Annual Mad Farmer Award CEremONY

The Mad Farmer Award is inspired by Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry and includes a $1,000 cash prize awarded annually to a Maine Farmer. The ceremony is designed and led by students in our Spring Semester program and includes original music and poetry (along with the words of Berry and Kimmerer). The award celebrates farmers who exemplify the values and contrariness of Berry’s Mad Farmer - who like the fox makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction, and who refuses to have their mind punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer, and who puts their faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years and who plants sequoias.

Join us for the 2026 Annual Mad Farmer Awards Ceremony

May 5th, 4:00-5:30pm

Space is limited | RSVP Required

This year’s award goes to…

Ben Whatley, an organic farmer, father, son and lifelong resident of Topsham, Maine. Ben went away for school and some travels, majoring in comparative literature at Oberlin with studies abroad in Germany and Russia, but returned in 2011 to start a farm with his parents Nick and Laura on the homestead where he grew up in the stone and tile business. Inspired by Wendell's vision to firmly plant roots and "have the wisdom to survive, to stand like slow-growing trees on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it," they have transformed the rural industrial landscape around the old masonry shop into a working farm, and opened up old farm fields in the neighborhood. Whatley Farm has been at the Brunswick-area farmers markets for almost 15 years now, although Ben is mostly working behind the scenes now, rather than standing behind the booth. He also serves on the board of the Maine Federation of Farmers Markets, which supports market organizers and runs food-access programs statewide, and has been a mentor to local students and beginning farmers. In Topsham, he is a member of the Bike and Pedestrian Committee, which is working to make the roads safer for all users. He loves cooking, getting outside with family and friends, playing music, and spending time with partner Laura Beth and their kids Edith and Selby.

PAST AWARD RECIPIENTS

  • Senator Craig Hickman of Winthrop is an organic farmer, poet, author, and small business owner. A Harvard graduate and National Poetry Slam Champion, he brings creativity and conviction to all he does—whether harvesting produce on his diversified farm and B&B on Annabessacook Lake, or advocating for food sovereignty and rural resilience.

    A longtime champion of local food systems and community self-reliance, Hickman co-authored the first-in-the-nation Maine Food Sovereignty Act and led efforts to pass Maine’s Right to Food Constitutional Amendment, making Maine the first state to enshrine the human right to food.

    His deep roots in farming and poetry inform his public service, guided by values passed down from his parents—Civil Rights activists who taught him to blend personal passion with civic purpose. He lives and farms in Winthrop with his husband of 26 years.

  • Together Chloe and Bill run Begin Again Farm where most the produce goes to local food banks through the Mainers Feeding Mainers program. They adhere to “hard-corganics,” a term coined by Bill and defined as “a way of farming rooted in the natural abundance of the soil, seeking to sequester carbon and feed the soil microflora, eschewing the use of chemicals, and looking to a diverse community for inspiration and love, offering a vulnerable heart in return.”

    Bill has been a hard-corganic farmer for almost twenty years, providing the community with beautiful organic food and mentoring dozens of farmers to launch their own farms. Chloe grew up on her family’s farm in Nobleboro and started farming with Bill a few years ago. Chloe hails from rural Maine, is the Co-Director alongside Canyon Woodward of Dirtroad Organizing, which supports rural leaders and organizers across the country.  Chloe served in the Maine House of Representatives in 2018 and the Maine State Senate in 2020. She was youngest woman ever to serve in the Maine Senate. Chloe is also the Co-Founder/Advisor at JustME for JustUS–a Maine-based organization focused on rural youth civic engagement and climate justice–and the co-author of Dirt Road Revival.

    Chloe and Bill share the farm with Bill’s children, CJ and Eli, as well as Chloe’s dog, Elsie, and our beloved cows and chickens.

  • Rich Lee is the recipient of Seguinland Institute’s Inaugural Mad Farmer’s Award.

    Rich grew up in Queens, New York City, a stone's throw away from LaGuardia airport. He's always had a passion for the environment and conservation. He attended SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry before pursuing farming as a full time occupation, beginning in January 2011 as an apprentice at Buckwheat Blossom Farm, a diversified, horse-powered homestead in Wiscasset, ME. There he developed his skills as a homesteader, vegetable farmer, and teamster. He met his wife Kate there as well. They started Tender Soles Farm in Richmond in the winter of 2015. Tender Soles is MOFGA certified organic horse-powered vegetable and flower farm.

May Term students, Abby and Elie performing an original musical rendering of Wendell Berry’s Mad Farmer poem

 

Above: Our wonderful alum, Shay Mahoney, composed the following piece riffing on Wendell Berry’s Mad Farmer poem after a visit to Tender Soles Farm. Shay read this poem aloud during the inaugural Mad Farmer’s Award Ceremony.