Local Farm in Caledonia Keeping Up With Demand
A local farm in Caledonia, Michigan, is doing everything it can to keep up and maintain their crops during the coronavirus outbreak.
According to WOOD, the company called Revolution Farms greenhouse have made some changes in order to protect their farming staff as well as protect their crops.
Revolution Farms has workers enter and immediately use a foot bath. Then they wear a hair net and protective footwear over their shoes. They go to a sink and scrub their hands.
Revolution Farms representative, Dan Yukcevich said, "we're trying to make sure that we have a crew to harvest the lettuce all year and all week long. So, what we've done is actually cut our crew in half."
The farm went from 20 employees to 10 so the folks could be spaced out accordingly. The team works 5 days a week and crank out nearly 8,000 pounds of butter bit, red oak, green oak, green crisp and romaine lettuces which is pretty amazing.
Vukcevich said, "we'll be basically seeding plants, transfer them into a raft, that raft goes into the water about 21 days, we'll harvest at the end of the line and then put them in packages."
It only takes about 45 days to complete the process and ship to grocery stores like Meijer and Spartan stores. Demand right now can be met but that means workers will be working longer hours.
"Our retail partners have asked us to pull up orders and we're doing that. Our wholesale partners have obviously slowed down because of the restaurants (dine in ban), but we're doing everything we can to get out order to all of the retailers," Vukcevich said.
“Our retail partners have asked us to pull up orders and we’re doing that. Our wholesale partners have obviously slowed down because of the restaurants (dine-in ban), but we’re doing everything we can to get out orders to all of the retailers,” Vukcevich said.
The farm is playing a crucial role in helping feed local families.