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Maine Dairy and Potato Farms
Joining Forces
 Over the past century American agriculture became
increasingly specialized, with most farms focusing on producing only
one cash commodity. While this specialization created economies of
scale and management efficiencies and provided many farmers with
higher incomes, it is now revealing two major problems: long-term
soil degradation and increasing input costs. In an attempt to solve
the problems of specialization, some Maine dairy and potato farmers
operating near each other are managing their land as a coordinated
system while maintaining their specialization. UMaine researchers
have studied this coupling in depth and found that the combined land
base allows the potato farmer to expand production while maintaining
the same rotation sequence. As a bonus, the use of livestock manure
improves the soil quality of the potato acreage and replaces
purchased fertilizer, and according to UMaine Potato Ecosystem
Project data, will eventually result in yield increases of 6% to
10%. The dairy farmers benefit because they can increase the number
of cows since more cropping acres can be devoted to feed and the
additional manure can be spread over more acres.
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