Backyard Farms was drawn to this rural Madison paper mill town in 2006 because of Governor John Baldacci’s Pine Tree Development Zone tax incentives, cheaper electricity, available land, and the workforce. It harvested its first crop of tomatoes in its 24-acre greenhouse in 2007.

The greenhouses have high-tech lighting that gives the plants the same amount of light year-round, regardless of outside conditions. So, the growing season never ends. The rain and melted snow from the roof is captured to irrigate the tomatoes and imported bees pollinate the plants. Backyard Farms tomatoes are left on the vine to ripen and shipped within just a day of harvest, creating a tomato that is sweet and fresh.

The expansion is projected to be complete by the end of the year, which means the company will hire several more people. Bringing the total workforce up to 200.

The success of their previous tomatoes called for more space to grow different tomato varieties and test various growing methods. The testing of different products might lead to a type of tomato the company may grow in larger greenhouses. It could also lead to another greenhouse construction.

Backyard Farms currently operates 42-acres of greenhouse growing space that provides the Northeast with fresh, locally-grown tomatoes year-round.

University of Maine Cooperative Extension fruit and pest management specialists, who discovered a destructive non-native fruit fly in five Maine locations, are working with counterparts across the country to collaborate on the latest research about the tiny, spotted-wing Asian fruit fly in an effort to protect 2012 crops.

“Our concern is if you get the spotted wing drosophila in low-bush blueberries — 50,000 acres — it would be disastrous, just devastating to our current Integrated Pest Management program and the crop,” said Jim Dill, Extension educator and pest management specialist in Orono. “And it’s a question of when.”

The fly has made it to Maine just after being discovered in California four years ago.

According to Dill the Drosophila suzukii fly poses a serious threat to Maine fruit growers’ blueberry, strawberry, raspberry and potentially other soft-skinned fruits and possibly even vegetables.

Maine’s blueberry harvest in 2011 exceeded 80 million pounds. The crop value was estimated at about $190 million, with a statewide economic impact to the economy of more than $250 million.

Dill and Extension blueberry researcher Frank Drummond have been monitoring fruit fly traps around the state looking for early detection of the fly that comes from Asia and has spread in the last four years from California to states in the northern and southern United States. In September of 2011 Dill discovered them in five locations in Maine — in a tomato greenhouse in Berwick, raspberries in Limington, Newcastle and Monmouth, strawberries in Farmington and most likely, though unconfirmed, in high-bush blueberries in Clinton.

The Asian fruit fly is particularly destructive because, unlike common fruit flies, which lay eggs only in over-ripe, rotting or fermenting fruit, the spotted-wing Asian fruit fly has a serrated appendage — an ovipositor — used in egg-laying that saws through the soft skin of ripe and unripe fruit to deposit its eggs inside the fruit.

“It’s just as prolific as the vinegar (fruit) fly you find on your bananas, but those guys only attack overripe fruit,” said Dill. The Asian fruit fly “is now out there attacking unripe fruit hanging on the vine.”

Pesticide sprays are the only known control method but applications are expensive and must be done at least once a week, as opposed to a few times a year as determined through monitoring for current pests. Fall raspberry growers often never spray their fruit at all, and at least one grower informed Dill that he’ll go out of the business before applying the necessary sprays.

“We’re looking to see if there are any natural controls for it,” said Dill. “We’ve been working for years to try to reduce applying pesticides. . . there could be unintended consequences of spraying every week.”

The flies can be transported in shipments of fruit and vegetables and even blown by strong winds.

The threat is expected to be discussed at the annual Maine Agricultural Trade Show this week in Augusta.

“We are working to start our own certification system,” said Ichiro Fujikake, a forest economics professor at the University of Miyazaki and an adviser to Himuka Ishin no Kai Loggers.

Fujikake contacted Beth Ollivier, executive director of the Trust to Conserve Northeast Forestlands (TCNF), to learn more about the Northeast Master Logger Certification (NEMLC) program. TCNF then hosted the Himuka group last October as they traveled throughout Maine to learn from master loggers in action from Brunswick to Passadumkeag. Himuka wanted to see the reality of the NEMLC program, which fosters environmental stewardship. The Fujikake group included loggers, landowners, a town councilor, and an executive director of a sawmill.

“They are going to be using our program as a model for their program,” said Beth Ollivier. “Here they are, halfway around the world, and modeling their program after us.”

