MORGANTOWN—Concern over food shortages and difficulty getting to grocery stores due to COVID-19 caused many West Virginians to turn to local farmers, and in turn, local farmers had to turn to one another.
The Coronavirus pandemic increased demand for food, subsequently putting vegetable seeds in higher demand, making it common for seed companies to run out of stock. Growing seeds takes time, and when they go out of stock, increasing the supply cannot be done instantly.
This left farmers needing to find an alternative method to keep up with demand.
“You saw some cooperation, at least in our community, in Putnam County, where we were almost trading seeds, like you would have back in the early times,” said Baxter Mallory, co-founder of Mallory Family Farms of West Virginia in Hurricane. “It was really interesting to see people slide back into an agriculture market.”
Check out the entire article from the Dominion Post here - https://www.dominionpost.com/2021/03/21/seed-shortage-leads-farmers-to-rely-on-one-another/