Coronavirus is threatening US farms' survival. But you can make a difference | Adrienne Matei
Written by Adrienne Matei
Community-supported agriculture programs benefit at-risk farmers most as the pandemic underlines the value of local food systems
Fresh farm produce is healthy and delicious. Most of the time, that’s reason enough to sign up for a community-supported agriculture program (CSA), a system in which one pays to regularly receive goodie bags of whatever happens to be flourishing in nearby farmers’ fields, often along with optional local meat and dairy add-ons. Now, during the Covid-19 pandemic, bolstering local food systems is especially urgent – and there’s more at stake than just really good tomatoes.
Local farmers have proven more reliable in a crisis than the industrial food supply chain
Related: Keeping America fed: six workers on life in the thick of the coronavirus crisis
At the same time that demand for groceries has surged, vast quantities of food produced by the service sector are being discarded
Adrienne Matei is a journalist who writes about technology and culture
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