeah. Yeah.

Ankit Singh: 07:43

And there has been some talk about lavender, so I’m curious to see where that goes. And in talking to what else is going well, I found people talking about access to resources. This one made me very happy because they credited a few organizations. One of them being ours, one and near and dear, the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.

Glenda Pereira: 08:05

And that’s what’s really nice about Extension is we’re in every county. So like you’re saying, you know, folks can reach out. We’re at all of the counties in the state of Maine. And so if you have a question about sustainable ag, please reach out, to Ankit, because valuable resource for you.

Ankit Singh: 08:22

And I always tell people, I may not know the answer to everything Right. But I sure as well will know the person who knows the answer to that. Because I’m not here to know it all. I don’t know anything. What I do know is how to get the answer that you’re looking for.

Glenda Pereira: 08:34

Yeah.

Ankit Singh: 08:35

And one thing that I found also pretty exciting was NRCS Greenhouse cost share programs are in high demand and it’s allowed people to adopt and implement hoop houses and control environment ag, which is my research expertise, into extending seasons. One aspect, I keep saying one, there are so many things that are going well. And we find that consumer the biggest factor for what allows Southern Maine to do so well, and New England in general, and this is a factor I noticed even in Connecticut and even in Rhode Island because I used to live in Rhode Island as well and even there I would go to these orchards is the consumer preference for local food continues to strengthen and it supports small and medium scale consumers because when people go to an aisle or on a pick your own, they’re willing to pay the extra money because they know that the money is going to a farmer whose budgetary overhead is not as high as a major chain grocery store. So one way or another, they recognize that if they think they’re getting a better deal, they recognize that those monies tend to go up to higher level executives who get inflated packages rather than family run farms that need it.

Glenda Pereira: 09:58

And it’s going back into the community too. So something I always and I think I’ve stated on this podcast is that when you’re supporting your local farmers, they’re the people who support your community too. Right? Those farms need welders. They need mechanics.

Glenda Pereira: 10:13

They need all of the things that support them. And so they exist in your community. So they contribute to your community and you’re contributing to keeping them in business, And that’s a direct impact for that family. Right? And they employ people, so there’s a chance that, you know, if you have children, maybe they’ll work at that facility.

Glenda Pereira: 10:32

So there’s really that closeness, I mean, and really direct impact that, you can have and you can see. Right? I think folks really like going to a place and being like, you know, we contribute together as a community to this. But I love your approach on looking at what was going well because there’s so many awesome things happening in ag within the main space. And so you kind of just highlighted that.

Glenda Pereira: 10:58

That’s that’s really awesome. Was there other stuff that you covered that was going well that you you wanna mention?

Ankit Singh: 11:09

Oh, absolutely. I have a couple more. But one thing I have to tell you, as you pointed out, Maine farmers are very tech savvy. I can give you an example. Currently with my collaborator,

Ankit Singh: 11:20

Dr. Caitlin Howell, we run a NASA project and that looks into a low cost 3D printed nanotextured diffraction sensor that’ll be able to tell you water quality in hydroponics at a much lower cost than individual lab testing. And right now, we’re looking at it for implications for space travel, for colonizing Mars. But how useful that is for hydroponic growers that spend so much money. Because when you grow in soil, a soil test is $20 at the UMaine lab, but a water test at a high end lab at a regular lab is still hundreds of dollars to look into the water quality.

Glenda Pereira: 12:01

That’s amazing. I’d love to have you back in the podcast to talk more about that project.

Ankit Singh: 12:05

Oh, I’d love that. And a couple of

Ankit Singh: 12:08

points I wanted to include in what’s going well before we go into the meat of what are the challenges. One is community resilience. So farmers are finding creative ways to pass on farmland even to non family members so that it ensures that land stays in agricultural production. Because there are various organizations that help out that prevent farms from being sold to developers to make it so it’s adding a restriction to the deed. And so in situations like this where one can join an apprenticeship program Yeah.

Ankit Singh: 12:42

They get to learn.

Glenda Pereira: 12:43

And UMaine has the New Farmers Project too. So if you’re a farmer that’s ten years that’s been in the business ten years or less, folks can, like, participate in that program too. So that’s a great resource. And then Maine Farmland Trust as well, to keep those farms, continuing to be fed.

