About the Maine Food and Agriculture Center

UMaine Alert

Posted: April 19, 2024 - 1:32 PM

At approximately 9:24 a.m. on Friday, April 19, a University of Maine graduate student was struck by a university vehicle on Long Road at the University of Maine campus in Orono. The student reports that they are at a local hospital with minor injuries.

Emergency services, including the Orono Fire Department, University Volunteer Ambulance Corps, University of Maine Police Department, Orono Police Department and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

The university vehicle involved in the incident was a Chevrolet Express van. It was being operated by a university employee.

Counseling services and support are available for students, faculty or staff who may have been affected. The Counseling Center can be reached at 207-581-1392 and the Dean of Students Office can be reached at 207-581-1406.

The scene has been cleared and Long Road is now accessible. An investigation is being conducted by the University of Maine Police Department with assistance from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office Crash Reconstruction Unit. Any witnesses to the incident are encouraged to contact Lt. Noel Santiago at noel.santiago@maine.edu.

The Maine Food and Agriculture Center (formerly Maine Agricultural Center or MAC) was created in 2000 to coordinate and expand UMaine research and educational services that directly benefit Maine’s food producers. Since then, we have expanded our mission, and we now serve food businesses, the aquaculture industry, and other parts of the Maine food system. The Center is designed to be a single portal for Maine’s agricultural and food system community to learn about and access relevant University of Maine System programs, resources, and experts.

The Maine Food and Agriculture Center is here to serve the public. You can access both extension publications and experiment station publications and other information from this website. UMS faculty and staff that are members of the Maine Food and Agriculture Center are publicly listed in our searchable Expertise Directory, and they are available to answer your questions. The directory will help you to identify faculty and staff with expertise closest to the topic of your inquiry.

In January 1999, the University of Maine asked the UMS Board of Trustees to create the Maine Agriculture Center with the intention of creating a “highly visible agricultural entity within the UMS; ensure responsiveness to the needs of Maine agriculture and ensure coordination between the University’s agriculturally-related academic programs of the Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension.” The creation of a center was a recommendation of a task force that was established by Chancellor Terrance MacTaggart in response to concerns from the agricultural community about the loss of resources for this sector of the economy within UMaine.

The creation of the MAC led to greater communication, collaboration, and joint faculty appointments between the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture (NSFA) and Cooperative Extension. In 2015, with funding from the University of Maine System Board of Trustees, the Center expanded to reflect the growing diversity of Maine’s food businesses.