page_title: Common Ground Country Fair
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Common Ground Country Fair / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Food court
context_page_description: The Common Ground Country Fair, also known as the Common Ground Fair, is an agricultural fair in Unity, Maine held the third weekend after Labor Day and sponsored by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. It was first held in 1977. The fair "celebrates organic living, farming and growing," and all the food sold at the event must be organic. The fair regularly hosts 50,000 to 60,000 people.
context_section_description: The fair began in 1977 in Litchfield, Maine. In 1981, it moved to Windsor, Maine and in 1996, MOFGA purchased 200 acres in Unity, Maine, where the fair now takes places yearly. 
  
  The first fair was held at the Litchfield Fairgrounds as a fundraiser for MOFGA. It raised $22,000. In 2016, a Portland Press Herald article about the fair's history said: 
  A very small item about the first Common Ground Country Fair ran in the Portland Press Herald on Sept. 2, 1977 under the headline “Fair to Have Extra Features.” The “few touches” that would make the fair “a cut above the traditional” were “a roster of speakers that includes Helen and Scott Nearing, renowned homesteaders and authors.” The story is 102 words long, which suggests that editors at the Press Herald had limited expectations for the future of the Common Ground Country Fair.
  In the Nov.-Dec. 1977 Maine Organic Farmer & Gardner magazine, Lloyd Ferris wrote:
  The Common Ground Country Fair was really too big to define in words. One is left with a lot of pleasant memory pictures; a lot of good thoughts. I will never forget, for instance, that incredible tent that looked a bit like an Egyptian pyramid or a star. And what food there was beneath it: The Strong Brothers’ egg rolls for which people lined up 50 deep, the Hungry Hunza sandwiches loaded with cheeses and sprouts and other good things, Mary’s home-made ice cream with hot apples, Krystina’s delightful bakery goods and that fine swichel (if I’m spelling it right) cooked up by the Sagadahoc County Chapter of MOFGA. It was a kind of hot cider mixture, they told me, consumed by workers long ago during haying season.
  In 1989, Hurricane Hugo flooded the fairgrounds and delayed the Saturday opening.
  In 2008, MOFGA installed water bottle filling stations to test the viability of banning the sale of bottled water. The test run was deemed a success and the sale and use of bottled water was banned the following year.
  Coffee sales were banned at the fair for many decades. By 2011 the rules had changed and fair vendors could sell organic, fair-trade coffee. 
  For the first time in 2017, the fair was powered entirely by alternative sources, including a 102-Kilowatt solar array, a series of heat pumps and a small wind turbine.
  In May 2020, MOFGA announced the fair wouldn't take place for the first time since its inception due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fair director April Bouchard said in a statement the cancellation "allows us to begin planning a marquee virtual event."
caption: The two food courts only serve organic food.
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