I'm not normally a person who lives in the past, sifting through decisions or the lack thereof, weighed down with regrets (not that I don't have some, mind you). I tend to move forward instead, looking at tomorrow with anticipation of what it might bring. So it was with some trepidation that I decided to look at the major stories I posted in 2020, a year, as so many have already said, unlike any other in living memory.

First up, on January 13, was a big moment in the 14 years I've been writing Good Stuff NW, and that was a top-to-bottom redesign of this blog, originally begun as an exercise in a new marketing medium that turned into a whole new career as a journalist.

But now to the proudest moments of the last year:

Your Food, Your Legislature

I'm extremely proud of this annual series of reports that follows Oregon's yearly legislative sessions at the Capitol in Salem, focusing on the bills that affect our food system. They give a comprehensive look at legislative process, from the inception of bills, through the committee processes that can amend, kill or pass them on to be voted on in the House and Senate chambers. These reports give you the chance to express your opinions to legislators, which I sincerely hope you do. Look for the new series to start in January on the 2021 session.

Farm Bulletin

I have been publishing contributor Anthony Boutard's missives from Ayers Creek Farm since 2007, almost exactly a year after first starting this effort. Anthony and his wife, Carol, have been instrumental in teaching me what conscientious, thoughtful, respectful farming looks like, and what it means to steward a piece of ground. His always-stunning prose, as well as his and Carol's friendship, has shaped this blog in ways beyond counting, and I encourage you to read back through them both here on the new site and in the archive. You won't be sorry.

Farmers' Markets Take on the Pandemic

When COVID-19 hit in March, there was no guarantee that our up-to-that-time robust local food system would survive. With the governor instituting a lockdown that month and with a great deal of uncertainty about how the virus was spread or how long it would last, restaurants closed down and grocery stores were being inundated with shoppers "stocking up" (i.e. panic buying) dried beans, canned goods and paper products. The future of farmers' markets was uncertain, but working with state officials and pivoting on a dime as regulations changed, our open-air markets have thrived and provided a lifeline to our small farmers. I'm proud my series of reports on this topic has kept the community informed.

Local Food Gains Traction

I've been so amazed and inspired by our farmers and ranchers in this pandemic, and I've been taken aback by how fervently the community has embraced and supported them during this most difficult year. From figuring out home delivery to starting Community Supported Agriculture subscriptions to holding a virtual celebration of local vegetables, our food community has proved their ability to overcome obstacles even in a pandemic.

Pesticide Contaminates "Organic" Compost

This story originated when I was talking with my neighbor about her extensive vegetable garden. She mentioned that she'd just found out that the gorgeous organic compost she bought from a supposedly reputable local company was contaminated with pesticides. The Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) became involved, and a lawsuit seeking compensation is in process. It's a story you can be sure I'll be following as it develops.

COVID Outbreaks Threaten Essential Food Workers

Crowded conditions and lack of proper protective equipment have proved a deadly combination among essential workers at food processing plants like those owned by Tillamook Cheese as well as workers harvesting crops in the fields.

Wildfires

The intense wildfires that raged through Oregon this past summer and early fall had a devastating effect on our rural food system. Many of our farmers and ranchers lost homes, livestock and fields of crops ready for market, some barely making it out with their lives. Many had to move themselves and their animals multiple times to stay ahead of the unpredictable flames. This on top of a punishing pandemic that has no end in sight. Really, 2020?

Dungeness Crab: MIA

I love our local shellfish and the family-owned businesses that comprise the bulk of Oregon's coastal fishing industry. This story explains the too-opaque, behind-the-scenes machinations by powerful players stifling progress in the name of profit and hurting our food system. (Not to mention our holiday dinner plans.)

We've all read about the outbreaks of coronavirus in meatpacking plants across the country, but other workers in our food system have also been impacted by the spread of the virus due to lack of protective equipment, crowded working conditions and exposure to toxic chemicals that make them more susceptible to the virus. The Hillsdale Farmers' Market's assistant manager Azul Tellez Wright wrote about these issues in its newsletter.

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated many of the inequalities
that people of color face in the U.S.

Nationwide, people of color (POC) are more likely to fall ill with COVID-19, an upsetting truth that is reflected here in Multnomah County. A study conducted by the Multnomah County Health Department in April showed that 40 percent of coronavirus cases in Multnomah County were POC even though they only comprise a third of the population. POC are more likely to hold essential worker positions, such as the thousands of agricultural workers whose jobs have not stopped as the pandemic has descended.

The weight of Oregon’s $50 billion dollar agriculture industry is mostly carried by the thousands of seasonal and often undocumented workers who are hired each season. Agricultural working conditions can put farmworkers at a higher risk for infectious diseases like COVID-19. The nature of the work (i.e. harvesting, canning) makes keeping a six foot distance a challenge.

On top of that, many employers aren’t putting sanitation and distance requirements in place and aren’t providing their employees with personal protective equipment. Many migrant workers live in close quarters, making quarantining impossible. Federal guidelines for farmworker labor camps allow four people in a 10 feet-by-20 feet space, which is roughly the size of a garden shed. [A petition from the nonprofit Oregon Law Center is proposing stricter regulations to protect farmworkers, including changes to transportation, work and living areas to allow workers more space and ensure proper hygiene, according to the Oregonian.]

