FARMINGTON -- The Franklin County Agricultural Task Force is focusing on ways local communities can support farming by using agriculture as a tool for economic development.

The group consists of farmers, the business community, economic developers and town officials.

"When we talk about agriculture as a tool for economic development, we're talking about increasing opportunities for everyone in the region, not just the farmers," said Sandy River Farms' Bussie York, one of the organizers of a recent meeting of the task force.

Last April, York called for the formation of a task force at a standing-room only meeting at the West Farmington Grange Hall.

"I see agriculture as a sleeping giant. One that could, with planning, be one of the engines that fires up the county's economic future," York said. "It did it in the past; there is no reason why it couldn't do so in the future."

York was referring to the times when local farmers could sell just about everything they grew to the canneries that flourished here from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries.

Among the issues raised at that meeting were the need to attract young farmers to the area and increase the acreage in production; being taxed as other businesses; creating new markets and distribution systems; and growing bio-fuels such as corn.

Topics also included production of value-added products and of the importance of collaborative production, processing, marketing and distribution.

The task force has the support of the Greater Franklin Development Corporation, Maine Farmland Trust, Western Mountains Alliance and the Threshold to Maine Resource Conservation and Development Area.

Another farming advocate sees a resurgence in agriculture in Maine as the numbers of farmers rises and more land goes into production, he told an audience at the University of Maine at Farmington.

"There is $2 billion worth of agriculture occurring in the state and farming is one of the few industries in the state that is expanding," said John Piotti, a state legislator from Unity and the executive director of Maine Farmland Trust.

Piotti, a state representative from District 45 running for re-election and a leader in the effort to promote sustainable agriculture, also pointed a new bill enacted by the Legislature that enables communities to offer tax cuts to farmers who agree to protect their property through a 30-year easement.

The Trust is a statewide, non-profit organization working to protect Maine's farmland recourses with a focus on working farms. The organization has protected or is in the process of protecting 108 farms that represent nearly 20,000 acres mostly through agricultural easements.

It has also made 37 connections between people who want to farm and farmers ready to retire or who need to sell their land but want it to remain in production.

Piotti, whose talk before several dozen UMF students, staff and community members was on the future of Maine agriculture and the role of farmland preservation. He was invited by associate professor geography Matthew McCourt, whose class will be conducting an inventory and mapping farms along the Sandy River.

"Maine agriculture is incredibly poised for the future and is being driven by concerns over food safety, energy issues, the cost of transporting food and globalization. These all create opportunities to grow premier products close to market," he said.

He noted that a new Franklin County Agriculture Task Force is working towards the same goal. It is a group looking at ways to take full advantage of what many see as a widening window of opportunity for local farmers.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Census of Agriculture, the number of farmers in Maine and the number of acres in production have both steadily increased over the last 15 years.

"Maine has gained 100,000 acres of productive farmland that was not there five years ago," he told the audience.

The picture is not all rosy, he said. Commodity farms that produce products like potatoes, apples and dairy are struggling unless they diversify into specialty items in demand from local markets.

And land once used for agriculture is being sold to developers at prices out of the reach of prospective farmers and producers who want to expand.

Piotti said while Maine has the fifth youngest farming population it also has older people than any other state.

"There is a demographic freight train coming down the track," he said. "Most farmland is still owned by older people and that land is particularly vulnerable."

There are 1.2 to 1.3 million acres of good farmland in Maine and of that, 250,000 to 400,000 acres will be in transition in the next 10 to 15 years as landowners age.

"There is a need to aggressively preserve that land," he said.

Betty Jespersen -- 778-6991

bjespersen@centralmaine.com