Writing about Speeches, Meetings & Conferences-
The Maine Agriculture Tradeshow Conference 2022
I'd like to preface this blog post by saying that agriculture holds a place very dear in my heart and the annual Maine Agriculture Tradeshow Conference is an important event I have attended both in person and via the internet for a couple years now. My family and I have been directly involved in organic farming for a few years. This event is a wonderful forum for farmers and the public alike to come together and gather important and accurate data. It is a place to ask questions, develop stronger opinions, and be in the thick of state policy as it's unfolding. Food doesn't just have to do with our farmers, but all of us. We all eat, we all rely on food systems.
This year I was unable to attend in person but watched via Zoom and then today, I went back and caught up on the January 14th, 2022 presentation that I had previously missed. This particular conference was put on by three knowledgeable state leads on the subject matter with many other important figures also present. We hear from Nancy McBrady, who is the director of the Bureau of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Resources; Susan Miller, who is the director for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection- heading Remedial Waste Management; and lastly, we hear Dr. Andy Smith weigh-in from his position as State Toxicologist for the Maine CDC. The content was exceptional and the cadence was just right. We start out hearing from Nancy McBrady, who defines the PFAs contamination crisis in Maine as the agricultural world begins to deal with the fallout and Maine takes the national forefront for handling the issue. She relays carefully and concisely the importance of testing and addresses very key public concerns surrounding testing and the consequences it poses for landowners and homeowners alike.
Susan Miller follows with a breakdown of state-level implementations and resources. She highlights the state funding available under new legislation and breaks down the teams that have been assembled to handle PFA contaminated sites over the next few years. She states that where Maine is currently leading the crisis and how it is being handled, we face the issue of not having current federal guidelines and advisories. So while she is providing clean, concise information, she is also posing the realistic side of things where we are still quite in the dark about the issue. There is no misleading content or inaccurate analysis involved. This gives those following along the ability to understand where the information is sourced from and how we should utilize it based on merit/validity.
Andy Smith comes in third with empirical data that is available in regards to current assessments of land, water, plant uptakes of PFAs, product contamination, as well as formulations and chemical structures for this chemical family. He includes a segment on what we currently know and what we hope to know in the near future.
Overall, the conference is eye-opening not just to farmers or land stewards, but to the general public. There is a strong emphasis on expanding access to knowledge of this crisis since it affects everyone. The bottom line is that we truly don't know a whole lot yet, and the next few years will be crucial not just in public support and forum, but in developing the science and research available to know even more. The state is currently building an inter-agency website to address concerns and regulations and inform the public from one concise and data-derived initiative. This conference was not only crucial in the sense of what it delivered for data, knowledge, and the assessment of public opinion and concern, but in the manner of inclusivity. By the end of the two-hour speech segment, callers can weigh in with questions and concerns of their own and the panelists take turns answering to the best of their ability. This is heavily utilized, creating an atmosphere where questions are addressed first-hand in correspondence with the data and information, and accurate answers are doled out or fleshed out even if they cannot be answered to any deep degree at this moment in time. We can glean as citizens and stewards of the land, water, and airways in our state that collaboration is a paramount and ongoing process between several departments as well as cooperative extensions like UMaine, Maine Farmer's and Gardener's Association, and Maine Farmland Trust. This effort takes a community. Where we can discern that activity is high in this crucial matter, we can also find that advancement of science and legislation is important to providing the developing and ongoing framework that will deliver practical guidance for landowners and homeowners. Beyond that, developing good public knowledge and engagement. This conference highlighted key crucial issues in relation to public opinion, brought together a collaboration of three prominent members working on the issue to create an atmosphere of state bureaucratic cooperation, and created a network or platform upon which a lot of the future data and policy surrounding PFAs will come into the light and play out beyond the state level. This will be projected nationally. Where I utilized this in my own life would be interviewing a local farmer on PFAs contamination. She shared with me her own work here, including her trip across the country to speak on PFAs publicly in the western region. What we are doing here on a state level matters not just to other states, but in getting the federal government to take initiative and also provide valuable work and funding to continue the efforts and develop regulatory guidelines for an issue that is critical to food safety, drinking water safety, and the agricultural industry as a whole.
I highly enjoyed this conference and the deliverance of content versus reality. There was an emphasis on what we do know and how to source that information at the same time that there was a clear emphasis on what we still do not know and how we can expect that to develop in the future. It was relevant, concise, informative, and engaging. I would encourage everyone to get involved with PFAs, even if that's just educating on what exactly they are and how they are used widely in our culture. Education and literacy are our first tools and exercises in broadening public policy and shaping the values of our American democracy. We need edible landscapes to survive, public health to be prioritized, and regulations to be placed on manufacturers so that there is a sustainable future for generations to come. Conferences like this connect us all at a base level. We might learn something and then again, we may just also come up with more valuable questions to help shape future innovations and collaborations. Journalism is all about questions. I would go so far as to say that beyond journalism, life and culture are also heavily shaped by the questions we pose as a society and how we go about articulating and defining them. Journalism and life are synonymous with investigating. When we ask questions, read, and expand our awareness and exposure to ideas and possibilities, we are participating in our world and tapping into our higher potential.
Thanks for listening in. See you next time!
The following link will take those interested directly to the conferences covered on January 14th, 2022:
(150) January 2022 Maine State Agency PFAS Update - YouTube
The following link will take you to the Maine Ag Tradeshow homepage for more information:
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