FREEPORT — United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that Wolfe’s Neck Farm Foundation Inc. has been awarded a three-year grant totaling $573,256 to support expansion of its Organic Dairy Farmer Training Program to other farms throughout the region.

This grant is from the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program of the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The farm’s Organic Dairy Farmer Training Program launched in 2015, and is a two-year residential apprenticeship based at the Freeport nonprofit farm. The farm aims to revitalize and strengthen the organic dairy industry in Maine and New England while ushering in the next generation of organic dairy farmers. 

WNF currently has four apprentices enrolled in the program and is accepting applications to fill four additional apprenticeships within the next year, bringing the total to eight.

FMI: www.wolfesneckfarm.org/dairy.