Shore Breeze Farms had just started a new hydroponic lettuce venture when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and suddenly, the owners had to rethink their business model.

“We were just getting our feet wet and getting the ball rolling, and then this whole thing happened,” said Kyle Sturgis, manager of Shore Breeze Farms in Northampton County and chairman of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation Young Farmers Committee. “We’re having to reinvent the wheel because a lot of our sales were to restaurants.”

The solution? Salad kits and direct-to-consumer retail sales.

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A series of free virtual Medicare 101 Educational Seminars, sponsored by Virginia Farm Bureau Health Insurance, are scheduled through August.

The organization has facilitated Medicare seminars since 2016, but this is the first year the sessions will be held online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tracy Cornatzer, sales manager for the VFB Health Insurance Agency, said access to health information is more crucial than ever.

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Virginia total apple production for 2019 was estimated at 190.0 million pounds, down 7 percent from 2018. Utilized production totaled 188.1 million pounds, down almost 14 million pounds from 2018. Apples for fresh market totaled 89.3 million pounds, up 7 percent from 2018. Apples for processing accounted for 98.8 million pounds of the 2019 crop, down 16 percent from 2018.

Total value of utilized production was $34.6 million for the crop, down $2.7 million from the 2018 value of $37.3 million. The average price received for 2019 apples was 18.4 cents per pound, down from the 2018 price of 18.7 cents. Fresh market apples brought 25.1 cents per pound in 2019, down 2.2 cents from 2018. Processed apples sold for $246.00 per ton, up $2.00 per ton from 2018. The number of bearing acres of apples totaled 9,500 acres in 2019, down 200 acres from 2018. The yield per acre was 20,000 pounds, 1,000 pounds less than in 2018. Based on utilized production, Virginia ranks 5th in the nation for apple production.

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U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Jovita Carranza announced today that agricultural businesses are now eligible for SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and EIDL Advance programs. SBA’s EIDL portal will reopen today as a result of funding authorized by Congress through the Paycheck Protection Program and Healthcare Enhancement Act. The legislation, signed into law by the President one week ago, provided additional funding for farmers and ranchers and certain other agricultural businesses affected by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

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Check out this week’s Merchandiser Minute!

According to the Virginia Field Office of the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service production value of broilers and eggs in the Commonwealth declined in 2019, while turkeys increased.

Virginia broiler value of production in 2019 was $848 million, down 9 percent from $935 million in 2018. The pounds produced was 1.74 billion pounds, an increase of 4 percent from the previous year. The number of head grown increased 1 percent, to 281 million head.

Virginia turkey production totaled 16 million head in 2019, down 3 percent from 16.5 million head raised in 2018. The pounds produced was 446 million pounds, a decrease of 2 percent from the previous year. Value of production in 2019 was $258 million, up 12 percent from $231 million in 2018.

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Constant hand washing can cause dry, painfully chapped skin, and personal protective equipment can chafe health care workers wearing it.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, news and social media have shown the physical toll health care workers face while battling the front lines.

One farm near Williamsburg decided to help by donating skincare products to them. “As we began hearing from our friends who are medical professionals that their hands were extremely irritated—even to the point of bleeding—from the excessive hand washing required during this outbreak, we knew that our products would help protect their skin,” said Kerry Messer, whose family owns Sweethaven Lavender.

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Check out this week’s Merchandiser Minute.

Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration Jovita Carranza and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin issued the following statement today on the resumption of the Payroll Protection Program (PPP):

“We are pleased that President Trump has signed into law the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, which provides critical additional funding for American workers and small businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic.  We want to thank Leader McConnell, Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader McCarthy for working with us on a bipartisan basis to ensure that the Paycheck Protection Program is funded so that small businesses can keep hardworking Americans on the payroll.

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Stefanie Kitchen, Asst. Director

This week, Andrew Smith and I participated in a webinar for Farm Credit Knowledge Center on how to be an advocate for agriculture. If you missed the live presentation, you can follow their Facebook page for “Watch It Wednesday”, when it will be available again for viewing. In the meantime, here are some highlights from our presentation.

What is lobbying?
Lobbying is the advocacy of a point of view, either by groups or individuals. Most people think of lobbyists only as paid professionals, but there are also many independent, volunteer lobbyists — all of whom are protected by the same First Amendment. Continue reading →