PORTLAND - People travel far and wide to come to Portland. Some have to taste the food, and others want to experience the scenery.

And some want to play in our dirt. Literally.

"This is like what we do back home," said Amber Smith. Home for this 16-year-old is Santa Cruz, Calif. "It's fun to do this with people from all over."

"This" would mean gardening, at the Boyd Street Urban Farm in Kennedy Park, to be exact. And "people from all over" would mean the more than 100 young people from around the country who visited the Portland area last week for a national conference on - you guessed it - farming.

It's the annual conference for Rooted in Community, an organization that works with young people in areas like urban agriculture, sustainable farming and environmental awareness.

But these folks didn't just happen to pick Maine at random. Local youth farming groups, such as Cultivating Community and the Local Sprouts Cooperative in Portland, as well as Lewiston's Lots to Gardens, are hosts for the whole shindig.

Conversations about sustainable agriculture can get dense at times, what with various methods of cultivating vegetables, the role of transportation, the viability of urban farming and the economics of the whole enterprise.

But on a rainy day on Boyd Street last week, the whole thing seemed simple.

"It's just healthy to grow food for yourself," said Agustin Nyapir, 15, of Portland.

A member of Cultivating Community, Nyapir stood with a shovel as others dug holes and pulled up weeds. He considered another reason: "And you don't have to spend money."

Yards away in another part of the garden, another group picked cherries from trees as cars zipped by on the nearby Franklin Arterial.

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