BOOMING PRODUCE SALES MAY NOT OUTLAST PANDEMIC
WALLINGFORD — Connecticut farmers who produce fruits and vegetables have seen the volume of foods their customers buy increase significantly in the year since COVID-19 arrived in the state.
But as the state opens up this spring and summer, will the good times last?
Ida DeFrancesco, who along with her husband, Joe, sells fruits and vegetables and other foods via a variety of channels through their Wallingfordbased agricultural business Farmer Joe’s Gardens. One of those channels is community supported agriculture, in which customers interested in a weekly supply of fresh vegetables during the growing season can purchase a portion — known as “a share” — of the weekly harvest.
“We’re seeing the number of shares increase by about 20 percent,” Ida DeFrancesco, who lives in Northford, said. “But what worries me is that as we come out of COVID, whatever gains we have made are going to go away.”
Connecticut has 5,500 farms and 380,000 aces of farmland. Farms add about $4 billion annually to the state’s economy, although some of that is attributable to the farming of flowers and decorative plants and aquaculture.
To keep the money and edible goods flowing through the economy, the state has updated is “Connecticut Grown” messaging campaign for the first time since it was launched in 1986.
A new campaign was launched at Geremia Farms in Wallingford on Monday. The new logo — and adding “A Way of Life” tagline to the Connecticut Grown moniker — has Gov. Ned Lamont and other state officials hoping sales of fruits, vegetables and other edibles will continue to grow.
“We want to support each and everyone of our farmers,” Lamont said. “Spring time is the season for blossoming and blooming, and that’s what Connecticut agriculture is all about.”
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, said “when our farms are strong, our state is made even stronger.”
Keith Bishop, co-chief executive officer of the Guilfordbased orchard and agricultural business that bears his family’s name, said that while the size of orders from customers has increased by 30 percent, transportation and energy costs have forced Bishop’s Orchards to increase prices slightly.
“There comes a point at which the customer won’t accept a price increase, and they blame it on the people that they buy their food from,” Bishop said.