We feel very grateful and honored to be able to keep doing what we love during this frightening moment in time: growing food for our community. We’re continually recalling this gratitude as we look toward the next few weeks and months of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
No matter what happens, we’re going to need to eat, and we’re committed to growing food for you. It’s worth noting that there’s no evidence that food is a transmission route or source for COVID-19. Plus, as farmers, we already do a whole lot of social distancing.
The situation is changing moment by moment, and so our plans will change, too, but we want to keep you up-to-date on our current contingency plans.
Here’s what we’re doing now:
We’re planting lots of seeds and plants in the ground!
It’s currently just the two of us (Bryan and Joanna) working on the farm and we are taking social distancing extremely seriously. We are also washing our hands all of the time, which we do in any case because we handle food.
We’re reviewing our food safety plan (which we are happy to share with you - just send us an email) which includes not working when you’re sick and lots of hand washing. We’re working on implementing a paid sick time policy for staff once they start work in April.
We’re staying informed about best practices for keeping our customers and soon to be workers safe and healthy.
We’re offering a reduced down payment option from now through March 31st. You’ll need to pay for 2 weeks of deliveries up front, and then you’ll be charged per week for the remainder of the season. We hope this helps folks who are losing hours at their jobs or feeling generally financially insecure right now.
We’re applying to accept WIC and SNAP at our farmers market stand and for CSA payments to help fee our food insecure community members.
We will continue to pack shares to order and we’re looking into single use packaging. We will not be reusing wax boxes for the time being.
We’re waiting to see when businesses reopen before we secure alternate pick up sites for our CSA members picking up at businesses.
We may do some pop up sales through the Harvie Farmstand in April. For now, you can find our produce on Chesapeake Farm To Table and get it delivered right to your door!
We will be at the Bel Air Farmers Market starting in May and we’re figuring out how we’ll set up in a way that is as safe and clean as possible, which will involve more pre-bagging and may involve online pre-orders.
We’re exploring the logistics of a Food Access Fund that CSA members could contribute to to cover the costs of food donations, EBT processing fees and reduced cost CSA shares for food insecure households. Stay tuned!
We will keep this post updated as we learn more and make more decisions. We know we’ll get through this, and we know that we will get through it together.