May 4, 2020
The Long Haul
Day 46
Dairy farmers are dumping millions of gallons of fresh milk in Wisconsin. Acres of cucumbers are rotting in sun-baked fields in Florida. Pigs on sprawling feed lots across Iowa are being euthanized and composted. A billion pounds of surplus potatoes have been stuffed into Washington State warehouses. And tens of thousands of laying hens have been butchered in Minnesota.
Slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants have been shuttered. The massive, refrigerated 18-wheelers that move food along Interstate highways all across America sit idle. Thousands of workers have been displaced and many are afraid to return to a workplace they consider to be a Covid-19 breeding ground.
It sounds biblical. It is not. It is America today.
The supply-side of the American food chain is broken because the demand-side, as it existed before the coronavirus, has collapsed. Americans still have enough to eat for now but most restaurants are closed. This by itself was enough to disrupt our food supply as Americans eat outside their homes everyday. And they eat differently at home when they have to prepare food for themselves.
How and where we will get food in the future is less sure and less secure. Food security has become a Covid-19 buzz word.
For the millions who go hungry everyday, foraging for food is common. But for most Americans food comes from a restaurant, a market or the corner store. Convenience is king. Home food preparation is an afterthought. Americans who do eat at home gorge on microwavable, frozen pizza, General Tso’s chicken-takeout or a Grubhub delivery from a favorite fine-dining eatery.
Covid-19 changed the way we eat overnight and is turning us into feral, modern-day hunter gathers. Hopefully some good will emerge from the chaos and many will become small scale farmers.
Consumers will have to adapt, modify their behavior or starve. Ok starve may be hyperbole. They will have to continue to change.
The change began overnight when most of the country closed down in March. Quarantine and stay at home orders forced everyone back into their homes and many back into their kitchens.
Now, after a six week shutdown, eat-in restaurants are reopening slowly but with less capacity to serve customers. This is not a problem yet because there are few customers to feed. Americans may be anxious for a stroll in the park or a day at the beach but closed-in restaurants are still a bit scary.
It takes longer to shop at supermarkets, convenience stores and farmers markets now as social-distancing restrictions have been imposed in the aisles and at the checkout counters. Some, who can afford it, avoid the disruption and pay others to shop for them. People, with access to a computer, buy everything they can online.
Consumers are worried about next winter. Warnings of a second wave or an extended slow burn of the virus has made us jumpy.
Many have been hoarding for weeks, initially making fear-fueled purchases of toilet paper, bottled water and disinfectant wipes. They moved from the dry-goods aisle to the meat counter immediately after reports emerged from South Dakota that the virus had closed a plant there that packaged four percent of the nation’s pork.
Should we become a nation of farmers again? Is this the solution? Almost everyone can grow, raise or forage for some of their food.
It would be pollyanna to think that small-scale, sustainable farming by itself can provide three-square meals a day for 330 million Americans. It can, however, make a difference.
For decades our family has raised almost all of our food. We control the entire food supply chain. We are unique and privileged. We live in a farm state. We own many acres of tillable, grazable land. And we like farming.
Looking ahead it is is hard for me to believe that people facing shortages will not try to produce at least some of their own food. It does not take a lot of land. Anyone with a patch of dirt or a lawn can and should grow something useful. What is our obsession with green grass about anyway?
Urban dwellers are finding ways to grow their own food. Inner city rooftop gardens, once the ornamental obsession of the wealthy, are increasingly being covered in edible greens and vegetables.
Small commercial farms have found homes in the urban landscape as well. Brooklyn Grange is farming rooftops all across New York City’s most densely populated borough. The founders of Gotham Greens in Providence built a 100,000 square foot warehouse, covering an entire, inner city block, to supply lettuce, Swiss chard, and arugula to urban dwellers.
Small scale agriculture has not been immune to the havoc wrought by Covid-19. Its supply chain has been turned on its head also.
For example, mature pigs ready for consumption are being slaughtered and composted in Vermont because the restaurant industry has collapsed. But young pigs to raise over the summer for slaughter in the fall are nearly impossible to find anywhere in the state.
Every year we raise between two and four pigs for ourselves and our extended family. The cycle is simple; purchase a six-week old pig in the spring, slaughter a 200 pounder or so in the fall. A quick search of the local Craigslist farm and garden site usually produces several choices within a 10-minute-drive from our home.
Not this year! Suddenly everyone wants to raise a pig. Every baby pig is spoken for immediately after the mother farrows. Farrow is swine-speak for the delivery of a new litter of squealing baby porkers. After searching far and wide, I found piglets 90 minutes away, on the other side of the Connecticut River, in New Hampshire. They were pricey. Paying that much and driving that far would have been unimaginable last year.
The “gatherers” are growing their numbers as well. Hunting and fishing license sales have skyrocketed. The month-long turkey season opened here last week and yesterday my wife stumbled upon a father and his two daughters stalking the woods looking for a wild gobbler quite close to our son’s home. It has been a while since anyone with a weapon locked and loaded has come that close to us.
The Covid-19 virus finds ways everyday to tell us to seize control of our lives. The latest message it that we must change how we think about food. We must get our hands dirty, make healthy choices, grow and raise what we can and own what we eat!
As a kid I liked the novel: “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” It is a metaphorical tale of personal perseverance in the face of great adversity. If a tree can thrive in Brooklyn’s concrete canyons, we can surely prosper in the midst of this pandemic.
