Full Belly Farm, a 450-acre, organic farm, in California's Capay Valley northwest of Sacramento, is busier than ever trying to ramp up production to meet soaring demand.
Full Belly Farm, Taken from NPR’s Article, As Food Supply Chain Breaks Down, Farm-To-Door CSAs Take Off
The question, “where does my food come from?” has never been more important. With the overwhelming effects of coronavirus reaching far beyond the healthcare system, many of our fundamental institutions are being questioned and rethought. Many people turn on the news to see overwhelmed hospitals, talk about economic devastation, and farmers dumping food because their contracts with their normal buyers (restaurants, hotels, school and university food-service) have become irrelevant since people are forced to stay home.
What are farmers to do? Where do we get our food as the food supply “breaks’?
NPR’s Eric Westervelt published an article on May 10, 2020 about the how community supported agriculture is on the rise.
The coronavirus has exposed the vulnerabilities and fragility of the U.S. global agribusiness supply chain. The CSA model's focus on local and fresh is ideally suited for a crisis that has people deeply worried about germs on lettuce, beets or broccoli as the crops make their way from the field to the kitchen counter.
As Food Supply Chain Breaks Down, Farm-To-Door CSAs Take Off by Eric Westervelt, NPR
Community Supported Agriculture has typically been a niche market. To participate in a CSA, people buy a share of a farm's harvest, which often has organic produce, and it then gets delivered weekly in a box. Local, organic, and fresh! While there are many things to consider by the boom of CSA signups in the past few weeks, it has become clear that supporting farmers, the ones who keep us nourished and able to thrive, is not only crucial but needs to be properly supported, just like our healthcare workers.
And the new success brings new challenges. Many CSAs are now scrambling to find additional labor to plant, harvest and deliver produce to meet the moment. "We're totally able to produce so much more than we are, but we don't have the workers," said Redmond, of Full Belly Farm. "We're so stressed out by that that, you know, just knowing that there's going to be a difficult time getting workers, it just doesn't make any sense to ramp up production."
A big question for CSAs is whether the renewed interest represents a fleeting reaction to fear or a more sustainable, long-term trend.
As Food Supply Chain Breaks Down, Farm-To-Door CSAs Take Off by Eric Westervelt, NPR
One of the best ways we can help is know who are local farms are and sign up for CSA’s, not only in the short term during the covid pandemic, but long-term. We have posted a list of Montgomery County CSA farms in our previous post as well as social media accounts to make it easier to access.