Florida Growers Show Ingenuity as Coronavirus Unfolds
May 25, 2020 If you were able to travel back to about this time last year and were told such outlandish things — like all schools and colleges would be shuttered; professional sports would be postponed or cancelled; unemployment numbers would rival the Great Depression; there would be toilet paper shortages; wearing face masks would become the norm; and the entire country would be told to stay home — what would think? A year ago, you would have probably chalked it up as poppycock. But here we are thanks to a novel virus.
A year ago, hearing all this is true, you might also think that society surely must be unraveling. And looking back at all that has happened between March and now, that is not an unreasonable thought. But as bad a hand as the coronavirus has dealt us, we are not unraveling. Far from it.
I have always marveled at how remarkable our society is and how quickly we can accept and adapt to changing conditions — the new normal, as they say. Despite the debate on whether we’ve overreacted or underreacted, this virus is an opportunity to draw us closer together rather than push us apart (while social distancing, of course). It has been my observation, so far, that it has pulled the country together to get through the challenges ahead.
To be sure, this in no way diminishes the deaths and devastating toll COVID-19 has claimed. Growers here in Florida have been hit especially hard as markets for their products dry up. But, as soon as the pandemic began to unfold, we began to follow the Marine Corps mantra — Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.
Some of you sought out new ways to sell your product. Drive through pick-ups of produce boxes became a thing. Many of you became masters of social media to directly connect with consumers. You became the face of agriculture, representing Florida in local and national media to explain the realities of farming and how this virus is impacting the men and women who feed the country. And you donated millions of pounds of fruits and vegetables to those in need.
You did all these things before the government came in with financial aid. That has begun to flow and is needed badly, with more need to come. The government is playing a vital role to stabilize the country, but talk about trying to walk a tightrope, balancing society’s needs without stifling the free-enterprise nature of the country. We will need that spirit to overcome the COVID-19 challenge.
A year ago, if you told me all this, I am not sure I would have thought we had the right stuff to rise above this pandemic. Today, I do, but we can’t do it without you. Here, too, the government can play a proper role in stemming the flow, so you can sustain your operations into the future. That was true before COVID-19, but it is especially important now.
So, where do we go from here? Who knows what a year will bring? What if I told you a year from now, there would be a viable COVID-19 treatment? Where do you think this country that has been the economic engine of the globe would go? We’d do what we always do — rise.
Let me know what you think in the reader comment section below.
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