Maine’s overall landmass amounts to 20 million acres, of which 17 million acres are forest. Maine’s logging industry was the first in the world to establish a certification program to promote environmentally sound logging. Under Governor John Baldacci’s wood certification program, 7.5 million acres have been certified. During his administration the amount of land in conservation tripled from 6 percent of the state to 18 percent.

The Japanese logging group Himuka Ishin no Kai Loggers tour Pleasant River Lumber Mill in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine.

As in Maine, forestry is a traditional industry in Miyazaki, Japan, where two-thirds of the land is forest, about 40 percent of which is planted. In 2003 a couple dozen loggers in Miyazaki formed a group called Himuka Ishin no Kai. A major goal of Himuka is to promote environmentally sound logging in the region.

“We deeply appreciate the NEMLC program. We anticipate that this trip will be a very good opportunity for us to learn from your valuable experiences and have an exchange between professional loggers in the two countries,” said Fujikake. “Himuka and I have taken the NEMLC program as our model.”

Nine goals guide master loggers in their work. They take into account water and soil protection, while sustaining the forest ecosystems. On the business side, the companies must excel in workplace safety, continued improvement and innovation, and business viability. In Maine, 88 logging contractors are certified under the program.

The Himuka group visited Tom Cushman’s Maine Custom Woodlands in Brunswick, which is a fully mechanized timber harvesting and excavation company. Cushman is the current president of TCNF and Professional Logging Contractors of Maine. They also visited active logging sites in Lincoln and Passadumkeag, as well as Pleasant River Lumber Mill in Dover-Foxcroft and Linkletter & Sons, Inc. in Athens.

Himuka Ishin no Kai Loggers capture images of Maine Master Logger’s in action at Madden Timberlands, Inc. in Passadumkeag, Maine. The group wants to take “best practices” home.

The goal of the NEMLC program is to improve the health of working forests through accountability. The program was the recipient of the world’s first SmartLogging certificate — an international harvest standards recognition by the Rainforest Alliance’s SmartWood program.

In September the University of Maine School of Forest Resources received a $25,000 research grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to take a close look at the Northeast region’s logging industry, including examining its infrastructure, capacity, workforce, and issues that affect its economic health and future.

Nearly 500 volunteer gardeners in about a dozen counties this year donated the nearly 90 tons of vegetables and fruit to 114 food pantries, shelters or charitable organizations around the state, according to Extension educator Barbara Murphy in the South Paris Oxford County office. Murphy, who oversees the program, values the produce at $303,713, based on a sales price averaging $1.69 per pound.

The number of participants more than doubled from 200 in 2010 and the number of organizations benefiting from the gardeners’ generosity more than tripled, from 45 last year. Murphy calculated that farmers and gardeners collectively logged 5,890 hours in this year’s Harvest for Hunger effort.

Murphy considers the program, which is still receiving donated produce as the growing season winds down, highly successful given the challenging, if not poor growing conditions throughout much of the summer. Inconsistent rain, combined with hot, dry periods, took an especially large toll on winter squash, “which always adds tons to the totals,” she said.

Donated fruits and vegetables have increased in volume each year, as has the number of gardeners participating, in addition to the need, Murphy says. Since 2000, volunteers have donated almost 542 tons of fresh produce to the Extension’s Harvest for Hunger program.

Participating counties producing the most produce for the program are listed in order: Kennebec, Penobscot, York, Oxford, Washington, Hancock, Franklin, Cumberland, and Knox, Waldo and Lincoln combined, Piscataquis and Somerset.

In addition, Highmoor Farm in Monmouth and university experimental gardens contributed more than 6 tons. Murphy says with as much as 20,000 pounds anticipated from Androscoggin and Penobscot counties, the grand total could reach 100 tons, the amount donated in 2010.

“Abandoned” and its accompanying soundtrack were commissioned by The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation to raise awareness about the economic hardship family farmers face in the increasingly industrialized American agriculture system.

In the film, director David Altobelli tells the story of three boys exploring an empty house late one night. The boys break into a farmhouse that was clearly abandoned in a hurry some time ago. As the three explore the house – and even begin to vandalize it – one boy slowly comes to see that the family that lived there was not so different from his own. He realizes that the house they are trashing could foreshadow the future of his own family’s farm and home. A frightening moment in the house sends the boys running back to the comfort of their still-functioning farms.

On the soundtrack, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs covers Willie Nelson’s country music classic “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys.”