Maine
As Maine’s farmers struggle through extreme weather, local restaurants feel the pinch – The Boston Globe
Scientists would soon find the culprit: longfin squid followed warmer waters into the Gulf of Maine migrating from farther south, which led to the collapse of the fishery. A decade later, as heating in the Gulf of Maine continues to outpace most bodies of water in the world, the shrimp fishery still hasn’t recovered.
The shrimp were an early sign of how changes in the climate can decimate a food source, affecting a harvest and the restaurants that depend on it.
Increasingly, those signs are hard to ignore. Farmers and fishermen around the state said erratic weather patterns are leading to regular crop failures, loss of infrastructure as roads and farm structures are battered by rain and wind, and more — issues that add costs and stress onto a livelihood that was already costly and stressful.
Restaurant owners — who also face dips in tourism during extended rainy periods, and expensive repairs when extreme heat pushes air conditioners past their limit — said local food is a core tenet of many of Maine’s vaunted restaurants. Losing those sources means losing a piece of what makes their food so special. Shipping food in from other places means sacrificing taste and quality, while also adding new sources of carbon emissions from long-haul deliveries.
“We get a lot of people in the restaurant who believe in the same stuff that we do,” said Jake Stevens, head chef and owner of Leeward in Portland. “They want to eat local food. They want to get organic food. But it does get to a tipping point . . . some people just can’t abide paying, you know, $75 for a pork chop. It’s just untenable.”
Independent restaurants such as Leeward are the fifth-largest employer in the United States, according to a recent report by the James Beard Foundation, and they are among the most vulnerable. More than a quarter fail in their first year of operation, and 59 percent fail in the first three years. While restaurant revenues have largely rebounded from the hit they took during COVID-19, it isn’t expected to last, as a warming climate impacts crop yields and drives higher inflation.
The worst of those impacts are expected in years to come, but already, some are showing up.
At Bumbleroot Organic Farm, an 8-acre plot outside Portland that sells vegetables and flowers to roughly 30 local restaurants, it’s been one challenge after another.
The summer of 2022, it was sweltering temperatures and little rain. Crew had to wake up throughout the night to irrigate fields and save the crops. The following year, the reverse — the rain didn’t quit. One field got so saturated, it never really dried out, causing entire plantings to fail.
“We have to literally be ready for every scenario, because it’s not just wet, it’s heat, it’s extended heat, it’s late frost, it’s early frost,” said Ben Whalen, co-owner of the farm. “The extreme nature of what we’re dealing with, even right now, is crazy.”
Leeward is one of the restaurants that get regular deliveries from Bumbleroot.
“The carrot that was $2 a pound is now $4 a pound because half the crop got washed away,” said Stevens. “That either gets passed on to consumers or we have to make tough decisions and not serve that stuff.”
When it comes to vulnerability and carrots, farmer Seth Kroeck knows the story well. This spring, a major storm dropped 3 inches of rain not long after fields of carrot seeds were planted at Crystal Spring Farm in Brunswick. Thousands of tiny seeds floated up from the quarter-inch of soil they were buried under. In the end, they were only able to harvest about 30 percent of the expected 18,000 pounds of carrots.
It’s not just the carrots. “In two of the last four springs, we’ve had a late enough frost that we’ve lost our entire blueberry crop,” Kroeck said. “Old timers” in Maine’s farming community have told him that no one can recall such frequent and severe losses.
Crop insurance and some business planning has allowed Maine’s farmers to squeak through, “but it’s been a huge challenge,” he said. Increased costs for labor, fuel, and packaging have further hurt their bottom lines.
Similar challenges are playing out in the ocean. In 2023, Maine lobstermen reported the smallest catch since 2009, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. While this year’s official numbers won’t be reported for months, locally, lobstermen report a more typical catch. It’s not yet clear what caused that, though winter temperatures in the Gulf were not as warm as they have been in recent years and lower bait and fuel prices may have led to more consistent fishing. Regardless, researchers expect that as the Gulf of Maine continues to warm, lobster will move north.
“It’s the slow change that really is going to be the problem in the long run, right?” said Matt Moretti, co-owner of Bangs Island Mussels in Portland. “It’s the constantly warming, slow crawl up in temperature” and the increased acidification, as the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide, which over time can weaken the shells of some ocean species.
Then there are unexpected acute events, triggered by climate change. A few years ago, when Moretti’s team went out to harvest wild mussel spawn, which they use to grow mussels for restaurants, instead of finding ropes covered in spawn, they were met with an ugly surprise: 100,000 pounds of sea squirts, an invasive species that’s becoming more common as the gulf warms.
“We could not capture the muscle seed at the time when we’re supposed to catch it,” Moretti said.
Both at sea and on the land, harvesters aren’t sitting back and waiting for the next crisis. Moretti has begun buying mussel spawn that’s more resilient to warming waters from the Downeast Institute, a marine research laboratory in Beals, Maine. Bangs Island is doing regular ocean monitoring to better understand how changes in the Gulf of Maine may be affecting seafood. They have also diversified, growing oysters and kelp in addition to mussels.
