Despite the many coronavirus lockdowns around the world, people still need to eat, and agricultural work continues—but with many new challenges. Some crops that were ready to harvest are being plowed under or allowed to rot in the fields, because seasonal workers are restricted from traveling, and many buyers have temporarily closed. Unwanted flowers are being used as feed for livestock, and some fishermen are donating their catch to needy families. The farm workers who do have jobs worry about possible exposure to the virus, and have little protection, but many are glad to have a paycheck right now. In some places, the demand for organic produce has gone up, and farmers are working to get their crops to smaller markets as well as larger warehouses.
The Essential Work of Farmers
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Edson, an organic producer, works on his crops in Ipero, Brazil, on April 1, 2020. Edson and other producers continue to grow organic food in partnership with Armazem Terra Viva. They sell to stores around Sorocaba and Sao Paulo. During the isolation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the demand for healthy foods has doubled. #
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Lettuce grows in a greenhouse in Dossenheim, near Heidelberg, Germany, on March 26, 2019. Many of the foreign seasonal workers who would usually help harvest crops are unable to enter the country because of travel bans imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. #
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Locals help wash and sort asparagus at a farm during the coronavirus crisis on April 9, 2020, near Tettnang, Germany. Because of travel restrictions, many farms do not have enough workers and have appealed to locals, among them students, to help during this year's harvest season. #
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Agricultural workers from Bud Farms harvest celery for both American and export consumption in Oxnard, California, on March 26, 2020. Many of those working in agriculture in the U.S. have become essential workers during the pandemic, helping to ensure America's food supply does not dry up as so many other business close down. These agricultural workers are mostly migrant Spanish-speakers. They earn just above minimum wage and in a good six-day week, working 10 hours a day, they can earn about $1,100. At the same time, they have no masks, no gloves, and no sense of social distancing or testing to prevent spreading the virus among one another if one of the workers contracts the disease. #
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A farmer is pictured amid a large stock of potatoes that he can't sell to restaurants or catering services, as they are closed because of the coronavirus outbreak, at his property in Purmer, Netherlands, on April 3, 2020. #
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DiMare farm manager, Jim Husk, walks among plants in a tomato field, in Homestead, Florida, on March 28, 2020. Thousands of acres of fruits and vegetables grown in Florida are being plowed over or left to rot because farmers can't sell to restaurants, theme parks, or schools nationwide that have closed because of the coronavirus. #
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A fishing boat is seen from aboard the trawler Marianna, as it leaves Italy's Fiumicino port to go out to sea for a fishing trip, in the Tyrrhenian Sea, on April 1, 2020. Italy’s fishermen still go out to sea at night, but not as frequently in recent weeks because demand is down amid the country's devastating coronavirus outbreak. #
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Fisherman Giuseppe Temperani gives freshly caught fish to volunteers who will deliver it to needy families, as Italy remains on lockdown, in the Tuscan city of Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy, on April 7, 2020. Temperani has been donating his entire catch to the poor since the crisis began. #
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A Palestinian farmer wearing a mask feeds discarded chrysanthemum flowers to sheep at a farm in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on April 16, 2020. Palestinian farmers salvaged some of their unwanted flower crops to use as feed, after the market for flowers collapsed during the pandemic. #
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Henry Vasques, 26, has been an agricultural laborer for nine years. He is seen with Juana Gonzalez, 28, who has worked for 10 years. Henry worries about the coronavirus, especially working so close to other laborers all day long without protection. "I'm uncomfortable," he said, "but I must work." Juana is equally worried but is also grateful to be working at a time of mass unemployment. #
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A shepherd wearing a protective mask carries a lamb as others graze in the fields around the village of Karatas, in the Çankaya district of Ankara, Turkey, on April 9, 2020. #
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Seasonal worker Anna Maria from Romania, tends to raspberries inside a polytunnel ahead of the fruit-picking season at a farm in Rochester, Kent, England, on March 31, 2020. #
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A dairy farmer feeds a calf milk from a bottle, a day after Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government would offer an additional $5 billion CAD ($3.4 billion USD) line of credit for farmers and agricultural producers to help them through the coronavirus crisis, in Carrying Place, Ontario, Canada, on March 24, 2020. #
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