Photo by Jay Young Rachel Selice, left, and Tyson Staff harvest peas at Abers Acres Farm in Kennedy.

The effects of spring weather and COVID-19 restrictions have been felt differently by farms in Western New York.

Farmers in the region have agriculture, dairy and pasture operations of all shapes and sizes, which has led to different outcomes on business in the past several months.

For some, like Roberto Fred of Fred Farms in Dunkirk, the pandemic and dry weather have been difficult.

“The weather has been crazy,” Fred said. “Too dry, not enough rain. Then we had a hard freeze in the springtime for the grapes.”

Fred Farms grows around 350 acres of grapes and a variety of vegetables and fruits on another 20 acres, and currently operates with a staff of five.

“With the virus, we had to let people go. We couldn’t keep them and the banks are getting tight to work with too. Everything has been a major impact on us,” Fred said. “In another eight days we’ll be getting into blueberries, we have five acres of those. The tomatoes and the peppers, all the vegetables should be coming in eventually.”

Fred Farms harvests the majority of its products mechanically, although COVID-19 has still forced staffing changes.

POSITIVES

For other farms, such as Abers Acres in Kennedy, dry weather and COVID-19 measures may have actually had a positive impact.

“We’ve been busier in all aspects except for our accounts that were taking care of restaurants,” Sue Abers said.

Abers Acres provides a variety of products to area farmers markets, sells on site with a small store, and also offers customers the opportunity to pick their own produce.

“The big thing is, when there are blue skies and sunshine, people come out to the farms and to the markets and the u-picks,” Abers said. “I think a combination of the good weather and the COVID thing, where people are just looking for something to do because a lot of things are closed down, we’ve been a lot busier than normal. Overall it has been at least maybe 50% busier than normal.”

Business through local farmers markets has been steady at the start of the summer, and there has also been more interest in the home delivery of local products.

“All of our farmers markets are going,” Abers said. “We do Jamestown, Westfield and Lakewood and then the Chautauqua Institution farmers markets. All of them are going and they’ve all been strong through this year. There have been a lot of people going out to them. I don’t know if the COVID thing just makes people think about supporting local and whatever, but all of our markets have been pretty strong this year. I supply some other home delivery, food box places. They’ve been even busier this year, because a lot of people didn’t want to go to the grocery store to go shopping so they started getting the food delivery boxes.”

MIXED BAG

Abers Acres has also not had any issues with dry weather, thanks to drip irrigation, which has also been an investment for for Carlberg Farm Produce in Jamestown.

“We got a late start, I think the winter kind of lingered a little bit down here in southern Chautauqua County,” Ginny Carlberg said. “It seemed like once we snapped out of the cold weather then it got hot and dry. So we have had to do a lot of extra irrigating and watering. Sometimes you get poor germination on seed if it is dry like that. I would say that the weather has impacted us. We grow a variety of different vegetables, and most of it we direct seed into the garden. We’ve had to plant some things and had to put in some extra labor and time into watering, in fact we invested in drip irrigation and that is going in this week.”

Carlberg’s operation includes a dairy farm that sells milk to a cooperative, and a three-year old produce business that includes local eggs.

“The produce thing is something that my husband and I are just starting up and enjoy doing,” Carlberg said. “I can’t really say we had any impact directly from COVID, because at that time we weren’t really selling any produce. I got some calls wondering if we sold beef for example. I think the meat aspect–people are really hungry for local beef and local chickens and all of that. We do have eggs and I can’t keep eggs in stock at all. I put them out and they are gone. Egg sales are up.”

Operating with a small family staff, Carlberg Farm has not had to make some of the difficult decisions of larger agricultural operations to cut hours or positions.

“There have been some extra things that we have to do as far as safety goes,” Carlberg said. “I have to have a safety plan just like any other business. I’ve got hand sanitizer down there and I clean daily, just sanitizing commonly touched items and things like that.”

It remains to be seen if increased demand for local produce, meat and eggs is a temporary symptom of the pandemic, or if there has been an overall increase in the public desire to buy local.

“If we can take any positive from COVID, because there have been a lot negatives, but if farms can have a positive in any way in an increase in demand we would be grateful for that,” Carlberg said.

For more information on how to shop at farms in your area, visit the map at chautauqua.cce.cornell.edu/chautauqua-grown.