弹性，土壤健康和社区=获胜策略乐动体育app下载

经过那Noah Cohen, Organic Farmers Association

Despite much uncertainty and upheaval of our economy during the 2020 outbreak, many organic farms have been bright spots of the COVID-19 economy. With consumers now having 100% control over their food dollars, we have seen nationwide increase in organic sales. An increase of home cooking has mirrored an increase in purchase of organic whole foods. Organic farmers have pivoted to shift their businesses in new directions to better serve the local direct markets as well as rethink our food systems for the future.

这是来自全国各地的少数有机农民的人数：

jennifer泰勒，萝拉的有机农场那GLENWOOD, GA

• 农场事实：泰勒经营萝拉的有机农场，通过农民市场，合作社和CSA计划销售有机水果和蔬菜。她还在佛罗里达州农业和机械大学（FAMU）作为佛罗里达州全州小农场计划的协调员，帮助农民获得教育和培训以实施有机方法。
• 经验：萝拉的有机主要种植新鲜水果和蔬菜食品类别，在大流行的早期阶段，尤其是天文销售增加全国性的，消费者突然引起了促进免疫系统健康的产品。“这对我们来说，[销售提升]是真实的，”泰勒说，“这仍然会继续下去。”“这一切的一个结果，”她解释说，这就是“它导致每个人都减缓并反思对我们和我们的社区对我们的重要性，并且正如我们所做的那样，思考我们的健康。因为健康是一个问题。“泰勒的当地社区成员中的许多人开始关注“如何建立乐动体育app下载自己的免疫系统，以及如何吃健康的食物，”她说。“这就是为什么客户所在的原因，仍然是，非常欣赏和支持农民准备到股票和销售他们当地有机产品的人[通过农民市场等渠道]。”
• TAKEAWAYS:Taylor, who works with small farmers to implement organic practices and enter “different alternative types of marketing systems” at FAMU, saysCovid危机“验证了”当地有机农业的恢复力，并强调了对社区食品系统的重要性。乐动体育app下载“社区发现[局部有机物]没有停止在[在Covid期间]，来自当地有机农民的食物是社区的依赖粮食资源，”她解释道。乐动体育app下载“它还为我们验证了[那]，因为我们知道在我们被视为那个角色之前，我们很长时间是必不可少的食品提供商。”虽然泰勒社区的有机农民广泛适应大流行的限制，但她说“使用来自农民与消费者和社乐动体育app下载区的直接联系”的农场特别成功。泰勒还观察到这一点the pandemic’s disproportionate public health impact on communities of color drives home the need to bring the essential health benefits of organic agriculture to urban areas, which she says calls for helping urban and underrepresented farmers implement organic methods through technical assistance, education on certification, and cost-sharing.“Healthy environments, healthy food resources, pollinator habitats, the lack of toxic chemicals being used– all these are benefits that urban communities see through growing organic agriculture in the soil,” she explains. “And so expanding and enhancing resilient agriculture systems and growing [organics] in urban areas– that supports minority communities.”

