The New Reality

Last week while conducting my normal errands I witnessed grocery stores with empty shelves, panicked people filling their carts to the brim far more than the normal bread-milk-toilet paper run that always happens prior to an impending storm.“Do you think anyone will show up for the market?” I had been asked earlier in the week by other vendors. Packing on Saturday I had an ominous feeling after seeing the rush to shop only the day before. I packed double and sent out messages to my regulars asking them to please pre-order their eggs if they wanted any. Their orders came back double, triple and quadruple of what they normally purchased. Most were sold before I ever rolled out of the driveway.Welcome to our new reality.Vendors dream of having sales days such as what happened last week, only not under such circumstances. Additionally, many of us had to come up with sanitation measures that met or exceeded the CDC’s guidelines. Vendors wore gloves, provided hand sanitizer to customers, pre-bagged food, sanitized their hands between each transaction and created visual reminders for keeping spaces between individuals.Given the extensive closings of all schools, many patrons were no longer empty nesters picking up a package or two for themselves, but now tasked with feeding their children who home. Others took in their elderly parents. Households and their need for food expanded. They weren’t only stocking up; they literally had more mouths to feed.One of my customers who emigrated from the Eastern Block casually said that they had encountered empty stores and stood in long lines for food. “We’ll survive,” I was assured.This morning I was reading a collaborative report from WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics, and the Imperial College London which is cautioning countries to prepare to live like this for as long as 18 months which is the estimated time to formulate, produce and disseminate a vaccine. Eighteen months will take us through two regular market seasons and a winter market. Think about that.But farmers are resilient, if anything. We go on producing food year after year in the face of adversity, be it pests, weather or pestilence. We’ve had crops destroyed by too much and not enough rain, hail and heat. Furthermore, sustainable agriculture systems be they organic, regenerative, grass-based, etc., have flourished over the last twenty years because of an understanding of how precarious monocultures are when it comes to disaster. If anything, we’ve been expecting a pandemic. Don’t believe me? Talk to anyone who raises pork. The United States has gone to great lengths over the last year to prevent African Swine Fever, a highly infectious and deadly disease to pigs, from reaching our country. So far, it has wiped out over three quarters of pigs in all of Asia (not just China).Similarly, market vendors have been beating the LOCAL drum for years; now is the time to really start dancing to that tune. I’m certainly not waiting on the government to come to the rescue. That job falls squarely on the shoulders of our local community members.The Bethesda Central Farm Market is able to continue in our current location because our founder and director Mitch Berliner has been respected member of the Bethesda community for over fifty years who went all out to ensure the market continued. Plenty of other community leaders such as Manna Food Center and José Andrés (World Kitchen) have already mobilized to make certain everyone in our community has food during this crisis.Make no mistake, the industrial food chain is going to grind to a halt. As the growing season is just getting started throughout the nation, seasonal laborers are now prevented from entering the country. Farms dependent on massive immigrant labor forces will struggle to produce the fruits and vegetables many have come to take for granted.This is one of the many reasons that your market vendors are rapidly moving to a pre-order system. We want to be certain that the customers who have supported us throughout the years will be able to procure their staples from us. But more importantly, we are also moving in this direction to facilitate the Center for Disease Control guidelines of limiting close contact with others.In the coming weeks (as long as the markets are allowed to operate), there are going to be lots of changes. We are in uncharted territory so please read through all information provided by your vendors and the market as it arrives. I know last week we told many of my customers that the location was changing to Executive Blvd., but then Mitch pulled a rabbit out of his hat which allowed us to remain at our current location at the school. Although there was no NOVA market last week, we’ve found a temporary location so that market will resume this week in the parking lot of the Church of the Holy Comforter (543 Beulah Rd. NE, Vienna, VA). Central Farm Markets will do everything in their power to maintain up-to-date information through the E-blast emails. Sign up here if you haven’t already done so. Like everything else changes are happening on a daily basis. Keep in touch, not just with the market, but with your family, friends and neighbors.While uncertainty is evident, that does not mean we need to panic or despair. Think of this as a time to accomplish all those miserable tasks you’ve been putting off. I guess that means I’ll finally clean out and organize all my closets and cupboards. Even in the midst of a pandemic, there’s always something needing to be done on the farm.And don’t forget, together we’ll get through this.