The 2025 Maine Farm to Institution Summit will be held on Tuesday, October 14th, at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

Summit Schedule:

8:00 - 9:00am Registration and Breakfast
9:00 - 9:15am Welcome Remarks
9:15 - 10:15am Opening Session
10:30 - 11:45am Breakout Session 1
11:45 - 1:00pm Local Food Show / Exhibitor Fair
12:30 - 1:30pm Lunch
1:45 - 3:00pm Breakout Session 2
3:15 - 4:15pm Closing Session
4:15  - 4:30pm Closing Remarks

Colby College

4000 Mayflower Hill Drive

Waterville, ME 04901

Cotter Union and Lovejoy Building

https://map.colby.edu/

 

Summit Sessions at-a-glance

Breakout Session 1

  1. Reeling in Opportunity: Basics of Bringing Local Seafood to Institutions

  2. Boston Public Schools: A Case Study

  3. Public Policy Can Strengthen Your Farm to Institution Work

  4. 2025 Local Food Count: Measuring Sales of Local Foods in Maine and New England

Breakout Session 2

  1. Meet Your DOE Regional Local Foods Project Coordinator and Elevate Your Farm & Sea to School Cafeteria Skills

  2. Improve Contracts to Increase Local Procurement

  3. Economic Impact Report for Organic Agriculture in Maine: 2007-2022

  4. Rotational Crops in my dining hall? Yes please!

  5. Farm to Institution Advocacy

Opening Session

Reimagining Food in American Prisons as a Catalyst for System-Wide Transformation

Film Screening – Seeds of Change and Q&A Panel

Join us for a screening of the acclaimed documentary Seeds of Change, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Maximilian Armstrong, lifelong farmer Mark McBrine, and other stakeholders featured in the film.

Seeds of Change takes us inside Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston, Maine, where Mark McBrine fundamentally changed the prison by launching an on-site organic farm. Since its start in 2016, the farm has produced tens of thousands of pounds of fresh produce annually transforming how food is grown, prepared, and served within the prison. Alongside the farm, Mountain View has built a culinary training program that prepares residents for meaningful job opportunities after release, while also inspiring the Maine Department of Corrections to scale this model across the state.

Seeds of Change invites us to consider how transforming prison food systems can ripple outward - reshaping our communities, our broader food system, and ourselves.

“I think food is the social issue of our time. Food is health, food is happiness, and it’s beautiful. It should be beautiful. Food is a beautiful thing.”
— Seeds of Change

Stay tuned for more details on Summit speakers and the full program coming out soon