Diversification is key on land, too. At Bumbleroot, low vegetable sales last year could have been devastating had their cut flower sales not buoyed the business.
Meg Chase, whose family owns Chase’s Daily — a restaurant in Belfast — and grows food and flowers on 20 acres of their farm in nearby Freedom, is transitioning to no-till farming, a method that increases the drainage capabilities of fields. She’s also working with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, an arm of the US Department of Agriculture, to plan for resiliency and apply for grants.
One thing that’s top of mind: funds for a new farm road. “At this point, we can’t even access our fields at some points, because it’s too wet,” Chase said.
All this stress takes a toll.
Last year, as the fall came to a close, Whalen, of Bumbleroot Organic Farm, gathered his crew together to take their temperature: How was everyone feeling?
Over and over, he heard the same thing. “We put so much energy and effort into growing high-quality food . . . you do all this work, and then yet you get a zero,” he said. “Their souls were just crushed.”
This year, as the farm diversifies its crops and looks for other ways to become more resilient, they’re also seeking out ways to support each other, including a mandatory week of paid vacation during the summer for all year-round workers.
Soon, they’ll repeat last year’s mental health poll. “I think everyone’s gonna be at like, 80 percent,” said Whalen. “That’s a win. That’s a huge win.”
Sabrina Shankman can be reached at sabrina.shankman@globe.com. Follow her @shankman.
Now that deer season has wrapped up, hunters across Maine are returning to their usual off-season routine: processing meat, watching football and passionately debating the “right” way to hunt and fish.
Anyone who spends time in the woods knows opinions run deep.
So, what’s your hunting hot take? Is camo really necessary, or do deer not care what you’re wearing? Can they really smell a Swisher Sweet on your clothing? Should hunting licenses be harder to get, or should crossbows be classified as firearms?
It’s not just about laws, either — it’s about ethics, tradition and your personal style.
Your hot take might spark a friendly debate — or a fiery one — but either way, we want to hear it.
Share your thoughts in the comments or email Outdoors editors Susan Bard at sbard@bangordailynews.com.
Portland’s skyline is changing.
First, the iconic B&M Baked Beans brick smokestack came down. Then the 190-foot Casco building went up. And soon, the city will add a sweeping new Roux Institute campus and an “architecturally significant” expansion of the Portland Museum of Art.
But perhaps no change will have as much visual impact as the 30-story, nearly 400-foot tower the planning board approved earlier this month.
The proposal has ruffled feathers, with many bemoaning what they say sticks out like a sore thumb (or middle finger) on the city’s idyllic skyline. They fear if more high-rises pop up across the city, Portland might slowly morph into a northern version of Boston.
So will this project usher in an era of skyscrapers for Maine’s largest city?
Experts say that’s unlikely.
“We’re not expecting a windfall of 30-story buildings,” said Kevin Kraft, the city’s director of planning and urban development.
Under new zoning laws, only a small section of downtown along Temple, Federal and Union streets allow buildings as tall as the tower. That means even if there was an appetite for more high-rises, there simply isn’t much undeveloped space.
Furthermore, much of Portland ‘s peninsula is covered in historic districts, and “contributing buildings” can’t be torn down, Kraft noted.
Chapter 14 Land Use Code – Revised 12-3-2025 (PDF)-Pages by julia
GROWING UP
Vertical development, experts say, is a sustainable way to squeeze more housing into a smaller footprint, something cities have been doing for decades. And Portland needs housing in spades.
Last year, city leaders updated its zoning laws with the goal of allowing growth while preserving character. The overhaul included an increased maximum height for buildings in some of the city’s major corridors, permitting buildings up to 380 feet in a section of downtown.
That part of the city has always allowed the tallest buildings, but until last year’s recode, the maximum height was 250 feet. And that height cap was in place for nearly 30 years before it was even remotely tested when Redfern Properties built the 190-foot Casco in 2023, currently the tallest building in Maine.
The new proposal from Portland developer East Brown Cow Management LLC, tentatively called Old Port Square tower, would be twice that tall. It would include more than 70 residential units, commercial space, an 88-room hotel and a restaurant at the top, and is just one piece of a development project that could fill an entire city block.
Whether any other developers follow suit with similar proposals could depend more on market conditions than Portland’s updating zoning.
“People aren’t going to build speculative high-rises,” Kraft said.
If the building ends up being successful, though, it could be an important “proof of concept” for other developers in the area, said Tim Love, assistant director of the Master in Real Estate Program at Harvard University.
Love is generally supportive of the project, which he said is in a great location.
“A lot of these proposals don’t happen because at the end of the day, the financing doesn’t work or the numbers that were plugged in for rents aren’t supported by the underwriting,” he said. “So I think it would be good for Portland if this project is a success,” because it could lead to additional residential development downtown.”
And more people living downtown is exactly what the city needs, he said.
“I hope this is a model for more residential mixed-use development at densities that can extend the kind of not 24/7 but 18/7 life of the city all the way to the museum,” he said.
