Farms That Sell Directly To Consumers Are Thriving Amid Coronavirus Downturn

“We feel pretty lucky,” Chris Newman admits. Newman is the owner and operator of Sylvanaqua Farms, a small permaculture operation that sells and delivers directly to consumers. Meat may be running low in grocery stores as farmers across the country face dire decisions about their animals but, in the midst of the coronavirus downturn, farms like Sylvanaqua are managing to thrive.

Sylvanaqua delivers meat across a pretty wide area beyond the farm—surrounding areas in Virginia as well as north to Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. He and his team slaughter and process the meat right on the farm, which means they aren’t beholden to an outside processing plant.

Everyone who works on the farm also lives there, “kind of like a big family,” Newman explains. His restaurant and wholesale orders froze as soon as social isolation began, but Newman’s overall business immediately skyrocketed as new customers came to Sylvanaqua for poultry, pork, beef and eggs.

Newman never wanted to sell only through CSAs “where...you’ve got to figure out what to do with nine pounds of radishes,” he says.

Growing up with food insecurity, he hated the idea of making food more difficult to access. A former software engineer turned regenerative farmer, Newman set up his website for direct orders of meat and eggs early on. Now that decision is paying off, he says. “Business is really good.”

In Northern California, Megan Brown also has a boutique farming operation that’s doing surprisingly well. Brown raises heritage breed pigs. “I have sold out of every pig I have until next year,” she exclaims. “I’ve never had that happen.” 

Much like Newman, the work Brown put in before the pandemic is now yielding results. “I have my core group of buyers that have been buying from me for a long, long time and now their friends know who I am,” she says. “I have so much business. If it stays like this, it’ll be life-changing.” 

Brown has a unique vantage point since her family also farms conventional cattle, and that operation has suffered from the pandemic. “Our auctioneer called us and said, hey, if you can help it, hang on to these cows as long as you can.”

Fortunately, cattle can be held back from slaughter longer than pork or chicken without losing the investment. And her family is lucky, Brown says. They own their own land, so they have a lot more financial flexibility.

Not every small farmer is in that enviable position, however. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), says the small and midsize farming operations in her state that grow primarily for restaurants or food service are suffering right now.

“Trying to switch to direct to consumer is great, but it doesn’t work for everybody,” Pingree explains. She and other U.S. House members have been urging Secretary Perdue to set aside stimulus funds for small farmers who are struggling.

Much of the media coverage has been on meat lately but, as summer approaches, Pingree says fresh fruit and vegetable growers who sell primarily at farmer’s markets could also face significant losses. “There’s all these questions about how are we going to operate [farmers markets],” she says, and fresh produce farmers are beginning to panic.

Pingree is also renewing a call for legislators to pass the PRIME Act, a policy designed to allow livestock farmers to process more of their meat locally rather than at USDA-inspected facilities. For livestock producers, if you want to sell meat to the public, the meat must be slaughtered in a USDA-inspected facility with few exceptions.

The problem is consolidation in the meat industry has meant USDA-approved facilities are few and far between in some states, making it more challenging for small farmers to find places to process their meat. 

Mike Salguero is the founder of ButcherBox, a company that sells grass-fed and humanely raised meat online directly to consumers. From his own experience, he knows there are a lot of logistical complications facing livestock producers who want to sell directly, including the regulations the PRIME Act seeks to reform.

Still, there are also a lot of customers looking for local meat right now, he figures, if only more farmers could reach them. ButcherBox is launching a new database this week to help farmers reach the public. “We would love to help anyone who needs help figuring out the logistics side,” he adds.

Though ButcherBox contracts with farmers all over the U.S. and even internationally, they haven’t experienced problems with their supply chain. That’s because of the fairly small agricultural niche the company occupies. “The processing facilities where these animals are slaughtered and cut are way smaller,” Salguero explains.

“That doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods,” he adds, cautiously. “I hope that this will be a good wake up call for the industry—how plants are run, how animals are raised, how farmers are paid.” 

Brown is also worried for her industry. “We’re seeing that inspectors are getting sick and dying and, you know, I don’t know if their work conditions are going to get better,” she says.

Serious questions remain about safety for both workers and federal inspectors at all meat processing plants. Last week, three USDA inspectors were reported to have died from coronavirus while around 145 were also diagnosed.

Under California law, Brown can sell a small number of animals each month direct to consumer, so that’s what she’s decided to do with some of the cattle she can’t bring to auction right now. 

She prefers to use a local processor she’s worked with for years because, she cautions, smaller isn’t always better. Plenty of small slaughter operations are “gross,” Brown says, but the processor she works with is a business she knows very well. She’s seen the behind-the-scenes operations and feels confident in how the place is run.

Like almost everyone right now, farmer Chris Newman is thinking ahead to what happens next. “How do we hang on to all these new customers that have come in,’’ he wonders. He’s hoping they’ve grown accustomed to placing orders through the website and getting their meat delivered a few days later. “We’re kind of hoping to keep that up...but without the plague,” he says.

Newman sees the future for a more resilient food system somewhere between ‘Big Ag’ and small boutique farms—not so small that they can’t scale up but not so big that they can’t respond to disruptions to the supply chain like a global pandemic. “I really think the solution for sustainable agriculture and sustainable food in general is in the middle.”