W BY JEAN LONIE
e’re now more than half way through 2020. To say it’s been an interesting year would be a massive understatement! We’re all living through history and watching new habits and trends unfold that are, in some cases, very different than what we took as “normal” in our pre-COVID-19 days. Our daily routines are a bit different. Whether that means you now get 2 weeks to the gallon because you aren’t driving to work/school/run errands or you’re getting really creative when cooking multiple meals per day at home, life has shifted in ways big and small. Yet, in some ways, life in agriculture carries on as it always has. Crops and livestock have a way of
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Ag Mag THEAGMAG.ORG
reminding us that there are some things that have to be done no matter what, and that even a global pandemic doesn’t stop nature … or our farmers and ranchers! At the Texas Department of Agriculture, we continue to look for ways to help support the families who produce the food, fiber, and fuel that sustains us and drives our communities. Right now, this includes challenging ourselves to get creative about how we can connect Texas agribusinesses – from farms and ranches selling directly to the public to value-added companies across the full spectrum of the agriculture industry – to customers who are looking for local ways to shop and engage. With that challenge in mind, we created the “Direct From Texas” initiative. As more people turn to digital resources to find what is available around them, we wanted to provide platforms that make it easy to
