'No farms, no food, no Walmart.' Idaho agriculture industry grapples with coronavirus

BOISE — While the rest of the state is settling into a stay-at-home order and bracing for more impacts from coronavirus, Idaho agriculture is just ramping up.

Farmers, farmworkers and ag industry leaders have to balance the struggle to keep workers safe and healthy while meeting the demands of a food-system increasingly overburdened by coronavirus concerns — or there won’t be food refilling grocery shelves come summer.

In late March, many of the Treasure Valley’s ag-based towns were still operating like normal. In Wilder a few days before Idaho Gov. Brad Little issued a stay-at-home story order for the entire state, Cimberlie Christiansen, the pesticide compliance manager for Marsing Agricultural Labor Sponsoring Committee, which recruits and hires laborers for farmers across southwestern Idaho, was checking on the committee’s crew leaders and workers scattered across the Treasure Valley.

Despite empty grocery shelves in many of their hometown stores — locals in Marsing, Greenleaf and Wilder speculated Boise residents had ventured far to find food and toilet paper — life was mostly business as usual, especially in western Canyon County.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/no-farms-no-food-no-walmart-idaho-agriculture-industry-grapples-with-coronavirus/ar-BB12gob2?li=BBnb7Kz