Karina Graeter

We are beginning farmers in Maine looking to start a Katahdin  sheep enterprise in Southern Maine. Our goal is to use low carbon practices  to produce high quality meat and products from happy animals while  regenerating the land to promote resilience and sustainability.
 
Five years from now, our vision is that we’ve found a great farm property  with all the land we need to support an extensively managed medium-sized  sheep herd. While the land might not be ideal initially, we will be working  hard to regenerate and improve it for grazing and other ecosystem benefits.  At least one of us will be  working on the farm full-time. We will have  a successful small livestock enterprise for meat and ancillary products  (herbs, cut flowers, frozen meals, vinegars, etc.), and will be doing  research into products that can diversify our revenue stream and be resilient  to climate impacts. We will be pursuing opportunities for agrivoltaics –  grazing our sheep on solar farms or installing small scale solar in our  pastures to reduce farm energy use.
 
In this future all of our products will sold online to consumers and  restaurants, in local markets, and at a farm store on the property.  We  will partner with neighboring farms and producers to sell products at each  other’s markets and stores. Customers will come to visit our property to  purchase goods, learn about farming, and enjoy being out in nature with animals.  We will be exploring opportunities to produce and process halal lamb,  hopefully partnership with the Maine Halal Meat Cooperative.
 
We are in the process of putting together a business plan and would be  willing to share it with any landowner that is interested.  

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