Loretta Adderson.那ADDERSON’S FRESH PRODUCE，奥古斯塔，乔治

• 农场事实：Adderson has run Adderson’s Fresh Produce since 2007, where she grows organic fruits and vegetables on her 56-acre multi-generational family farm.
• 经验：“我们最大的挑战是为我们的产品寻找市场，”在大流行前订购幼苗的阿德斯顿表示，销售到12种不同的分销渠道，包括多家餐馆，学区和零售市场。“我们立即意识到我们过度发育的...由于大流行，我们只有一个在线市场和一个果汁吧[卖给产品]。”面对滞后的销售额和超过15,000棵幼苗，阿联酋队通过介绍了抢购袋计划 - 这在大流行期间更好地满足公共卫生标准，很快成为抢购框计划 - 针对两个不同的社区。这种过渡尤其具有挑战性的一个市场是素食公园农民市场，有机生产市场供应哈里斯堡奥古斯塔街。哈里斯堡是一家粮食沙漠 - 一个城市地区，可供经济适用新鲜食品的可供选择。加德索森解释说，许多蔬菜园客户，无法访问传统的CSA，因为他们没有信用卡或借记卡，使得在线不可能支付。农民未设置为接收EBT卡支付，因此创新是必要的。“盒子被送到中心位置，并且客户将拿起盒子并在盒子旁边的容器中拿起支票或现金，”Adderson说。虽然Veggie Park确实为盒装计划获得了一些客户 - 特别是当他们的年度水果和蔬菜处方计划开放的销售额与前几年的传统农民市场销量相比，销售额显着下降。尽管如此，阿联酋的新鲜农产品风化了风暴，尽管销售额低于往常，但由于极端夏季热量而失去了许多作物。“我们的秋季计划是加强游戏，随着芸苔的增加，”阿德斯森说，“并为更强大的2021年添加一个盒子CSA。”
• TAKEAWAYS:“我们仍有很多工作要做，”阿德斯森说了她的框计划的实施。“CSA是我们社区，家庭和农民的新概念...... [所以我们需要]教育，并且重要的是，允许EBT进行在线购物。”
  作为退休的营养师，阿联酋已宣传大流行前长期以来促进免疫健康的重要性。现在，这一承诺已经开始偿还，消费者最终倾向于富含维生素的免疫增强有机蔬菜，她长期以来一直致力于改善社区的健康。乐动体育app下载“提供有机深绿色的绿叶和其他高营养蔬菜，帮助减少与营养相关的疾病是我们的使命，”她说。“西兰花，布鲁塞尔豆芽，卷心菜，花椰菜，胶林绿色，羽衣甘蓝，芥末和菠菜都充满了维生素和矿物质。优秀的维生素A和C。“Adderson计划继续使用她的平台作为她的社区的主食，为健康和饮食之间推动回家，并鼓励她的客户消耗更新鲜，营养和维生素的食物来保护他们的健康，无论是在乐动体育app下载大流行期间都能保护他们的健康超过。

Maryrose Livingston -北兰羊乳制品，马拉松，纽约

• • 农场事实：Livingston运行Northland Sheep Dairy，这是一个177英亩的农场，生产“完全手工制作”老年羊奶酪和羊肉，使用100％草饲绵羊，主要销售给餐馆和零售店。
• 经验：Livingston considers herself incredibly lucky that due to the production timeline for both aged cheese and lamb, her sales dropping off precipitously during the pandemic has not hugely affected her livelihood. “I make aged cheeses, so I’m usually selling the previous year’s cheese,” she explains. “I’m mostly wholesale—we make whole wheels that go to a couple distributors, mostly to restaurants. But of course [this year] the restaurant sales went kaputt, as did my distributors… so I have a couple really small retail outlets I sell to, but other than that I’m really not selling much cheese. So therefore, I haven’t weaned my lambs… I’m not milking, I’m not making cheese, yet.” As for lamb, Livingston does direct sales to customers, which were, as usual, concentrated around November last year. “So we sold all our lambs at once and had a nice nest egg from that, so we’re doing fine,” she says. “We’re using this year to do lots of projects we’ve never had time to do, we’re making the most of it, and it’s going pretty well.” And for this year’s slaughter season, she says, “I’m fortunate that I have a wonderful relationship with a great USDA butcher that’s certified organic, and I have my appointment, and I’m good to go.”
• TAKEAWAYS:“小了让我们有弹性，”Livingston说，“所以已经制作了奶酪[可以存储而不是长时间销售]。如果我生产了一大吨鲜奶酪，我真的在枪下，让他们搬家。“

