Two of the Holstein calves born on an Old Town farm this fall will receive thousands of letters from schoolchildren across Maine. Throughout the academic year, kids will learn math and literacy with dairy-themed projects, get photos of and even video chat with the calves they “adopt.”
This national “Adopt A Cow” program, organized by an array of dairy promotion councils across the Northeast and Midwest, was brought to Maine by the Dairy Promotion Board two years ago.
Organizers hope it will reconnect children with agriculture and create future farmers as public and private groups across the state work to promote Maine’s strained dairy industry, which has lost a third of its farms since 2020.
This coming school year will mark Adopt a Cow’s third year in the state and its first at the University of Maine’s Witter Farm. Last year, 17,000 children across Maine participated from Fort Kent to Kittery. So far, 500 classes ranging in size from 10 students to 50-plus will “adopt” the two calves.
Though the program focuses on schools from kindergarten to high school, it’s open to any groups from nursing homes to daycares.
For Patricia Henderson, farm superintendent, the most important part of the program is showing students where food comes from. She believes many children and families have lost touch with the working force behind the food supply, and may not realize that going into farming could be an option for their future.
“There’s a reality that dairy farming is hard across the country,” Henderson said. “Being able to shed the light and be real about it will help open the eyes of people.”
Most of the university students who work on the farm, often attracted to the school’s pre-veterinary program, don’t come from agricultural backgrounds themselves, according to Henderson.
The college students will participate in the program too, writing replies to the letters their calves receive. In the spring, young students will get a tour of the farm and meet their calves in person.
Today, few high schools have agricultural programs and many kids may be a generation or two removed from life on the farm. Henderson said they might never know how the dairy industry works or that it’s an option for their future without a program like Adopt A Cow.
The state continued to heavily promote the Maine dairy industry this year. Gov. Janet Mills proclaimed June “Maine Dairy Month” in late May and called the farms the heart of Maine’s agricultural industry, rural communities and economy.
A task force was formed in April to investigate the struggles dairy farms face and recommend solutions to the Legislature.
Mills’ April supplemental budget included a $3 million extra payment to dairy farmers who face high production costs. Other changes in that budget resulted in another $4.1 million reaching the 200-plus dairy farms in the state, according to the governor’s office.
Those farms, which include sheep and goat dairy operations, spread across 700,000 acres of Maine. The governor’s office estimated in May that the industry provides Maine $1 billion of direct economic impact and $2 billion indirectly.
