Greenhorns has reached an important milestone with our 16 year anniversary in 2023! Thanks to many of you, we’ve persisted and evolved as a young agrarian institution, with an outstanding list of achievements, a beautiful archive of films and publications, a large national and international network, and a lovely campus in the historic coastal village of Pembroke, Maine. Thank you for your support over the years, and here's to a bright future ahead for Greenhorns everywhere.

Help us continue this work

Your tax-deductible donation to Greenhorns will help us support ongoing programs, expand our reach, and continue our work towards agrarian reform and a healthy future for all.

2024 is Greenhorns' seventh season here in Downeast Maine. With a new baby and a hugely diverse set of projects underway, we're dedicating this year to intensification, focus, and depth. This means fewer weekend workshops, and more residency-based programs.

Throughout the spring we'll get our site updated with our latest project updates. Here is where we're putting our focus this year.

• We'll host the Third Annual Pennamaquan Alewife Festival on May 24+25, alongside the Pennamaquan River in "downtown" Pembroke. Thank you to Maine Office of Tourism and Downeast Salmon Federation for supporting this event! 
  
  
• We'll continue expanding the Smithereen Farmstore and the shared-use Minke Kitchen, to feature and sell locally-grown produce and value-added products. This is a collaboration between Greenhorns and Smithereen Farm and is funded by a grant from the USDA Local Food Promotion Program.
  
  
• Greenhorns is producing the new "Local Food Map" promoting Washington County farm producers and products, based on the precedent-setting map done by WCOG's Judy East, ten years ago.
  
  
• We're hosting our seventh season of seaweed harvest and learning, and we'll release our seaweed episode of Earthlife.tv!
  
  
• We'll install interpretive trail signage along the Pennamaquan River View Trail, built by volunteers and our Americorps VISTA for public access.
  
  
• We'll support Sue van Hook's continuing MycoBuoys program, which is working on an alternative to plastic in aquaculture. We'll help especially with outreach, distribution, and media documentation. This project was incubated in the shed behind Grey Lodge, which it has now outgrown! It's supported by a Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant.
  
  
• We'll create and install a FarmHack studio, in the outbuilding behind Grey Lodge, showcasing Don Blair's water quality and greenhouse sensors as an exhibit. He'll be back for a workshop, as will renaissance "tinker" Lu Yoder, all organized by our wonderful FarmHack Fellow, Elizabeth Baumhoff.
  
  
• We'll hold increased public open hours at the Reversing Hall Agrarian Library. Librarian in Residence Lou Judge will host open days, improving public access and facilitating "Activist Scholar-in-Residence" programs. We'll also give attention to renovations and safety upgrades at Reversing Hall, thanks to the Steven and Tabitha King Foundation.
  
  
• We'll welcome back ARRT (Artist Rapid Response Team), for an art retreat working with Sipayik School and local youth to create public art at Pleasant Point.
  
  
• We'll welcome back artist Rosy Keyser, to renew the Minke Whale and Alewife signage. We'll have a few other artists coming for week-long residencies, details TBA.
  
  
• We’ll host more visiting chefs to work with Washington County's abuntant native plants including wild blueberries, chokecherries, sweet fern, sweet bay, and lesser-used seaweeds that are easy to process with our shared drying infrastrucure—with the intention of bringing these ingredients to more regionally common culinary use.
  
  
• We'll continue our collaborative work on the Maine Civic Halls Initiative, supporting and advocating for the restoration and continued use of civic hall infrastructure statewide. Join the list to get notifications about grant committee meetings, in-person gatherings, and pop-up exhibits. Write us at [email protected].
  
  
• We'll work on the next volume of the New Farmers Almanac, volume 7, theme "Premonition." We'll finally print the "Habitat Everywhere" Guide.

There's always a lot going on at Greenhorns HQ! Join us in 2024 as we deepen our focus and facilitate a shared exploration and celebration of this Downeast ecosystem we call home.

The Maine Civic Halls Initiative seeks to preserve, restore, and support the role of civic halls as critical rural community-building resources in Maine.

Drawing on the expertise of historians, government officials, community leaders, business owners, economists, and active grangers/Masons, and citing original research, Greenhorns and project partners Maine Preservation and Friends of Liberty Hall produced a report on the current status of civic halls of Hancock and Washington counties. 

We are part of an international collective of seaweed growers, lifelong harvesters, scientists and advocates. We believe that the seaweed aquaculture industry should be developed with a precautionary approach: conservation minded, at an appropriate scale, and with local ownership and control. Farms should be small scale until knowledge gaps can be satisfactorily filled and the impact on wild coastal ecosystems and coastal communities is shown to be minimal.

Read our position paper: A Precautionary Approach to Seaweed Aquaculture in North America

Read our contribution to LUMA ARLES AR#1: Aquaculture

Read the ETC group's paper: The Seaweed Delusion