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Covid-19: How Are Farmers Coping?

USDA

With the Covid-19 pandemic, restaurants filling only take-out orders could cut back on buying food; retailers whose doors are closed could stop buying inventory. What about farmers? Crops must be planted in the spring and chickens don’t hatch overnight. How is agriculture planning for uncertain markets? We find out how they’re coping by asking Lindsay Thompson, executive director of theMaryland Grain Producers Association and Evan Miles, of Bluestem farms on the Eastern Shore, who is a member of the National Corn Growers Covid-19 task force. He admits this pandemic is unprecedented … but has faith in his fellow farmers. 

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.
Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'