As COVID-19 has altered almost every facet of our daily lives, the CAES has responded with expertise and donations of food and plants to assist people in North Carolina and beyond.
Cooperative Extension at N.C. A&T has launched a frequently updated webpage – COVID-19 Resources for the Public – with practical advice for individuals, families and farmers. More than 30 resources available on the page cover topics such as how to avoid Coronavirus financial scams, safely store and reheat leftovers, build a portable handwashing station, maintain a routine for children, and plant a garden.
“North Carolinians have known Cooperative Extension as a resource for unbiased information for more than 100 years,” said Rosalind Dale, Ed.D., associate dean and Extension administrator. “Because of this, our Extension specialists and associates were quickly able to use their expertise to tailor information to fit the current crisis while at the same time making it easy for people to understand.”
Spring is usually a busy time of year for CAES lecturer Odile Huchette and her horticulture students. Ordinarily, by mid-semester, she, her students and her colleagues in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design would have gardens planted and propagation projects spreading out all over campus.
All of that activity screeched to a halt in mid-March, when the state’s response to halt the spread of COVID-19 virus brought a temporary end to face-to-face teaching and life on campus. What didn’t stop, however, were the plants. Lettuce, mustard greens, broccoli and kale planted at the beginning of the semester, were ready for harvesting at the Reid Greenhouse, the Urban Food Platform and the student farm area of the University Farm.
With a state deadline to shelter in place looming, Huchette and Reid Greenhouse research technician Alex Wofford decided to take steps to make sure the food went to a good use and that students’ efforts didn’t go by the wayside.
Working together, the pair harvested and donated 35 pounds of kale from a student’s senior project as well as 11 flats – about 500 plants – of lettuce, kale and mustard from the plant propagation class. They donated the produce to the nonprofit Out of the Garden Project to be distributed to the community; the seedlings were given to community and school gardens in need through Guilford County Cooperative Extension.
But there was more. A few days later, Huchette harvested and donated another 13 pounds of kale from the student’s project, 12 pounds of broccoli from the student farm and a flat of mustard seedlings produced by students for Out of the Garden Project’s urban teaching farm.
“We had so much produce, and we heard that agencies were being overwhelmed with demand,” Huchette said. “We wanted to make sure the students’ work wasn’t wasted and that we had done what we could feed the community.”
Lily Emendy of the Out of the Garden Project said that, although every donation is valued, donations from community partners like N.C. A&T are especially meaningful.
“I’m sure it would have been easier to let all that viable produce go to seed and be turned back into the soil. It certainly would have taken far less time than it took to hand-harvest all those bunches of greens and heads of broccoli, package them to be easily distributed, and coordinate with me,” Emendy said.
“I think that it speaks volumes about why we’re doing this work – that we care about taking action to affect change, not just talking about it.”
Huchette also donated flowering plants and herbs, such as lavender. mint, geraniums and coleus, to the Greensboro Children’s Museum. The museum each year holds a plant sale to benefit their Edible Schoolyard, a section of the museum’s yard designed to give children the chance to have educational experiences centered around a garden, kitchen and cafeteria. This year, the plant sale is being held online.
“Ms. Huchette gave us an amazing assortment, and we are grateful for their donation,” said Rachel Diaz, garden educator at the museum.
Other units in the CAES are donating food and plants, too. This spring, the Extension research group has donated about 800 pounds of vegetables grown in high tunnels at the University Farm to local nonprofits: Share the Harvest, the Interactive Resource Center, Food Not Bombs, Industries for the Blind and the Out of the Garden Project.
The Small Farm Unit at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems in Goldsboro, led by Professor Kathleen Liang, Ph.D., has continued its specialty vegetable production and continued to make donations to local soup kitchens and other nonprofits.
Liang has also donated homemade face masks in a neighborhood near CEFS; provided financial training for risk analysis to individual farmers; offered multi-farm collaborative marketing training; and worked with the national organization MarketMaker to help coordinate national, regional, state and local resources and communication to fill gaps in food systems.
County-based Cooperative Extension agents across the state are performing acts of service as well.
“Our county-based staff truly meet people where they live and work, so they see firsthand the impact that the coronavirus pandemic is having on families and communities,” Dale said. “At times like this, they are not only providing educational resources, but they are also providing other resources like masks and food to help those in need.”
A 4-H sewing project under the supervision of 4-H Youth Development Specialist Shannon Wiley, Ph.D., is supplying face masks to bus drivers, teachers, volunteers and others on the forefront of delivering educational resources, meals and healthcare in Gates, Hertford and Wilson counties.
In Anson, Bladen, Graham, Mecklenburg, Mitchell, Swain and Warren counties, nonperishable food collected as part of Small Farms Week is helping to meet the surge in demand for food assistance caused by the pandemic.
In Wilson County, the 4-H Teen Council is leading an initiative to deliver video messages and write cards to older adults at the local senior center. And William Landis, an agriculture agent in Warren County, is serving with the National Guard to build hospitals.
Members of the CAES are also working to provide international assistance. Arnab Bhowmik, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design, is helping Asta-Ja USA, a nonprofit dedicated to the sustainable development of natural and human resources, to raise money for COVID-19 emergency supplies for the Nepalese people.
