When a Community Comes Together
Let’s just start by saying that we’re so grateful for our farming community.
Alabama was late to the coronavirus party - not late in getting it, but late to the process of gearing up, testing, and deploying policy to stop the virus and help its people. By the time the state and counties started to take definitive action, contingency plans by activists, non-profits, and small businesses were well under way.
It was terrifying. As a farm, we worried about our friends at restaurants, our community farmers, our customers. What would this mean for all of them, both in the short and long term?
One of the first organizations in our sphere to start moving was ASAN, the Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network. ASAN is based in relationships, deepening them between “the people of Alabama, the food we eat, and the place we live.” By the time the first confirmed diagnosis was announced on March 13, ASAN was already looking for ways to serve and support the farming community.
It was in the next few days that we received an email from Alice Evans, the Executive Director, informing us of an upcoming call for state-wide farmers and various local-food advocates looking to give and receive support.
The call was scheduled for Friday, March 20, 2020. The days before were of anxiety and adrenaline. At that point, news was changing every few hours. The entire week was spent trying to mobilize, get more food to more people, support our restaurants, and plan for a worst-case scenario. It felt breathless. We felt invigorated by the urgency but scared by the news playing out across the country and state.
By the time we got to the call, we were anxious to hear how our partner farms were being impacted and how ASAN was preparing for what would likely be a several weeks (and month) process.
Alice opened with a confidence-inspiring goal: ASAN wants to ensure that small farms stay in business. Alice led with the empathy of a trained facilitator; she spoke to what we needed to hear, giving the farmers permission for the anxiety and promising to lead a call that was focused on farmer solutions.
ASAN then created a space where farmers could express their successes, as well as their fears and concerns. The team made sure that farmers were given the space to ask for help and articulate their pain points. Even better, Alice challenged us to think of what skills we could offer each other during this time of need.
What unfolded over the next two hours was refreshing. While yes, hardship was there, every time a farmer spoke of an issue they were having or a question, someone else chimed in with words of wisdom or with a call to action.
By the end of the call, the feeling that we’d achieved something together was palatable, even across a video conference.
In reflection over the next few days, we were so grateful to know that in such a weird and chaotic time, there are folks across the state and country advocating for farms like us. We know that now, more than ever, community still matters most.
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