Another in our ongoing series about how COVID-19 is affecting this season. You can find previous issues here and here. But first, here are this week’s brief announcements.
Still taking orders.
How about some fruit or coffee?
Final payments due this month.
Was that brief enough for you? Now on to our main topic.
Farm News
The main goal of managing COVID-19 is to limit its spread so that there isn’t a big spike of cases to overwhelm our healthcare system. It is an open question as to how long we need to be diligent and, if all goes well, by the time we start harvesting our produce we will be out of the woods so to speak. But there is certainly a chance we will still be social distancing and washing our hands frequently (this really never goes out of style!) and not touching our faces while we are harvesting, washing, packing and giving out the veggies this summer. So we are looking for ways to do our part to maintain social distances, reduce human interaction and reduce virus transmission vectors. Here are some of these ideas from most likely to least likely.
We are contemplating offering home delivery for this season. We haven’t thought it all the way through yet but if you are interested let me know. If we do offer home delivery it will most likely be in limited areas with many customers (like Woodbury) where travel between customers is short. Let us know if you are interested.
Since many of our customers come from Woodbury and Cottage Grove, another idea to reduce interaction is for some of the on-farm pick-up people to take pre-packed boxes of produce home with them for others in their general vicinity to pick-up at their house. It reduces the number of people in our pick-up tent which can reduce the spread of the virus. The downside of picking up at another member’s house or getting home delivery is you don’t get to talk to me while you pick-up. We don’t want to lose one of the biggest benefits of joining the farm! Perhaps I can have some pre-recorded conversational questions they can play in their pick-up area. Since I don’t listen very well anyway having this conversation automated might actually work equally well as being live. It doesn’t have to be limited to these cities. If you feel there are potentially customers in your neighborhood who would like to join the farm but don’t want to drive out please let me know. We are open to many ideas great or not!
Another idea is to provide pre-packaged shares for pick-up here at the farm. This will reduce the human interaction (very short conversations like those you have with toll booth operators) while picking up the produce but the downside is you get whatever we pack in your box — no choices. Again if this is of interest let me know so we can make good decisions.
Another idea is for all of you who now work at home to come out and help farm this spring. The boss will never know. I’m not sure how this reduces possible virus transmission vectors but it certainly helps me out.
Another idea is to not wash the produce we give out. One of the most difficult areas to maintain social distancing is in our wash area. The rest of the farm is pretty wide open and we can easily maintain six foot separation. By not washing the produce we won’t be in close proximity to each other. More importantly it has been shown that eating dirt boosts your immune system. So the more dirt we leave on your produce the greater boost to your immunity! My biggest concern here is we don’t want to run out of dirt.
Another idea is a farm drive-through. With this approach you never have to leave your car. You would just drive up and down the aisles of plants growing on the farm and if you see something you like you ask an attendant — fully enclosed in a hazmat suit — to pick you some of what you hanker for. No human touch and plenty of dirt — especially on the root crops. It may get a bit sloppy if it rains but desperate times call for desperate measures. Plus we have a tractor that can pull you out if necessary.
Finally, instead of us planting all the transplants we have in the greenhouse here on our farm we could just give you the plants to plant in your yard. Talk about limiting transmission vectors! Every week we would send out a newsletter letting you know what you should be doing to these plants that week. Everyone would be getting fresh air and exercise. We can all maintain social distancing. The amount of work I would have to do drops precipitously. It really sounds perfect. Let me know if you’d like to take this route.
In any case, this is our current list of possible new business models. If you have other ideas do not hesitate to contact me. If any of these approaches appeal to you (especially the ones near the top of the list) please let me know so we can start planning how we’d accomplish it. Of course if by June we as a country are back to the usual standard chaos we can just fall back on the process and procedures we’ve utilized for the past many years.
As always, do not hesitate to contact me with comments, questions, jokes, etc. We always love to hear from you!