California ordered indoor restaurant dining to cease again on July 13th, as coronavirus cases spiked around the state. This is prompting even more uncertainty for vegetable growers in a growing season already rife with it.
Steve Brazeel of SunTerra Produce, based in Orange County, said: "Up until a couple of weeks ago, we felt reasonably confident putting together a planting schedule that was fairly similar to previous years. As we get closer, these decisions become more critical, as it looks like it will come down to the last minute."
He'll have to decide within the next couple of weeks what winter-vegetable crops to plant in the Imperial Valley. Ordinarily, those would include iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, green and red leaf lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower.
The original shelter-in-place orders in March caused food-service orders to vanish seemingly overnight, forcing some farmers to plow under their crops. An economic study commissioned by the California Farm Bureau Federation and other organizations and conducted by ERA Economics found some Imperial Valley growers lost entire leafy-green crops worth millions.
As reported on agalert.comΒΈ markets have been up lately, but they have begun to decline again, said Mark Shaw, vice president of operations at Markon in Salinas. Its main line of business is supplying fresh fruits and vegetables to the food-service sector.