While the COVID-19 pandemic brought several industries to a screeching halt and supply chains faltered in early 2020, farmers started working overtime to keep up with demand.
At Missouri Grown, a program of the Missouri Department of Agriculture that promotes local foods, calls were coming in from farmers and ranchers requesting support to get their products from field to fork. Manager Christi Miller got to work helping farmers across the Show-Me State connect with consumers.
“The restaurants and farm-to-school programs were closed,” Miller explains. “The produce had no place to go.”
Miller believes Missouri farmers displayed incredible creativity to overcome challenges to getting fresh, local food to consumers during the pandemic.
Farmers in the Kansas City area combined their crops to create a diversified community-supported agriculture (CSA) program; ranchers set up websites to sell their proteins online; U-pick farms accepted appointments to maintain social distancing; and farmers markets introduced drive-up services, making it as easy to buy locally grown food as ordering lunch from a fast food drive-through.
“Farmers and ranchers rolled up their sleeves to get the job done,” Miller says. “They knew the importance of how quickly they had to make changes.”
Behind the scenes, nonprofit organizations and state agencies, including the Missouri Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Senior Services and county Extension agents, came together to make it happen. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also purchased milk and produce from Missouri farmers for its Farmers to Families Food Box Program.
As farmers focused on the importance of providing local foods to Missouri families, Miller focused on the importance of educating consumers about where their food comes from. She wants to make it easier for them to find Missouri-grown products and is working hard to encourage producers to add the “Missouri Grown” label to their products.
Sales of local products have increased dramatically during the pandemic, and Miller, whose husband is a retired agricultural education teacher and whose children are FFA members, wants to ensure the momentum will continue long after the health threat ends.
“Shelves will be restocked and prices are going to come down, and we want people to continue to look for Missouri Grown products after this is over,” she says. “If there’s one good thing that’s come from this, it’s that consumers are starting to recognize the farmers and ranchers who grow their food.”
