{"id":20287,"date":"2020-05-04T03:19:05","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T07:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=20287"},"modified":"2020-05-30T11:06:23","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T15:06:23","slug":"usa-how-detroits-farms-and-gardens-are-adapting-to-the-covid-19-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=20287","title":{"rendered":"USA: How Detroit\u2019s farms and gardens are adapting to the COVID-19 crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .<\/p>\n

An article from Planet Detroit<\/a><\/p>\n

Patrick Crouch has been spending long days in the greenhouse over the past few weeks, seeding and growing out transplants for eventual distribution to gardens across the city.<\/p>\n

As a program manager at\u00a0Earthworks Urban Farm<\/a>, Crouch sees his role taking on a new importance during the COVID-19 crisis. \u201cIf you can get people to go out to the store once a month and just stockpile staples and then they are able to get fresh produce out of their backyard, you can really limit their movement,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nPhoto courtesy Keep Growing Detroit<\/center><\/p>\n

Gardening seems to be\u00a0having a moment\u00a0<\/a> as the crisis pushes people to find constructive ways to use their time, reduce trips to the grocery stores, and benefit from its\u00a0therapeutic aspects<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But with Governor Whitmer’s recent\u00a0order\u00a0<\/a> shutting down the sale of landscaping and gardening supplies in stores larger than 50,000 square feet, some are anxious about getting their gardens planted.\u00a0Note: Politifact\u00a0debunks <\/a>\u00a0the claim that it is illegal to purchase farm and garden supplies in Michigan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Detroit’s farm and garden community have had to adapt to new realities \u2014 including helping their workers and customers stay safe and adjusting to an expected increased need for fresh food. They’re working hard to grow as much as possible with limited staff and doing without volunteer labor.<\/p>\n

Crouch says other operations at the Earthworks, like selling fresh produce and giving food to the\u00a0Capuchin Soup Kitchen<\/a>, have had to take a back seat to transplant production. \u201cThe ability to keep people in place and\u2026have nourishing food seems like the most impactful work we can do right now,\u201d says Crouch.<\/p>\n

Ashley Atkinson, co-director of Keep Growing Detroit (KGD), which runs the\u00a0Garden Resource Program\u00a0<\/a> that supplies more than\u00a0 1,500 gardens\u00a0<\/a> in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park with seeds, compost, and vegetable transplants for a small fee, says planting gardens will be more critical for Detroiters this year than ever before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re basically assuming \u2014 and hopefully we’re proven wrong \u2014 that urban gardens and farms are going to be more important this year,\u201d she says, as vulnerable Detroiters who have relied on growing some of their own produce see\u00a0unemployment skyrocket\u00a0<\/a> at the same time food banks are seeing a\u00a0huge spike in demand<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kristin Sokul, a spokesperson for Gleaners Community Foodbank, told\u00a0Planet Detroit\u00a0that the organization distributed an additional 4 million pounds of food in Southeast Michigan since the crisis began\u2014 an increase of twenty-five percent. Although Gleaners has been able to maintain the volume of food they\u2019re providing, they\u2019ve run out of some items and are seeing\u00a0long lines\u00a0<\/a> at pickups.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Homegrown produce could help this situation. But farmers are finding they need to adjust their operations in ways that can slow progress. For example, KGD\u2019s distributions of plants and seeds are normally communal events that take place in locations throughout the city. However, this year, they plan on transitioning to curbside pickup to minimize or eliminate contact between KGD\u2019s staff and program participants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Article continued on right side of page)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question for this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

\n

What is the relation between movements for food sovereignty and the global movement for a culture of peace?<\/a> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(article continued from left side of page)<\/p>\n

Although there\u2019s currently a waiting list for resources, Atkinson encourages people\u00a0to contact KGD\u00a0<\/a> if they\u2019re looking for seeds and plants. KGD has shifted its resources and programs by moving as much of the educational part of their\u00a0programming\u00a0<\/a> online as possible via free webinars and Facebook live events and is doubling down on growing as much food as possible in its own farms and gardens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, with the COVID-19 crisis\u00a0hitting Detroit hard\u00a0<\/a> and revealing issues with local food supply-chains \u2014 like how much of it\u00a0caters to restaurants and wholesalers\u00a0<\/a> instead of residents \u2014 Atkinson believes the work that her organization has done can help show a way forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve worked for two decades to build the capacity of this community to be able to feed itself,\u201d Atkinson says of the work KGD has done to help create\u00a0food sovereignty\u00a0<\/a> in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For-profit farmers also face a series of hard choices during the pandemic. Andy Chae runs\u00a0Fisheye Farms\u00a0<\/a> with his wife Amy Eckert in Detroit\u2019s Core City neighborhood. They’ve had to alter how they move produce in the last month or so, from selling primarily to restaurants to taking online orders from individuals for boxes of food that include items from other growers like\u00a0Brother Nature Produce<\/a> ,\u00a0Rising Pheasant Farms<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Mushroom Factory<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the bright side, Chae says the crisis has increased Fisheye Farms\u2019 visibility; they\u2019ve gained 1,000 followers on\u00a0Instagram\u00a0<\/a> since the stay-at-home-order went into place in Michigan. The increased following led to the farm selling about 30 boxes of produce in two different sizes at their last weekly farm stand, according to Chae.<\/p>\n

To decrease interactions with the public, Fisheye Farms is using a pre-sale model where payments are made online and the only interaction is picking up the produce. Chae is also using overturned pails as \u201csocial distancing buckets\u201d to help customers maintain separation between themselves during pickups. On the back end, workers harvest with gloves and face masks and are keeping volunteers off the farm for now.<\/p>\n

Going forward, Chae says they plan to start a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program for the season, where customers buy a share of the farm\u2019s produce for the upcoming season and make weekly pickups. They may also team up with local restaurants to take turns selling produce, giving customers more options for when and where they can pick up food.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chae says that a small, highly diversified farm like his can weather the economic downturn and he\u2019s grateful to have meaningful work, but adds, \u201cI\u2019m burning out a little bit already, which usually I’m burning out in August and not in April.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For his part, Crouch is wondering if the new emphasis on people growing more of their own food or picking it up from a neighborhood farmer will become a permanent part of the way the city’s food producers operate going forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But more immediately, he needs to figure out what Earthworks\u2019 crop plan is going to look like this season, considering that the soup kitchen might not be able to process certain things without volunteers and that the farm stand may have to be run differently to keep people safe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve got to move from debate to action pretty soon,\u201d Crouch says, contemplating the asparagus and greenhouse crops that will need to be harvested shortly. \u201cI think we can hold for another couple of weeks before things really start coming on.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . . An article from Planet Detroit Patrick Crouch has been spending long days in the greenhouse over the past few weeks, seeding and growing out transplants for eventual distribution to gardens across the city. As a program manager at\u00a0Earthworks Urban Farm, Crouch sees his role taking on a new importance … Continue reading USA: How Detroit\u2019s farms and gardens are adapting to the COVID-19 crisis<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,10],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-20287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-north-america","category-sustainable","tag-north-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}