• Computer software for potato late blight prediction (NoBlight) has been developed and is in use in Maine as well as New Brunswick, Canada. In a survey of users, 95 percent of respondents saved money by reducing pesticide applications with 44 percent reporting savings over $2,000 per year from using NoBlight.
   
• One hundred percent of the 123 farming operations producing for McCain Foods, Inc. are USDA Good Agriculture Practices (GAP) compliant, using documentation developed by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Potato Program.
  • Because of the growers’ compliance and the ability for McCain Foods, Inc. to run a USDA GAP-compliant processing plant, over $55,000,000 is realized by these growers. This figure is based on the growers’ payroll, yield and production costs for a USDA GAP-compliant processing plant.
     
• Cooperative Extension completed a biodiesel project through which 1,000 gallons of biodiesel was processed locally from locally-produced canola. Extension faculty also worked with area farmers and businesses on further development of canola and corn as alternative crops in Aroostook County.
   
• Research is currently underway on improving the genetics of Maine’s beef herd in the Genetic Improvement Program, a program funded through a Maine Department of Agriculture Market Development grant.
   
• The University of Maine Cooperative Extension Maine Apprentice Gardener Program has been taught to over 80 students in grades 3-5. This program teaches students to be stewards of the land and provides insight into how and where their food comes from.
   
• 4-H is the youth development program of University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
  • Through involvement in their 4-H clubs and in the county-wide officers council, Aroostook County teens develop project-related leadership and communication skills. Twenty 4-H teens were selected in 2007 to attend state, regional and national leadership events from Maine to Kentucky to Washington D.C.
     
• During 2007 more than 600 home visits to limited-income Aroostook County families were made as part of University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s Eat Well Nutrition Education program, through which participants learn — in small groups, in schools, in their homes or through correspondence courses — strategies for expanding their food dollar and eating well on low budgets.
  • 1,407 adults received Eat Well program instruction via small groups, including all ACAP Head Start centers in Aroostook County. Public schools received nutrition lessons including the development of 14 gardens.

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