Ankit Singh: 13:02

Oh, absolutely. And definitely collaboration between local farms and diverse communities had led to stronger and more inclusive farming networks. And so, the last thing that I want to say that’s going super well are emerging opportunities. It’s when you’re repurposing farms for alternative uses such as agritourism, on farm education and renewable energy and that creates another avenue for income and sustainability. And increased demand for irrigation and other infrastructure investments are creating opportunities for modernization.

Ankit Singh: 13:38

My baby, which is using controlled environment agriculture, is picking up so much in Maine because people want to produce, food three sixty five days a year and not be limited by the winter.

Glenda Pereira: 13:49

Yeah. But I did wanna mention this. So, Ankit, you’ve only been with us for a year. However, I can see the impact you’ve had on your community. And you talk about, you know, that close knit inclusivity.

Glenda Pereira: 14:01

I think your programs that you’ve offered over the past year have added to that. You’re bringing people together in a shared space and they even if it’s not, you know, there’s multiple farms, I think you’ve picked topics that are kind of neutral where folks can talk about and just, you know, grower to grower, they come to the meeting that you facilitate. And and they can have that space to share, oh, hey, you know, like, the price of gas or any of those topics that affects the mall, but it’s not about that specific commodity they’re in. So I just wanna share that I think you’re doing a good job Oh, thank by being that resource for them as well.

Ankit Singh: 14:36

This spring, I’m hosting five talks in the York County seminar series. And the first topic, which actually is the most requested you wanna take a guess what that topic is? Don’t Agri tourism.

Glenda Pereira: 14:49

That’s amazing.

Ankit Singh: 14:50

Everybody wants to make so much more money and they can. They should. And so we will be able to help them. We have great resources. So one of the biggest challenges for new farmers are land access.

Ankit Singh: 15:01

We find that new farmers, especially immigrant communities or communities that have been socioeconomically disadvantaged, who don’t have resources, they can’t just wake up one day saying I want to be a farmer. And that is why they can reach out to extension. Competition for agricultural land due to solar farms has limited the available farmland and this is one of those double edged swords but rising land costs driven by agritourism and coastal views has made farming less viable.

Glenda Pereira: 15:35

Right.

Ankit Singh: 15:36

And so another issue is cold storage, processing and transportation. And that also has to do with labor shortage. We don’t have enough meat slaughtering processing within Maine.

Glenda Pereira: 15:48

Yeah. Transportation is a limitation of farmers in Maine. We talked about that some in our episode with Kevin Woltemath at the Ag Trade Show, but our my cohost, Colt Knight, our colleague, Colt Knight, he’s he has a meat cutting school, which tries to get at some of, you know, the increased processing capacity internally. Obviously, not bringing a new plant online, but absolutely, it’s a limitation.

Ankit Singh: 16:13

Another thing is urgent need for locally processed food to support Maine’s agricultural industry. And here’s an interesting fact, only three-four percent of food consumed in Maine is actually local that is grown. And there is this 02/1930 goal where the goal is to grow 30% of food within Maine by 02/1930. And I’m curious and very excited to do whatever I can and whatever extension can to get us to that goal. Yeah.

Ankit Singh: 16:47

And we find that local policies and regulations often create barriers for small farmers and it’s not that oh, so to break the law, but yeah, extension is here to help people navigate that. So one factor is just climate change and weather variability. The hardness zone map has shifted. We are seeing increased frequency of extreme weather events. I started in 2024 and every farm I visit talks about the aftershock and the stresses from the excessive rain in 2023 it’s like I was here all of ’23 all everyone talks about is just how much flooding and

Glenda Pereira: 17:28

there’s so much variability in your growing seasons that it’s hard it’s you know, it’s a hard event to recover from.

Ankit Singh: 17:34

And it delays the blueberry ripenings. It delays ripening. It saturates the soil. It leads to a lot of issues.

