BANGOR, Maine — The United Farmer Veterans of Maine is honored to announce an agreement between our organization and the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry to promote and market Maine veteran grown agricultural products. The agreement signifies mutual marketing efforts to promote a new “MaineGrown by Vets” label. The label will offer all Maine veterans the opportunity to showcase their products as a veteran produced product off a veteran owned farm in Maine.
This official signing will be the capstone event this coming weekend at the Annual Meeting of UFVM at their Bangor offices located at 45 Columbia Street, Bangor, Maine on November 18.
This agreement is very important in showing all military and veterans across America that Maine is not only open for Agricultural business, but our State has opened “both barn doors” to any and all military and veterans looking for a great place to move, retire, or begin farming. The future of Maine agriculture is promising, and with veterans, that future looks even better. What a way to honor our veterans here in Maine by purchasing a local Maine grown product from a veteran owned farm!
- CMO – Mark Wellman, 207-478-7723 or
- CEO – Jerry Ireland, 207-322-7625
- ufvmaine@gmail.com
- www.ufvme.org
About “MaineGrown by Vets”
United Farmer Veterans of Maine is a 501c3 nonprofit organization with members in three distinctions: Veterans, Patriots and Associates. Its goals include promoting and educating veteran owned agribusinesses, developing expanding marketing opportunities, and providing jobs and housing for transitioning veterans who have an interest in farming. UFVM also provides community breakfasts, education for prospective new veteran farmers, a Pets for Vets program, and additional services.
UFVM is proud to announce its new “MaineGrown by Vets” label. This new label appeared on a limited number of products last this summer on veteran farms across Maine. It replaces the previous label “Homegrown by Heroes” that was used here in Maine until July 2016, when its MOU with the Farmer Veterans Coalition in Davis, CA expired.
Many Maine veterans, especially our brothers and sisters who fought in the Vietnam War, did not as a whole embrace the “notion” that they were “heroes” and many struggled to label their products that way. With no other choice at the time, some Maine veterans joined because there was no other option. UFVM in order to better serve all it member veterans developed over several months a process to replace the “Heroes” label with this new MaineGrown by Vets brand.
This challenge created an opportunity for veterans all across Maine to get involved in a 9-month process to create a label ALL veterans in Maine could proudly display on their products.
Upon completion the new label was a huge success for ALL our veterans.
- It “looked agricultural”
- It put “Maine First” & allows each individual state to maintain ownership
- It identified “Vets” not soldiers in the label
- At markets across the state it made the veteran labeled products “fit-in” with other labels in agriculture
UFVM believes ALL veterans from ALL eras of service are very important in building the future agricultural economy of Maine, as well as the rest of the country. This new label marks not only a new future for veteran produced products in Maine, but it sets an example that can be duplicated in all 50 states.
–Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry
For more articles out of New England, click here.
