(Radio Iowa) — More Iowans are buying food directly from farmers during the pandemic, with Facebook groups and other social media connecting producers and customers. Jenna Anthofer, of Breda, started the group I-A Farm 2 Table on Facebook May 10th and now has more than two-thousand people signed on from Iowa and neighboring states. She says the group is strictly for direct-to-consumer sales of farm products and is her reaction to the challenges COVID-19 has thrown at farmers.

“I really just wanted to help offset that, if possible, by hooking up farmers and producers with consumers,” Anthofer says. “I’m actually in a larger nationwide farm-to-table group and they had suggested that each state have their own sort of offshoot branch.” Anthofer says it’s easy enough to find buyers for vegetables, eggs, honey and processed meat, while she says many people are newly-interested in buying meat directly from farmers.

“Not everybody feels confident buying a whole pig and then having to process it themselves,” she says, “although I’ve tried to put some resources in the group for people. It’s not that hard to break down a hog, here’s a video to show you how to do it.”

Across the Midwest, people are using websites, Reddit, op-ed pieces and other tools to spread the word about buying food directly from farmers. Reddit users compiled a list of “farms that are delivering” and launched a U-R-L with that name.

(By Amy Mayer, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) — The Iowa Department of Agriculture has launched a program to help pork producers deal with hogs they can’t take to market after coronavirus shut downs at packing plants. Ag Secretary Mike Naig says it’s something no producer wants to deal with. “Farmers are doing everything they can to avoid having to take the step of euthanizing and disposing of animals,” Naig says.

“They are finding alternate ways to market, they are selling direct to consumers, they’re changing their feed ration to slow down the rate of gain — they are doing everything they can. This truly is an action, a decision of last resort.” The Ag Department is offering producers 40 dollars for each animal to help cover some of the disposal costs for market-ready hogs. “It won’t cover all costs, but it is a part of the cost that they’ll incur to euthanize and dispose of animals,” he says.

Naig says they are still hoping for federal help to cover the loss of revenue from the hogs. Iowa State University estimates that by mid-May there were approximately 600-thousand pigs in Iowa that were unable to go to the packing plants. Iowa producers were faced with killing thousands of chickens and turkeys during the bird flu outbreak five years ago — and Naig says they learned some things then. “One of the key learnings from that was to really empower producers to make decisions and to take control of the situation,” according to Naig. ”

They know their operations better than anyone else. And they also know the resources at their disposal better than anyone else. We learned that back in 2015.” He says they will hand out the funding in at least three rounds. “The first round closes Friday of this week, and farmers will need to reach out to our office. They can call the main number or they can go to IowaAgriculture.gov, and there is a way to apply there. And then we will subsequently roll out rounds two and three,” Naig says.

Naig says this will help producers deal with the short-term problem. In the long-term, he says they need to continue to get making the packing plants safe for workers.  He says that it will allow the employees to confidently show up and know that they can work safely. “That’s ultimately what it takes to return to full processing capacity. Today in Iowa we are running at about 75 percent of our normal processing capacity — an again that number steadily improves each day,” Naig says.

He says this could continue to be a problem throughout the summer. Each applicant who is approved will receive funding for at least one-thousand animals and up to 30-thousand each round, depending on the number of applicants. The money comes from federal coronavirus relief funding.

JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) — Health officials are confirming another coronavirus outbreak in an Iowa meatpacking plant on the same day that the number of residents who have died from the virus topped 500. Of more than 2,500 employees tested at the Tyson pork processing plant in Storm Lake, 555 have tested positive.

Department of Public Health Deputy Director Sarah Reisetter said Thursday that businesses in Iowa are not required to report outbreaks, and state law only requires disclosure of a business name when it’s necessary to protect the public.