Food, Farming and COVID-19: A perspective from the BCCF
Caitlin Etherton
As the coronavirus pandemic alters markets, threatens jobs, and confines people to their homes, both farmers and consumers find themselves facing uncharted territory when it comes to food – yet the need for fresh, nutritious fare is stronger than ever as we struggle to keep our communities healthy.
In the following post, Biocultural Conservation Farm (BCCF) farmer Caitlin Etherton shares her thoughts on farming during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as some ways to support your neighbors and local farms. Scroll down to read more.
Our onions are infested with root maggots. There, I said it. All 10,342 of them. The Walla Wallas. The Candy Reds. The Spanish Sweets. Cipollinis. There is a global pandemic pulsing across the planet and here I am, distracted by onions.
But the maggots are real maggots, the kind you see in dumpsters and documentaries and dare-you-to-eat-that-for-a-million-dollars tv shows. They are wriggly, white, and legless, feasting, as I write this, on the roots of baby spring onions in every quadrant of our production field. And seeing as the root is the whole point of the onion, that means the maggots will damage each one beyond saving, eating their fill of tasty organic allium juice which will only provide antioxidants and nutrients to make the maggots even stronger and even more resilient. They’ll mature into flies the way caterpillars transform into butterflies. They’ll lay a second generation of eggs. Their babies will hatch into new maggots and the cycle will begin again, onion after onion destroyed before it can become the round tear-jerking vegetable we anticipated.
This is the joy, privilege, oddity, and frustration of farming. The world rages on, and still—no matter what—people must eat. Food must be grown. The maggots must be reckoned with. These days are a challenging time for local farmers not only because of the coronavirus, but because it’s spring—an exciting mad dash season of getting things in the ground, cheating the frost, beating time, and constantly scouting for new critters that emerge literally overnight.
Caitlin harvesting radishes at the Biocultural Conservation Farm this spring. All of the BCCF’s produce has been donated to local food banks over the past month.
Still, COVID-19 is putting its stamp on the growing year, affecting farms throughout the country, and changing how food is grown, how it is harvested and packed, and most prominently where and how it’s distributed. Without buyers like schools, universities, restaurants, cruise ships, hotels, and distribution centers, many large farms are losing their entire market. Interestingly, small fruit and vegetable farms who grow food directly for the consumer seem to be either increasing in sales or maintaining standard levels of production albeit with a change in gears. Small farms growing for restaurants have begun selling to local groceries. Market growers in cities without farmers markets have switched to CSA models and are finding themselves quickly at capacity.
For everyone, extra precautions have become status quo. Farm hands across the country are more scrubbed and clean than they’ve been in centuries. Bottles of diluted bleach sit dutifully alongside tool sheds, door handles, pickup trucks, and potting benches. Gloves and masks swoop into place before kale and carrots are washed and packed for customers. And farmers markets are finding diligent and creative solutions to maintain proper sanitation and social distancing by offering drive-through pick-up, properly spaced waiting lines, and/or by limiting numbers of guests. While feasible, these switches aren’t easy. And organizations like Future Harvest CASA and the Virginia Association for Biological Farming have quickly snapped into play at the very start of the pandemic, gathering helpful resources and hosting webinars and online forums to assist farmers during this time.
Here at the Oak Spring Biocultural Conservation Farm, markets and restaurant sales aren’t currently our active outlets. Typically, what we harvest is split 50/50—half staying on-site to feed visitors and the other half packed and donated. Because the foundation isn’t currently hosting any guests or artists-in-residence, our harvest is now able to be donated in entirety to two local food banks: Seven Loaves in nearby Middleburg and Fauquier Community Food Bank and Thrift Store in Warrenton. These food banks and others around the country are providing essential emergency food relief for an increasing number of individuals and families, many of whom have been affected financially as a result of the coronavirus.
For those who don’t rely on food banks, fresh produce can still be found by signing up for a local CSA, by buying local produce from small grocers, or by attending safely-run farmers markets. Piedmont Environmental Council’s Buy Fresh Buy Local Guide provides detailed lists of farms and markets in the Northern Piedmont, Loudoun and Charlottesville areas. Or you can use the Future Harvest CASA Find-A-Farmer map to see what farms in your area are selling at local markets, stores, as delivery, or even directly from their farms. Local CSA farms and additional resources for sourcing fresh produce in our area of Virginia are listed at the end of this post.
