South Coast Prime Times - September/October 2020

Page 14

PRIME SEASON

Re-finding

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Michael J. DeCicco

Even the farmers markets that offer patrons local produce from outdoor roadside stands across the South Coast have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, but in ways that haven’t all been bad.

Karen Schwalbe is the executive director of SEMAP (SouthEastern Massachusetts Agriculture Partnership), an organization of farmers in Bristol and Plymouth counties that promotes local farming through research, education, and marketing. Nowadays, she said, more than threefourths of Southeastern Massachusetts farmers markets are fully open, back to business as usual. “But they are adjusting by reducing hours or opening in a new location,” she said. However, around 20 percent are still doing pre-orders only, at the stage of curbside pickup, she added. The good news is that demand for sustainable local farm produce and local farmers markets has increased, she said, “because people like short, local supply chains. They want to know where their produce comes from.” Yet because of the shutdown effects of the pandemic, farmers have had to pivot in

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Mums, pumpkins, and Apples at Dartmouth Orchards

S ou th C oast P r ime T imes

order to stay in business. All of a sudden, she said, some of the traditional supply chains are gone. Restaurants that closed or are slowly reopening haven’t needed the bulk orders that farmers work to produce for them in a normal year. With individual consumers as a new target market, farmers have had to change or minimize how they package their eggs and milk. “It can’t change overnight,” Schwalbe said. “It takes a while to change, but our farmers are so adaptive and creative that they are doing it, such as by partnering with another organization or other farms on sharing a delivery route. In western Massachusetts, one entity is taking online orders for three or four different farms.” The changes have been stressful, she admitted. For example, patrons of a farmers market can’t be allowed to touch the produce the way they can at a supermarket. A farmers market must hire more staff for their stand. Separate people must touch the produce the customers indicate they want

S ep tember /O c tober 2020

to purchase, bag the merchandise, and run the cash register. Even the partnership’s own goals have had to change. She explained the partnership’s goals are to ensure that local farmers have the knowledge and the tools to be successful with what they grow, from what to plant, where to plant it, and where and how to sell it. SEMAP traditionally offered a variety of farmer-to-farmer training and technical assistance through workshops. Lately the partnership has had to emphasize virtual workshops but offer less of them than the in-person ones. “No fundraisers. No in-person workshops,” she said. “We’ve made a shift to more marketing and promotion. We keep training them where to sell, where to market.” Dartmouth Orchards and Seekonk Vegetables Elsewhere around the South Coast, the new pandemic shutdown conditions had very little impact on the timing for Dartmouth Orchards farmers market’s opening in late July. “When the crop is ready, it’s ready,” said owner Brian Medeiros. “A pandemic doesn’t have an effect on growing fruit. You can’t hold back mother nature. As far as opening the stand, we’ll be taking care of all the necessary precautions that the state has


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