Be safe!
The Long Haul
Day 46
Dairy farmers are dumping millions of gallons of fresh milk in Wisconsin. Acres of cucumbers are rotting in sun-baked fields in Florida. Pigs on sprawling feed lots across Iowa are being euthanized and composted. A billion pounds of surplus potatoes have been stuffed into Washington State warehouses. And tens of thousands of laying hens have been butchered in Minnesota.
Slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants have been shuttered. The massive, refrigerated 18-wheelers that move food along Interstate highways all across America sit idle. Thousands of workers have been displaced and many are afraid to return to a workplace they consider to be a Covid-19 breeding ground.
It sounds biblical. It is not. It is America today.
The supply-side of the American food chain is broken because the demand-side, as it existed before the coronavirus, has collapsed. Americans still have enough to eat for now but most restaurants are closed. This by itself was enough to disrupt our food supply as Americans eat outside their homes everyday. And they eat differently at home when they have to prepare food for themselves.
How and where we will get food in the future is less sure and less secure. Food security has become a Covid-19 buzz word.
For the millions who go hungry everyday, foraging for food is common. But for most Americans food comes from a restaurant, a market or the corner store. Convenience is king. Home food preparation is an afterthought. Americans who do eat at home gorge on microwavable, frozen pizza, General Tso’s chicken-takeout or a Grubhub delivery from a favorite fine-dining eatery.
Covid-19 changed the way we eat overnight and is turning us into feral, modern-day hunter gathers. Hopefully some good will emerge from the chaos and many will become small scale farmers.
Consumers will have to adapt, modify their behavior or starve. Ok starve may be hyperbole. They will have to continue to change.
The change began overnight when most of the country closed down in March. Quarantine and stay at home orders forced everyone back into their homes and many back into their kitchens.
Now, after a six week shutdown, eat-in restaurants are reopening slowly but with less capacity to serve customers. This is not a problem yet because there are few customers to feed. Americans may be anxious for a stroll in the park or a day at the beach but closed-in restaurants are still a bit scary.
It takes longer to shop at supermarkets, convenience stores and farmers markets now as social-distancing restrictions have been imposed in the aisles and at the checkout counters. Some, who can afford it, avoid the disruption and pay others to shop for them. People, with access to a computer, buy everything they can online.
Consumers are worried about next winter. Warnings of a second wave or an extended slow burn of the virus has made us jumpy.
Many have been hoarding for weeks, initially making fear-fueled purchases of toilet paper, bottled water and disinfectant wipes. They moved from the dry-goods aisle to the meat counter immediately after reports emerged from South Dakota that the virus had closed a plant there that packaged four percent of the nation’s pork.
Should we become a nation of farmers again? Is this the solution? Almost everyone can grow, raise or forage for some of their food.
It would be pollyanna to think that small-scale, sustainable farming by itself can provide three-square meals a day for 330 million Americans. It can, however, make a difference.
For decades our family has raised almost all of our food. We control the entire food supply chain. We are unique and privileged. We live in a farm state. We own many acres of tillable, grazable land. And we like farming.
Looking ahead it is is hard for me to believe that people facing shortages will not try to produce at least some of their own food. It does not take a lot of land. Anyone with a patch of dirt or a lawn can and should grow something useful. What is our obsession with green grass about anyway?
Urban dwellers are finding ways to grow their own food. Inner city rooftop gardens, once the ornamental obsession of the wealthy, are increasingly being covered in edible greens and vegetables.
Small commercial farms have found homes in the urban landscape as well. Brooklyn Grange is farming rooftops all across New York City’s most densely populated borough. The founders of Gotham Greens in Providence built a 100,000 square foot warehouse, covering an entire, inner city block, to supply lettuce, Swiss chard, and arugula to urban dwellers.
Small scale agriculture has not been immune to the havoc wrought by Covid-19. Its supply chain has been turned on its head also.
For example, mature pigs ready for consumption are being slaughtered and composted in Vermont because the restaurant industry has collapsed. But young pigs to raise over the summer for slaughter in the fall are nearly impossible to find anywhere in the state.
Every year we raise between two and four pigs for ourselves and our extended family. The cycle is simple; purchase a six-week old pig in the spring, slaughter a 200 pounder or so in the fall. A quick search of the local Craigslist farm and garden site usually produces several choices within a 10-minute-drive from our home.
Not this year! Suddenly everyone wants to raise a pig. Every baby pig is spoken for immediately after the mother farrows. Farrow is swine-speak for the delivery of a new litter of squealing baby porkers. After searching far and wide, I found piglets 90 minutes away, on the other side of the Connecticut River, in New Hampshire. They were pricey. Paying that much and driving that far would have been unimaginable last year.
The “gatherers” are growing their numbers as well. Hunting and fishing license sales have skyrocketed. The month-long turkey season opened here last week and yesterday my wife stumbled upon a father and his two daughters stalking the woods looking for a wild gobbler quite close to our son’s home. It has been a while since anyone with a weapon locked and loaded has come that close to us.
The Covid-19 virus finds ways everyday to tell us to seize control of our lives. The latest message it that we must change how we think about food. We must get our hands dirty, make healthy choices, grow and raise what we can and own what we eat!
As a kid I liked the novel: “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” It is a metaphorical tale of personal perseverance in the face of great adversity. If a tree can thrive in Brooklyn’s concrete canyons, we can surely prosper in the midst of this pandemic.
Be safe!
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