AUGUSTA — At the Maine Alpaca Association booth there were fuzzy socks and gloves for sale. At Paris Farmers Union’s booth, gallons of Iodine Teat Dip and Acid Dairy Cleanser.

There were pruning shears gentle enough for an arthritic grip at an adaptive farming booth, while at Scythe Supply, Emily Guirl stood ready to talk about the benefits of a custom fit, made-for-you-in-Down-East-Maine scythe.

“You’re standing upright and you’re moving from side to side and all the power comes from your legs,” Guirl said. “People will even use it to mow their lawn.”

Some ambition required.

The state’s three-day, 74th annual Maine Agricultural Trades Show is expected to draw close to 5,000 people by the time it ends Thursday at the Augusta Civic Center.

Ellis Additon, bureau director of the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, said Wednesday the show is about giving the general public a feel for agriculture in the state and connecting farmers with the newest technology and techniques.

“It’s a trade show and the trade show is the hub, but there are training sessions and all the agricultural organizations have their annual meetings here,” Additon said.

The event is free, each day packed with dozens of breakout sessions: “Update on Swine Health.” “Multigenerational Farm Communication.” “Introduction to Holistic Management.”

“Will Your Tractor Kill You?”

The 111 vendors were a mix of trade groups, business and service providers.

At the Maine Maple Producers Association booth, attendees were eyeing a raffle for a W.F. Mason hobby-size evaporator made in Porter. Eric Ellis, the group’s newsletter editor, said more people have been giving maple sugaring a try. 

“Knowing where your food comes from, making it yourself, there’s a lot of that,” Ellis said. “It’s a fun time of year. It’s a nice hobby. Once you do it, it gets in your blood.”

He was going into this next season with optimism. The groundwater levels are good and the trees seem healthy.

March and April will be key.

“The (trees are) resting right now, but they’re in good shape,” he said.

Brian Collins, a salesman at Waterman Farm Machinery in Wales, said crowds had been good. It’s a rare thing to sell a gleaming, $80,000 tractor at a trade show, but it has happened, he said.

“It’s more about planting seeds, I like to call it, and then following up after the show,” Collins said.

New cabs come with heat, air conditioning and CD players. Farmers often decide it’s time when they aren’t happy with their brand anymore or replacement parts are getting harder to find, Collins said.

“We’ve really reached out to the ag community, the fishing community, places that have been underrepresented,” said Mary Otteson Shaughnessy from her booth at Maine Community Health Options, the Lewiston-based health insurance co-op.

In the past, wives have frequently gotten jobs off the farm for the insurance coverage, she said. Now, with a competitive marketplace, Shaughnessy had people telling her they’ve been able to quit or cut back.

“They can refocus into the family business that they wanted to spend their time on anyway,” she said.

Alexandra Tomaso was at the show doing double duty. A business assistant at Pietree Orchard in Sweden, she’s also on the board for AgrAbility, which works in the state with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.

She had a table full of adaptive tools: gentle pruning shears, a vest with dozens of gel pockets that you can pop in the freezer to keep the wearer cool in the summer, an extra handle to add to a shovel for better leverage.

“The coolest thing, I think, is (AgrAbility will) come to the farms and they do free assessments,” Tomaso said, then point people toward finding the right help. “My boss just got an amazing wheelchair. It lifts all the way up so that she can actually harvest the apples. There are so many options that people don’t know are there. We just want to get the word out on how to stay safe and farm as long as you can.”

Tomaso was asking farmers if they had a safety plan in place: Were they modeling good behavior? Storing pesticides and gas safely?

“A lot of people are really comfortable with leaving their keys in their tractor, with kids around — not OK,” she said. “You can really hurt yourself. You’ll see at 2:30 what a tractor can do to you.”

The show runs Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

kskelton@sunjournal.com

AUGUSTA — The state awarded $430,000 in agricultural development grants Wednesday night to 11 farms and businesses, including Good Shepherd Food-Bank, as part of the Agricultural Trades Show.

Ellis Additon, bureau director of the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, said funding comes from interest grown on a bond account and isn’t awarded every year.

The grants were up to $50,000 and required some level of match.

Among the recipients, according to the department:

* AgMatters (Vassalboro), food safety education for Maine crop distribution systems;

* Crooked Face Creamery (Norridgewock), market expansion of a national award-winning artisan creamery;

* Downeast Salmon Federation’s Aquatic Research Center (E. Machias), Downeast Salmon Federation mobile smokehouse;

* Good Shepherd Food-Bank (Auburn), modern storage facility for year-round distribution of local farm produce to food-insecure Mainers; and

* University of Maine (Monmouth), increasing local plum production for farm market diversification.