Mixed spring radishes grown at the BCCF, prior to being individually bagged and delivered to local food banks.
Perhaps, after this last month of nerve-wracking trips to the grocery store, you’re wondering, But why bother with produce? Why buy vegetables or fruit when half of it isn’t even wrapped? When anyone could have touched it? When it doesn’t hold a candle to a pantry of dried beans, rice, frozen veggies, and pasta? When you’ve had two adults working from home and all four kids ravaging the fridge for 42 days leaving you neither the time nor energy to whip up a ten-ingredient ratatouille at five o’clock?
These are fair questions. And I’d be the last one to pass up a bowl of savory rice and beans or pasta after a long April day of shoveling compost. But I would also argue that the individual and communal benefits of fresh produce far outweigh the inconvenience. Produce bought from local farms has seen one, maybe two, pairs of hands before it makes it to your kitchen, a minuscule number compared to the hundreds of hands that will encounter a carton of berries or a bag of rice by the time it makes its way to the grocery store. Much of the produce at the grocery store is also over a week old by the time you purchase it, whereas locally bought produce is often hardly a day old by the time it hits your cutting board. Fresh local produce can last in your refrigerator for days and weeks if stored properly. And considering the fact that spinach loses 80 percent of its vitamin C after only three days of storage, you’re likely to get a better boost of nutrients by buying fresh and local. Eating locally also means that you’re eating seasonally. And spring vegetables like broccoli, garlic, spinach, and fennel happen to be powerhouses for the immune system. Local produce can often be purchased without even stepping foot into a store. And last, but certainly not least, buying from a local farm is a delightful and direct way of connecting with and supporting your local community, your very neighbors.
How else can you help besides purchasing local food? American Farmland Trust’s Farmer Relief Fund is providing $1,000 to thousands of farmers for economic relief, and they are currently seeking monetary donations to continue to aid those who have applied. Monetary or in-kind donations are also a great way of supporting local food banks like Seven Loaves and Fauquier Community Food Bank, as well as Fauquier FISH and Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. Contact your favorite local farmers from the farmers market and ask how you can support them. Or contact your local food distribution center to see how you can help distribute surplus fresh food supplies to your community. Start a garden at home and share produce with your neighbors! Order take-out from local restaurants who source their ingredients from local purveyors. Or just buy a bouquet of local flowers! Because many shoppers are only buying the basics, flower farmers are taking a hard hit this spring at the start of their most crucial season. You can find a flower farmer near you through Floret Farm’s Farmer-Florist Collective here. There are so many ways to get involved in your local food system and every tiny way of helping makes a difference.
As for the onions? We don’t rely on pesticides at the BCCF and we also don’t like giving up. Instead, we’ll apply a powerful team of microscopic beneficial nematodes straight into the soil. The tiny parasitic soldiers will feast on the maggots instead of the onions and hopefully put an end to the all-day all-night allium eating party happening in our fields. It might not work. But it’s safe and organic and it might make all the difference. It might mean onions in the pantry.
Cover image: BCCF farmer Nick Sette taking appropriate COVID-19 precautions while wrangling turnips.
*Clickable links to local food resources: Local Farms and Outlets Offering CSA’s and Pre-order: Day Spring Farm , Second Spring Farm , Whiffletree Farm , The Farm at Sunnyside , Moutoux Orchard , Potomac Vegetable Farms , Powers Farm , Waterpenny Farm , Messick’s Farm Market , Piney Meadow Farm, Tomato Stand in Warrenton, VA, Buckland Farm Market , Root and Marrow , 4PFoods. Food Banks and other resources in in and around Fauquier County: Fauquier County Food Bank , Fauquier FISH (Warrenton, VA), Seven Loaves Services (Middleburg, VA), Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, JK Community Farms, Community Farm at Roundabout Meadows. DC Area Resources: DC Food Project, DC Greens, Martha's Table, DC Central Kitchen.