Maine Fibershed is building a local fiber economy
These soft, one-of-a-kind, small-batch yarns are made of wool from Nanne Kennedy's sheep at Meadowcroft Farm in Washington, Maine. Available in a rainbow of hues, the yarn is hand-dyed using solar technology, salt-water and non-petroleum, food-grade dyes. COURTESY PHOTO.
By June Donenfeld
LIKE CANINE CLOCKWORK, every morning there’s a leap onto the bed, a whiskery whiffle, a cold, wet nose, a furiously wagging tail and bright eyes. The message is clear: It’s time for a romp in the woods, the highlight of Phoebe’s day. I pull on a well-worn, blue cotton T-shirt, a pair of jeans and sturdy boots, and we head out.
But there’s a bigger story here. That t-shirt is not as benign as it looks. It took about 700 gallons of fresh water to help manufacture it, or enough to meet one person’s drinking needs for two and half years. The jeans are worse: they take 2,700 gallons. Add these two together, multiply by the immense number of garments churned out by factories globally each year, and the water it takes would fill 37 million Olympic swimming pools.
The worldwide textile industry doesn’t sip, it swills, downing about 4% of the planet’s drinking water resources each year. But the environmental toll exacted in textile production isn’t limited to water use alone. The bleach and chemical dyes used to finish clothing can leach into water systems, too. According to the European Environment Agency, textile dyeing and finishing accounts for 20% of worldwide freshwater pollution.
Even after garments are fabricated and sold, if they’re synthetic (and 70% of those currently produced are), there’s a further price to pay: Unless a washing machine has a special filter, when these clothes are laundered, especially when new, a staggering number of microplastic fibers are discharged, eventually reaching the ocean or freshwater systems. Just how many can be released from a single laundry load of polyester clothing, only to wind up in the food chain or taken up to crops through the soil? Try 700,000 on for size.
Given its immense size and outsized environmental impact, the textile industry is way overdue for a sea change, as is consumer behavior (think fast fashion, among other culprits). But as awareness grows of the critical role textiles play in the health of the planet, a growing number of organizations are working hard to right the ship.
One of those key players is the not-for-profit Fibershed, founded in North Central California in 2010 to help develop regional natural fiber systems that benefit both the ecosystem and community health through agriculture, manufacturing and public outreach. Since then, Fibershed has helped create an international, grassroots network to support the development of these regional systems in communities around the world. There are now about 50 affiliate Fibersheds, from North and South America to Scandinavia, Europe and Asia.
What is a Fibershed?
Northern New England Fibershed defines a fibershed as:
A geographical landscape that defines a resource base
A community organization that is building a climate beneficial local economy
A network of fiber farmers, weavers, knitters, slow-fashion entrepreneurs, soil activists and conscious consumers
A source for education focused on connecting consumers to the source of their clothing
A grassroots movement to promote the use of wool and all other natural fibers
Maine Fibershed is one of the newest members of the flock, gaining affiliate status in 2023. It aims, in its own words, to cultivate “a Maine-based natural fiber system that nourishes soil, protects land and supports our community” by educating the public and connecting and providing resources for the many fiber-related professionals across the state, including farmers, mills, designers, shearers, artisans, schools and educators.
“A stand-alone Maine Fibershed was important to help focus our attention and resources on the needs of our large and far-flung state,” co-founder Pat Harpell explains. To help meet these needs, Harpell says that the growing organization seeks to “build communication channels within and among Maine Fibershed resources, help ensure local needs are given full attention, and build a business model that helps us take advantage of state and local opportunities.” Maine is also a member of another affiliate, Northern New England Fibershed (NNEF), which includes New Hampshire and Vermont.
Harpell notes that there are clear benefits to being part of the NNEF, including access to additional skilled sheep shearers and the knowledge members can share about emerging markets, like processing waste wool into pellets for use as fertilizer or mulch. “When we combine the depth and breadth of generations-old knowledge among farmers, mills, dyers, spinners, weavers and so on,” Harpell says, “we have a breathtaking collective of wisdom to be cultivated and passed onto future generations.”
Maine Fibershed may be young, but it’s been busy. Over the past year, Harpell reports, as part of their efforts to make natural fiber clothing and household textiles the norm again, not the exception, they’ve been building a statewide database and directory (still a work in progress) that reflects all aspects of the soil-to-soil network.
Through this information gathering and one-on-one outreach, they’ve also connected farmers with shearers and dyers with textile artists, and informed local soil and water conservationists about using waste wool instead of plastics to control erosion.
Educating the public is a vital component of the Maine Fibershed mission, too. To help people keep synthetic fibers out of the land and water, they work to inform them about the environmental havoc these fibers wreak, as well as, Harpell says, “the toll that fast fashion takes on the environment and the low-wage labor that is employed to make it.”
The feeling is mutual: Nanne Kennedy snuggles with one of the members of her beloved flock. PHOTO: DAVID DOSTIE
One of Maine’s longtime, big-picture, forward-thinking members of the natural fiber community is Nanne Kennedy, owner of Meadowcroft Farm and Seacolors Yarnery in Washington on the Midcoast. After college, she decided to take the plunge into sheep farming, first working in Maine, then New Zealand. On her return to Maine, she got an advanced degree in Agriculture and Resource Economics by studying at night while working on a farm during the day.
Running her own business since the early 1990s, Kennedy has profound knowledge of grazed wool and how it can work its magic, from enriching the soil to providing material for beautiful, healthful, sturdy products that can be used in our everyday lives, from sweaters to blankets to rugs. She’s also an outspoken advocate for the important part wool can play in combating climate change. “First of all, half the weight of wool is sequestered carbon,” Kennedy says. “Imagine an animal with a superpower to turn high-quality grass into [a material that] stores carbon, offsetting [the damage from] petroleum-based synthetic textiles, then returns as a composted product at the end of its life.” But the sheep do even more. As long as they graze on permanent ground cover—which is key, notes Kennedy—“they are building microbial life and increasing the capacity of carbon drawdown in the soil, which is the safest place to store it, having far fewer risk factors than, say, trees, which are subject to fire, pests and blowdown.”
To keep her carbon footprint as small as possible, Kennedy’s vision has always been to source and manufacture within a five-hour radius and, as she says, “keep farms and mills alive and kicking, while educating consumers about the benefits of shifting to products which do not destroy or pollute their backyards. If we can actually make our backyards better, or economies revitalized, then we all win.”
Wool is indeed a remarkable material. But will the day come when I’ll be able to throw on a tee and jeans that are 100% produced-in-Maine, including the fiber? Could we eventually grow our own cotton here, in ways that restore the earth, not harm it? That remains to be seen, as it’s uncertain whether it could be a viable crop in this region. In the meantime, though, we can certainly try to use clothing and other textiles that don’t take such a heavy toll on the environment.
As Kennedy says, “Restore the land, and it will restore us. That should be a basic credo for all of us.”
Amen to that.
Seacolors Yarnery’s bioregional products—yarn, blankets and garments—are hand-crafted from wool sourced, scoured, spun, knitted or woven within a five-hour radius of the farm. COURTESY PHOTO.
Natural dyers in Maine
Maine has an impressive array of accomplished natural dyers; here are some of them:
On the cover: Sebago Lake is a giant among Maine’s lakes and the deepest, too. With coves and forested inlets and opportunities to sail, angle, swim and camp, the lakes region is a favorite for summer adventures.