Coronavirus Impacts on Our Farm Partners
During this difficult time for many in the restaurant and hospitality industry, it is comforting to find a silver lining in conversations with our farm partners. Across the country, Americans are demonstrating a new appreciation of local food. The usually mundane task of grocery shopping has taken on risk during the coronavirus and customers are not able to find some of the items on their list.
In contrast, local food and farms offer relative consistency and safety. This has inspired a rush to local food, with farmers receiving hundreds of emails requesting to join their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs. People are also interested in raising and growing food at home; seed companies have suspended sales to catch up with the unexpected magnitude of orders and garden stores are selling out of baby chicks.
With many restaurants and local markets closed, farmers are quickly adapting their sales and delivery models to safely feed the community.
Two of our farm partners—Four Leaf Farm and Lil’ Farm—have joined forces to increase the number of weekly produce boxes they can offer. Four Leaf Farm muses that they have “made a huge leap for old people” by creating an online store for their plant sales with drive-through pick-up at their farm. Farmers Tim and Helga are excited to help their customers grow food—they believe that “gardening is good for the soul.”
Lil’ Farm is taking a leadership role in supporting the community by offering fifty-percent savings on their vegetables for healthcare workers, encouraging customers to purchase a veggie share for someone in need, and contributing to the Durham Free Lunch Initiative created by a local high school student.
To provide “the best, for the most, for the least,” Chapel Hill Creamery created a new product called Home Cheese, which they are selling at half of their normal retail price. Owner Portia misses the normal interactions with her customers, but temporary on-farm pickups have allowed many customers to have a brief glimpse of the land and cows that provide the milk for their cheese. Overall, Chapel Hill Creamery’s sales are not yet meeting their long-term needs, but are allowing them to keep their staff and cows.
At Ten Mothers Farm, which is primarily a CSA farm, the major shift has been experiencing more demand than ever for their products. Like all of our farm partners, they are taking precautions to keep themselves and customers safe and healthy, like wiping down tools between use. Owners Vera and Gordon are partnering with neighboring farms who have lost business to help them sell their goods and are considering how they can grow more food to meet the sudden surge in demand.
“There are definitely times when I’ve questioned our choice to farm for a living,” Vera says, “but right now, it’s feeling like the most sane and essential profession.”
When we regain normalcy, our hope is that we all keep in mind the many local food businesses, farmers and makers who are rising to this challenge.
How to Support Our Farm Partners
Chapel Hill Creamery: Order online for on-farm or market pick-up of cheeses and sausage.
Bluebird Meadows: Order online for flower and vegetable delivery within 5 miles of Durham Central Market.
East Branch Ginger: Weekly on-farm pickups of microgreens and edible flowers with optional pre-order through Instagram @eastbranchginger_microgreens.
Four Leaf Farm: Online plant sale with on-farm drive through pickup.
Lil Farm: Online ordering for produce box delivery. Option to give a veggie share to someone in need.
Sankofa Farms: Sankofa is offering their first Community Supported Agriculture program. Sign up online.
South Wind Produce: Order online for on-farm and in-town pick up of veggies and fruits.
Ten Mothers Farm: Ten Mothers Farm’s CSA is full, but you can join their waiting list to hear when they have extra produce boxes for sale.
How to Support Kingfisher Staff
Join us @kingfisherdurm on Instagram for daily happy hours and leave a tip to directly benefit our staff on Venmo at @kingfisherdurham.