Farms (And Others) On The Front Line: Columbia County
Last week we looked at how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting farm-fresh food access in the Berkshires. It’s time to turn our eyes westward to Columbia (and Upper Dutchess) County.
As in the Berkshires, trips to the supermarket have become an anxiety-laden exercise, making local farms and farm stores even more vital resources. Todd Erling, executive director of the Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development Corporation, is seeing farmers and those who distribut the good to consumers connecting like never before.
“Many farmers already had some direct sales, but now they’re working together with new strategies to expand farmer-consumer access,” he says. “CSAs are figuring out ways to aggregate other farmers’ products as well as their own. The Hudson Valley has developed a culture and a consumer/producer base that’s pivoting. There are still challenges and issues, but in the first few weeks of this, we’re hearing more stories of pivoting successfully than those that are failing.”
Groups like the Hudson Valley chapter of the National Young Farmers Coalition and a group of CSA farmers are all talking to one another, Erling says. They’re holding Zoom informational meetings and brainstorming to source products and notify one another of market opportunities.
Switching gears is the order of the day, and Field Goods should receive the fastest-paradigm-shift-to-fill-an-emergency-need award. Created in 2011 to deliver farm products on a subscription model to consumers at pickup sites, it later began offering a full line of products available to order. In response to the moment, though, the pickup sites are on pause.
“That model went away in like a day,” says Donna Williams, who founded Field Goods. “We did a huge pivot super fast to home delivery, and we’re selling more than ever.”
Field Goods started delivering to a handful of zip codes, and in the day we spoke, Williams had opened up eight new zip codes in Westchester and the Capital District. “Today, we’ve doubled what we did last week,” she says. (If they don’t deliver in your area, you can request it on the Field Goods website.)
The product line has broadened considerably while staying true to the mission of working with small producers. Along with produce, dairy and meat from local farmers, Field Goods has grocery items (coffee and tea, bread and pasta, honey, fruits and nuts, etc.) and still offers its original packages of curated fruit and vegetable bags.
What’s been a loss for farmers can be a boon for consumers, Williams says.
“We’ve got farmers coming in looking for outlets because their restaurant business has gone away. So we’re selling restaurant-sized packages.” Considering the current circumstances, buying a 25-pound bag of beans or a case of something doesn’t sound so crazy, and it's another way to help the farmers out.
Based in Athens, New York, Field Goods has a staff of 30 and seven delivery vehicles working seven routes a day. All employees have been retained and Williams has hired more.
“I get kind of emotional over what my staff has been able to do,” Williams says.
Ben Shute of Hearty Roots Farm also tells of the quick dance he’s performed to get his farm market in Clermont, New York, up and running.
“The plan before was that the market would be open two days a week in winter and early spring, selling our own storage produce and greens, and other regional products,” he says. “When the crisis started, we maintained our store hours but there was an enormous increase in customers.”
After limiting the number of people in the store, Shute switched to online pre-ordering and scheduling pickup at curbside. While there is some lack of availablility from small suppliers, Hearty Roots is able to provide a supply of its specialty — organic vegetables and pasture-raised eggs. The farm has still has storage vegetables from the fall, and thanks to its greenhouses, Shute says, they’re harvesting spinach, lettuce, kale, chard, parsley and arugula — lots of fresh greens that are so welcome right now.
We’re fortunate that good, healthy food is available, but Erling, Williams and Shute all express concerns about how the pandemic will affect their businesses going forward.
“We do CSAs, but it’s uncertain if we’ll be able to do drop-offs in the city this summer,” says Shute. “We’re seeing more demand for them, but we’re worried about the logistics of how this might work in the summer. What are the restrictions going to be? It’s nerve wracking.”
Williams of Field Goods believes there is going to be a long-lasting impact on the local food economy. “I wonder what’s going to happen with the big industrial farms when they don’t have the migrant workers.”
That’s an issue that Erling is wrestling with. Historically, farmers rely on the migrant and immigrant labor force for seasonal produce. Those programs are in limbo right now; many of the US embassies countries where immigrants currently reside are not processing paperwork. Could we use some of the domestic workers who have lost their jobs? Possibly, but they'd need to be trained. Those farm jobs might be menial, Erling says, but they’re skilled labor. Farmers would need to receive funding for training.
For right now, though, cooperation among farmers, small producers and delivery organizations is admirable and their pivoting is impressive.
“There’s a real ‘need to survive this together’ spirit that’s emerging,” Erling says. “That’s the glass half full side.”
We’ll take it.
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