Nate Powell-Palm -冷泉有机物，贝尔格莱德，山

• 农场事实：Powell-Palm是一个千禧年的农民，自12岁以来一直在运行自己的有机牛生长作业，以及冷泉有机物的所有者，875英亩的牧场，他生产谷物和草喂牛肉。
• 经验：“In Montana, we sort of socially distance natively, so it wasn’t all that much of a change for us. And in the summertime, me and my crew don’t really leave the farm, it’s just too busy for that,” quips Powell-Palm, who I finally reached after several weeks during a 30-minute break between marathon sessions of combining wheat. The biggest impact of COVID on his day-to-day operation, he says, is that it “disrupted some of the supply chain, so ordering parts [for machinery like combines] has been kind of tricky.”
  随着肉类加工厂在Covid期间关闭了en Masse，许多肉种植者已经留下了今年夏天无法卖掉。然而，鲍威尔 - 掌可以“英寸，”蒙大拿州的本地家庭经营屠宰厂的强大系统，这些屠宰厂比其他地方的工业规模处理器要好得多。“这里的植物没有很多员工，所以他们非常有弹性，就像幸存的[大流行]，”他解释道。但到明年，冷泉会更好地准备：今年的停工机会激励他们打开自己的加工厂。“我们主要一直销售我们的牛到整个食物中，这是一个越来越多的处理器，这些人在整个大流行中经历了破坏，”鲍威尔 - 掌解释了“所以这有点激励我们跳跃。”
• TAKEAWAYS:鲍威尔 - 棕榈说大流行使得有机草喂养牛肉不仅是唯一的生态可持续牛肉生产系统，而且对消费者健康的关键解决方案以及在经济危机期间对农民毁灭的批判性解决方案。Unlike other beef, which is loaded with the blood pressure-spiking Omega-6 fatty acids that spur nutritionists to warn against too much red meat, grass-fed beef largely replaces these fats with the much more heart-healthy Omega-3s. “Grass-fed beef actually has nearly the same Omega-3 [fatty acid] profile as salmon… so when you talk about salmon’s ability to bolster brain function and heart health, grass fed beef does that as well,” Powell-Palm says. With consumers becoming unusually health-conscious during the pandemic, he says, many have started to take stock of these benefits. “There’s also been a lot of studies about farm economic liability and grazing,” Powell-Palm says, “and the farms that graze [their livestock] as opposed to using feedlots, they’re really the ones that survive the bad times, like this pandemic. They’re the really resilient model.”反思他决定打开自己的肉类加工厂以及他自己的饲料厂 - 他所说的是他的社区成员的“就是为服务”，他们想要提高自己的食物鲍威尔 - 掌上当地加工基础设施乐动体育app下载和自给自足的当地食品系统是在Covid这样的危机期间将食物保存到社区的关键。“Thinking about the wake-up call of [COVID],” he says, “we’ve got a lot of food going un-used at the local level right now, so we’re trying to figure out how you make [our local commodities] more accessible, more able to utilize at the local level, and more available to consumers and to communities.”

我们从哪里开始？

大多数有机农民似乎同意一件事：Covid-19在食品系统现状中暴露了根本缺陷。乐动体育手机客户端Mark McAfee称大流行“我们的食品系统对国家压力测试[在哪里]综合，巨大的工业系统失败了”当地，有机的消费系统繁殖。虽然Covi乐动体育手机客户端d-19已经悲惨，但主教说，它意外地提供了“曾经一生机的机会”来重新评估我们当前的食物系统，并想象它如何改善未来，利用许多人的复原和成功蓬勃发展的地方，有机农场作为蓝图。

若干农民还建议了具体的政策优先事项，包括：

• 建立联邦政府对乳制品稳定的配额dairy prices, protecting dairy farmers from market shocks like the pandemic
• 建立肉类上的草皮标签的强大认证过程，以确保统一标准并增加消费者透明度
• 允许EBT卡用于在线CSA购买，以使消费者能够访问信用卡或借记卡以获得新鲜产生的交付
• 通过支持城市有机农民带来有机农业对城市的关键土壤健康益处
• 通过支持技术援助，有机认证教育，增加有机认证成本份额计划的资金，通过支持多项多名有机农民，提高营养食品的营养食品进入黑色，土着和彩色社区的人们
• 执行反垄断法，以打击肉/乳制品行业集中，许多人称为Covid相关的加工供应链中断的“根本原因”
• 固定有机畜牧业执法漏洞，有坦克有机乳制品价格
• 通过向移民和农业为中心的公民身份引入新的长期农业工人签证，减轻农场劳动力对边境关闭的脆弱性
• 在分发刺激金钱时，优先考虑当地农场+不成比例的社区
• 使联邦投资进入有机部门发展
• Revising eligibility restrictions for SNAP, creating incentives to buy fresh, local foods