Event

Betting the Farm

In February 2009, H.P. Hood, one of the largest dairy companies in America, announces that it will not renew the contracts of eight organic dairy farmers in rural Maine. With no other dairy companies willing to send a milk truck to northern or eastern Maine, the farmers are left with two choices: quit farming altogether or find a new way to do business.

Farmers Vaughn Chase, Richard Lary, and Aaron Bell--along with the other farmers dropped by Hood--band together to launch a new, entirely local milk company, Maine's Own Organic Milk Co., or MOO Milk.

The company is owned by the farmers themselves. If it succeeds, it could prove a model for sustainable, small-scale farming and local agriculture. But the road is rocky. The milk cartons are leaking, there is no money to advertise, and they're simply not selling enough milk. The farmers and their families struggle to make ends meet as they get the company off the ground. Faced with slow sales and mounting bills, can the farmers hang together long enough for the gamble to pay off? Or will they be left worse off than before?

* 7pm screenings will have a Q & A with directors in-house