They were picking strawberries, father and son, in the afternoon sunlight of the Oxnard Plain. The men, 62-year-old Javier Carranza and his son Cruz, 43, piled the ripened fruit into cardboard boxes destined for farmers markets. Father on one row, son on another, moving steadily from mound to mound.
The pandemic has changed the game for enterprises big and small across the world, and business owners everywhere are trying to adapt. One local fisherman has found a niche to keep his business open and staff employed.
For the protagonist of Nels Fredrickson’s clever illustrated story, Itza’s Garden, freedom means space to move and breathe, and time for nature to take its course. Itza is a hen trapped in a cage on a factory farm, required to produce three eggs a day or be carted off and rendered into chicken parts. Itza’s world, like our own, is a go-go, never slow down place.
Some of the workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic in Lompoc were treated to bundles of fresh, locally-grown produce on Friday, courtesy of a local agricultural enterprise.
More than 50 years ago, scientists at the Permanente Foundation Hospital in Oakland started a simple experiment: When a pregnant woman would come in for routine maternal care, they were asked to give a sample of blood, to be frozen for future research. They didn’t know it at the time, but those samples would later be key in understanding the long-term health impacts of the then widely-used pesticide DDT.
The contrast in the story — the best of times, the worst of times — echoes what the produce industry and the broader food industry have been experiencing as retailers struggle to keep up with demand and most restaurants and other foodservice outlets — cruises, theme parks, hotels — are shut down or are trying to stay afloat on take-out and delivery.
Thank you to California’s farmers, ranchers and farm workers for feeding us and supporting our food banks as they provide nourishment to the people who depend on them.
The spread of COVID-19, and the public responses and policies it has engendered, have interrupted some food availability and prompted concerns among consumers about the reliability of the food supply chain. Some farm producers have faced plummeting prices, while some prices, especially at retail, have spiked. We seek to explain what has been happening within the food supply chain and what is likely to happen as society deals with the pandemic and its aftermath.
SBCFAN Executive Director Shakira Miracle shares about building resilience for now and the future.
Two of the founding members of the Santa Barbara County Food Action Network — Erik Talkin, CEO of Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, and Sigrid Wright, CEO of the Community Environmental Council — sat down with food writer Leslie Dinaberg to discuss how COVID-19 is sending shock waves through a fragile global food system, and why this is a particularly good time to build a healthy, sustainable and decentralized food system.