Despite paying taxes and being considered essential workers, immigrants cannot access the public benefits that many Americans have come to rely on the past few months. Immigrant and undocumented workers were also excluded from the stimulus checks that came as a reprieve for most Americans in March. In the event that they do get sick, many farmworkers are also not eligible for state or employer healthcare.

Clearly, the inequities that farmworkers face are made far worse by COVID-19. There are a number of local organizations that are listening to Oregon’s farmworkers and working with local and state agencies to provide protections against the COVID-19 outbreak. Causa is an immigrant rights organization that works to improve the lives of Latino immigrants and their families through advocacy, coalition building, leadership development, and civic engagement. Consider donating to Causa’s Worker Relief Fund which collects money to go directly to farmworkers families who were excluded from the federal stimulus package.

Woodburn-based PCUN (Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, or Northwest Farmworkers and Treeplanters United) is the largest Latino union in Oregon. They are raising money for their farmworkers emergency fund to support former and current undocumented workers affected by COVID, which includes farmworkers. The Oregon Latino Health Coalition is another organization that has been working with local and state public health agencies to increase protections for farmworkers. [Another organization working to improve conditions for farmworkers is Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a farmworker justice organization currently striking against dangerous working conditions and lack of protective equipment at fruit companies in Washington State.]

I don't know about you, but this quarantine/sheltering in place/social distancing thing is getting old. I'm not at the tear-my-hair-out, run-out-the-front-door-naked stage—for this my neighbors are eternally grateful—but I'm starting to feel like there are things that need attending to besides my Facebook timeline.

Plus if I don't get busy soon, I'll have to address that list of household projects that I always said I'd get around to "when I had the time." Ahem. Below are three issues that need you to take action right now, all without leaving the comfort of your bunker.

Support Local Farms

As it stands now, farms are not eligible to receive assistance under the Small Business Administration (SBA) Economic Impact Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, including emergency grants, authorized in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) passed by Congress.

Please send an email today to your Representative in Congress urging them to sign on to a letter to make sure farms are included. Below is a sample email you can copy and paste into an e-mail. List of Representatives here.

Dear Rep. [insert name],

I am writing to urge you to sign on—if you haven't already—to the letter to support making SBA's emergency economic injury grant program available to farms. It is imperative that farmers be able to access SBA disaster assistance as these programs can help fill the void that many farm businesses are currently feeling due to COVID-19.

Sincerely,

[your name and address]

Support Farmworkers

Daily  living and working was already dangerous and precarious for hundreds of  thousands of farmworkers and immigrants before the onset of COVID-19.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has terrorized farmworker communities and powerful growers have suppressed workers' efforts to organize. This pandemic has found a perfect environment to  increase immigrant communities' risk of fatality if they contract the virus. The agricultural industry has long refused to implement health and safety protections for farmworkers or worker housing, while state and federal agencies looked the other way. Today, agribusiness is  functionally exempt from COVID-19 protocols nationwide.

Take Action: Contact your governor and demand immediate protection for farmworkers. Tell them to:

• Enact Emergency Orders with funding for staffing to ensure all COVID-19  protocols, including appropriate social distancing guidelines, are being  followed in the fields and packing/processing, with enforcement and  consequences for noncompliance, such as fines. Provide personal  protective clothing and equipment to farmworkers at no cost to them. Pay  farmworkers sick leave if they become ill. Establish an incentive for recruitment of needed farmworkers, including raising wages  to work in agriculture.
• Ensure  there will be no retaliation against workers asking for better  protections, or for becoming ill. Ensure the COVID-19 protocols are not  used as retaliation in hiring practices.
• Require transparent recruitment and hiring information and housing protections for all farmworkers related to COVID-19. In addition to informing workers about the terms and conditions of employment when workers are being hired, all persons who are recruiting for agricultural employment must provide detailed information about the risks of COVID-19, including how employers will protect their  safety while transporting and housing them, and in the workplace.
• All  farmworker housing, tools, and equipment must be fully sanitized before  farmworker families move in and use the equipment. There must be proof of that sanitation. There must be designated sanitized quarantine living  facilities with access to medical personnel, and COVID-19 plans approved by the state Department of Health and local health jurisdictions.

E-mail Gov. Brown of Oregon. E-mail Gov. Inslee of Washington.

Take Action: Email state agencies and demand a stop to processing and approving H2A visa applications immediately for farms in the state.

The  H2-A guestworker visa program has a long history of exploitation and abuse. By design, the program makes it almost impossible to regulate the  protocols needed to prevent COVID-19 contagion. Farmworkers are forced to work in close proximity and share close living and eating quarters, as well as being transported on a daily  basis in vans and buses in large groups. The current protocols are not enforceable and have huge gaps, giving individual corporate farms  loopholes. This sets up scenarios with potentially deadly consequences  for farmworkers and rural communities that are already under served in  healthcare, transportation, and infrastructure.

There  is no plan for protocols to prepare for the influx of additional H2-A workers once the  season begins. Furthermore, there has been  no protection for those H2-A workers that are already here—not during their long-distance travel, nor now while they are living in crowded  housing and working in close contact in the fields. 

In Oregon: E-mail Oregon Foreign Labor Certification Coordinator Dora Herrera. In Washington: E-mail Employment Security Department Executive Operations Dir. Nick Streuli.

Information on farmers and CARES act from Farmers Market Fund. Information on H2_A program and photo of farmworkers on bottom left from Community to Community.