Close to one-third of self-described small independent farmers could go bankrupt this year as a result of COVID-19 severely limiting their sales.
That’s according to a survey by ResourcED—a new joint initiative of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and the Blue Hill Farm restaurant in Tarrytown, New York—which checked in with grain, produce, livestock and poultry, dairy, and flower farmers, most of whom use farming methods like organic or regenerative.
The poll finds that more than 35 percent of farmers experienced an average drop in revenue of over 51 percent in March and April, compared to the same period the previous year, due to a lack of sales to restaurants and at farmers’ markets. The concern for them is getting stuck with goods they can’t sell; of the almost 37 percent who expect to have this problem, over half don’t have cold storage or another way to salvage what they’ve produced.
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