The Maryland Humanities Council’s Lets Be Shore forum at Easton’s public library attracted a crowd of over 80 people on Sunday afternoon. Let’s Be Shore uses the humanities to bring people with divergent perspectives together for respectful dialogue, offering a platform for residents to express views on land use, agriculture, the economy and water quality on the Eastern Shore.
Three short films were presented, followed by a panel discussion by writer Tom Horton, filmmaker Ethan Goldwater, Queen Anne County poultry farmer Jennifer Rhodes and filmmaker Doug Sadler.
Two of the films were produced in 2010 by Cecily Pingree and Jason Mann, and were part of a Meet Your Farmer series about small farms in Maine. The short films told the stories of a young couple operating a 9th generation diversified dairy farm, and a grain farm, which although self-sufficient, has not generated much in profits for the past 50 years. The Meet Your Farmer films can be viewed here.
The final film, The Last Waterman in Wittman, produced by Ethan Goldwater’s ListenIn Pictures, shows a day in the life of Steve Jones of Wittman. The last waterman in his village and his family, Jones muses about the changes that he’s seen in this traditional Chesapeake way of life. You can view The Last Waterman in Wittman here.
Reacting to the films, Jennifer Rhodes noted that every film talked about change. Rhodes described how her family farm in Queen Anne has had to react to constant change over the generations, and that change is a constant in farming. She expressed concern about the farmer who talked about breaking even for 50 years, and that without the ability to generate profits, fewer farmers will continue.
As an Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension Educator for the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension in Queen Anne’s County, and a poultry farmer, Rhodes understands firsthand how government regulations impact local farmers and believes that government needs to reduce regulatory pressures on the agriculture community.
Environmental writer Tom Horton noted that the longer he lives, the less he worries about what exactly is going to be harvested from the land and waters of the Shore, and worries more that the option to grow and harvest be preserved.
“Years ago”, he said, “we harvested caviar and sturgeon from the Bay, and the oyster industry was huge. On land, furs and tobacco were the engines of local economies, and that’s shifted now to corn, beans and poultry. With development pressures from all directions, retaining open farmland for future use is critical. We need to stop growing houses. We talk about smart growth, but we don’t do it. If sprawl development continues, we’ll lose the other options”, he said.
Breaking into four small groups, participants were given the opportunity to share their own reactions to the films.
In one small group, Choptank Riverkeeper Drew Koslow talked about the effects from pollution that he sees everyday on local waters, and the need to keep agriculture accountable. In an effort to learn exactly where his own food comes from, Koslow recently took up hunting, and he shared how that has shifted his perspective about the food on his table.
Rhodes described some of the economics of poultry farming, and Sue Simmons, Director of Parks and Recreation in Caroline County talked about the social, political and economic changes that she’s seen in the region over the past 20 years.
Discussion about the real costs of “cheap food” centered around a broader question of how food production has changed and may now be shifting yet again, as many young farmers and producers are choosing to go back to smaller, diversified, sustainable operations and direct markets. Environmental health specialist Hasan Wilson spoke to the need to educate everyone about groundwater pollution, and suggested that more efforts directed toward elementary education can have a far ranging effect.
Talbot County Planning Commissioner Tom Hughes said that he was encouraged to see the film about the young farmers in Maine, “those are the kind of small farms we need to support”, he said, “sustainable and diversified”. He shook his head, “but the deck is stacked against them”.
Small group discussions such as these, with stakeholders from different backgrounds and differing opinions, are critical for broad-based public engagement in making decisions about public lands, development and clean water priorities and strategies. The Maryland Humanities Council’s Let’s Be Shore program deserves credit for being a productive vehicle to facilitate these discussions. We can only hope that further opportunities for this kind of community development work will be pursued , bringing together even more of us to understand critical issues on the Shore today and to begin to make headway in choosing local strategies to protect our natural resources.
Two final Let’s Be Shore public events will be held in October.
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Rhonda Thomson says
The Chesapeake Film Festival was happy to partner with the Maryland Humanities Council to bring the first of three “Let’s Be Shore” programs to the area. With a motto of “Watch. Think. Discuss.”, CFF felt there couldn’t be a better fit than a program designed to use film as a catalyst for respectful, thoughtful dialogue. We hope to continue to partner with the Maryland Humanities Council and other organizations to bring meaningful, relevant content and discussion to the Eastern Shore.