User:Mainegrains

THE MAINE GRAIN ALLIANCE: The Maine Grain Alliance is a nonprofit organization based in Skowhegan, Maine, dedicated to restoring grain cultivation in the communities in New England and elsewhere that have the history and the potential to again grow the grains they consume. The Maine Grain Alliance organizes the Kneading Conference, the Kneading Conference West, and educational baking and farming workshops. The Kneading Conference began with the idea of producing a food staple, bread, entirely by means of a local process: Maine farmers growing grain, Maine millers milling grain, and Maine bakers baking with Maine grains. The incentive then and now is to provide new models of enterprise for farmers, create agricultural and related jobs in rural communities, preserve Maine’s agrarian heritage, and develop a sustainable food source for Maine. The success of the first Kneading Conferences spawned a partnering conference, Kneading Conference West, and the series of portable bread baking workshops for school children scheduled to begin the fall of 2011. The idea of bringing together the participants that can create grain networks of production and distribution, the farmers, millers, researchers, bakers, food entrepreneurs and writers, and eaters, has become a significant and successful model for rebuilding local economies, especially rural economies, based on production of local commodities.