If Portland is going to get an influx of high-rises, it won’t be for some time, said Jeff Levine, a former planner for the city of Portland who now divides his time consulting and teaching urban studies and planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“I don’t think you get instant results in anything,” he said.
Real estate is complicated. Beyond just zoning changes, there are building regulations, financial restrictions and even simply individual personalities that impact whether a building will go up, Levine said.
FEAR OF CHANGE
Nancy Smith, CEO of GrowSmart Maine, a nonprofit that helps communities grow in sustainable ways, says the Old Port Square tower will certainly be symbolic for the city, but it’s not a “game-changer.”
Game-changers, she said, were the Franklin Arterial and the demolition of Union Station — projects that transformed the city (though arguably not for the better) and made a statement about what Portland wanted to be in the future.
But some feel like the tower could do that, too. It just might take time.
“We’re not (just) trying to capture the current moment, we want to anticipate the growth we could see in the next 15, 20, 30 years,” Kraft said. “We want to accommodate that growth (and) be more proactive than reactionary.”
Cities are constantly changing and evolving, he said. At one point, the Time and Temperature building on Congress Street seemed to dwarf those around it, including the Fidelity Trust building, which was once known as Maine’s “first skyscraper.” Now, they blend in.
Additionally, Smith said, the uses intended for the proposed tower area already commonplace downtown: a hotel, restaurant, apartments and shops.
Still, a big element of early opposition to the tall tower is fear of change, and that’s natural, she said.
“The challenge is moving beyond that deeply personal response to actually consider what you’re looking at,” she said. “This building has a lot of symbolic value. Portland is changing, but stopping the building isn’t going to stop that change.”
The shortest day of the year, also known as the winter solstice, is Sunday. Maine ranks among five states with the shortest winter daylight, with about 8.5 hours. Averaging day length across the year, Maine is also near the bottom, with roughly 11.5 hours, second only to Alaska.
Day length varies strongly with latitude, even within Maine. On Sunday, Fort Kent will see almost a half hour less daylight than Portland, with 8 hours, 28 minutes compared with 8 hours, 56 minutes.
Why acknowledge the solstice?
The winter solstice serves as both a scientific marker of Earth’s orbit and a cultural symbol of the cycle of darkness and light. It is a time to look forward to longer days and opportunities for outdoor recreation, including winter-specific activities.
Watch the sunrise or sunset
With such a short day, take time to appreciate the daylight we do have. Head to a scenic spot near Bangor, such as Black Cap Mountain or the Waterfront, or for a longer drive, visit Bass Harbor Head Light in Acadia National Park or Mount Battie in Camden. Watch the sun rise or set over the winter landscape. Cross-country ski or snowshoe these areas to make the outing even more exciting. Rent equipment if needed, and carry a headlamp. Don’t let the waning light shorten your plans.
Visit holiday-themed lights
The Stillwater River Trail in Orono features a free light display with tunnels and wrapped trees, open nightly from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
For those willing to travel farther, the Gardens Aglow display at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay lights up nature-themed paths with thousands of beautiful lights.
L.L. Bean in Freeport is always decorated with lights and holiday music, and the Cape Neddick Light in York has lights outlining its tower, keeper’s house and surrounding buildings.
Make winter crafts
After the sun sets, residents can mark the winter solstice with indoor activities such as creating seasonal crafts using Maine materials.
A handcrafted Christmas wreath made with Maine balsam fir brings natural holiday cheer to any home, and can be embellished with other natural trimmings like turkey feathers. Credit: Susan Bard / BDN
Options include wreaths and simple candle holders made from evergreens, pinecones and berries.
Many Maine land trusts allow public access to conserved forests and trails, providing materials for crafts with a permit. Creating your own wreaths and decorations is not only rewarding; they also make great gifts and are traditions worth starting.
Veteran leadership and talent at the forefront of Chargers’ late-season surge
Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan, wife sentenced to 17 years in corruption case
U.S. launches strikes in Syria targeting Islamic State fighters after American deaths
Hamline University student brags on video that he celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination
Crockett’s potential successor has repeatedly railed against US in reparations push: ‘It’s been evil’
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan, wife sentenced to 17 years in corruption case
U.S. launches strikes in Syria targeting Islamic State fighters after American deaths
Trump administration touts ‘most secure border in history’ as 2.5 million migrants exit US
How the reparations loan for Ukraine fell apart at the eleventh hour
Trump’s push to end transgender care for young people opposed by pediatricians
-
Iowa5 days agoAddy Brown motivated to step up in Audi Crooks’ absence vs. UNI
-
Iowa7 days agoHow much snow did Iowa get? See Iowa’s latest snowfall totals
-
Maine4 days agoElementary-aged student killed in school bus crash in southern Maine
-
Maryland5 days agoFrigid temperatures to start the week in Maryland
-
Technology1 week agoThe Game Awards are losing their luster
-
South Dakota6 days agoNature: Snow in South Dakota
-
New Mexico3 days agoFamily clarifies why they believe missing New Mexico man is dead
-
Nebraska1 week agoNebraska lands commitment from DL Jayden Travers adding to early Top 5 recruiting class