Glenda Pereira: 17:40

But I think in your role and in in all of our roles, it is to conduct programs that, you know, in the county we’re in or in the space we’re in that provides that relevant growing medium to to farmers in that community. Right? So I’m sure as you develop in your career and in your program, you’ll probably establish a growing space and you’ll grow stuff that folks are like, hey, you know, I’ve never been able to grow this one crop here. And it just seems like with with all these changes in climate change, I’m like always finding a challenge with this or with that. And that’s our role in Extension and as researchers to find those solutions for farms as they adapt and navigate this new growing space that they’re gonna have.

Glenda Pereira: 18:32

It’s certainly a challenge, but I think it’s our role to facilitate some of that.

Ankit Singh: 18:37

And I’m excited to see what comes out of it because climate resiliency is something that we need to do and we have the resources to help. A few more challenges, and these are challenges I empathize with: workforce and labor issues in dairy farming, harvesting, general agricultural work. Increased mechanization helps, yes, but you still need a human presence. And then housing costs and inflation exacerbate workforce challenges, and it makes it really difficult for workers to afford living wages.

Glenda Pereira: 19:10

So absolutely. But I mean, I know you you say that these were challenges and I agree, but at the same time, I think it demonstrates the work we still have to do.

Ankit Singh: 19:18

Absolutely. Right.

Glenda Pereira: 19:19

And I think, you know, it it is our role to continue to help farmers adapt to these growing challenges. And we cannot solve them all.

Ankit Singh: 19:28

I agree. But we can try our best.

Glenda Pereira: 19:30

very And I think, you know, chipping away at some of them, increasing the training and educational opportunities will help with some of those.

Ankit Singh: 19:38

So in asking what gaps can extension fulfill, I want to talk about a litany of what I’ve identified as programming that obviously I don’t know much about but I’m going to find the people who can do it and then get people there. One is farm profitability, navigating grants and loans, Record keeping and taxation Succession planning Liability and risk assessment for agritourism Expanding farm based events Branding and digital marketing Regulations on farm stands and markets. When it comes to climate resilience and sustainable practices, there were a lot of requests on soil health and regenerative agriculture, water management and adapting to weather variability along with some interest in carbon sequestration and climate smart agriculture. Regarding labour and workforce challenges, people wanted to learn more about seasonal and migrant labor, employee management and training, and the H-2A visa program.

Ankit Singh: 20:45

For the pests and disease management, people wanted to know IPM hot topic: Organic versus conventional Energy efficiency and the last two that tend to be my favorite is hydroponics and soil systems and greenhouse automation and technology. So very excited about that. And with that, I wanted to talk about what have what I found for people’s perception of extension to be. And more than half of the people said they’ve thought of extension to be a valuable resource. Their parents have grown up with it.

Ankit Singh: 21:21

They’ve grown up with it. And the perception is that we’re not able to be out there as much as we used to, which is a reflection of the general trends that resources to extension have been reduced. But apart from that, I find that to be a general trusted source. So doctor Pereira, the in a nutshell, this is what I found on my try travels all across New England. It was a lot of fun.

Glenda Pereira: 21:47

Yeah. No. And you’re totally right. I’m really thankful that the role we’re in today was successful due to my predecessors. And sim similarly, in in your county, the the people who were in Extension before us really built the stepping stones for us to be able to come in and continue our programs.

Glenda Pereira: 22:10

Right? They really established those foundations with the community and relationships. And so we’re really thankful for for those folks that came before us that did that work.

Ankit Singh: 22:19

And they laid a great foundation. Yeah. I’m actually very intentional about trying to be in person. I haven’t done any virtual programming yet. I will avoid it as long as I can because people really like being together.

Ankit Singh: 22:29

Yeah. And I love food. So I try to make sure that every Extension event has food. And that actually has been a great thing because people love to socialize and catch up with each other. Yeah.

Ankit Singh: 22:39

It’s amazing.

Glenda Pereira: 22:40

It’s that’s I mean, you you’ve hit all the points, you know. Having food brings folks together so you’ll probably have very well attended programs. So I’ll put in the show notes where folks can find you and where they can find your events. But doctor Ankit Singh, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Of course.

Ankit Singh: 22:59

I appreciate it.

Glenda Pereira: 23:03

If you want to reach out to us here at the Farmcast or if you have concerns, comments, or suggested episodes, be sure to email us at extension.farmcast@maine.edu.

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