- Title: As more people grow their food, companies run low on seeds
- Date: 18th May 2020
- Summary: MINERAL, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES (MAY 18, 2020) (REUTERS VIA ZOOM) (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOUTHERN EXPOSURE SEED EXCHANGE (SESE) COM-MANAGER, IRA WALLACE, SAYING: "You know, we went one day selling a certain amount and the next day three times as much. And... and this has been going on, off and on again ever since. We had to, you know, suspend sales a few days a week for, I
- Embargoed: 1st June 2020 18:38
- Keywords: COVID-19 coronavirus growing food home-grown vegetables plants rooftop garden seeds
- Location: NEW YORK, + ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, + NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, + MINERAL, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES
- City: NEW YORK, + ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, + NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, + MINERAL, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA003CEGMBLZ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A food farmer and yoga teacher, Laila Thaw, proudly pointed to plants growing in her Bowery Street rooftop garden.
"This one is rosemary. This one is chamomile. This one is a little garlic that we're experimenting with," she explained.
But the real stars were peppers, which Thaw and her fellow gardener neighbors, painter Patrick Meagher and artist and gallery owner, Howard Spann, had eaten few days earlier.
"It made so many seeds," Thaw held up a ziplock bag filled with yellow freckles. "It's like you can literally plant the whole pepper plantation."
They had to rely on seeds from food they had eaten for their garden, because local stores, such as Whole Foods, and online outlets, like Walmart, temporarily sold out of seeds once the coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic began mid-March, and many American made a run on seed sellers to grow their own food.
The Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SESE) in central Virginia went from fulfilling 800 orders, with ten to 15 packets each, a day to three times that amount in 24 hours.
The 22-member worker-run co-op, which also offers vegetables, herbs and flowers, had to temporarily suspend their sales and online store to catch up with increased demand.
"This has been going on, off, and on again ever since," said the co-op's co-manager, Ira Wallace." This has never happened to us before."
The problem has not been lack of seeds, but of seeds packaged for retail customers in ten-, 50-, or 100-counts, said Ken Wasnock, chief executive of Harris Seeds, a 140-year-old seed provider for farmers and home gardeners in Rochester, New York, that employs 100 people during busy season.
"We certainly have had plenty of seed at the company," said Wasnock, who noticed a 60% spike in his company's home garden seed sales, with a lot of organic seeds going to urban areas, like New York City. "It's just more than a case of trying to keep up the demand and keep it packaged."
The U.S. retail garden seed market has been relatively flat in recent years, according to a research from ResearchAndMarkets.com.
It was valued at $ 717.6 million in 2018 and forecasted to reach $ 827.4 million in 2024, with the vegetable segment expanding the most..
But, with the increased demand due to the coronavirus pandemic, experts say, that expansion could be bigger.
As to why people suddenly started buying seeds, Harris Seeds's Wasnock has a theory that they want to reconnect with their food supply, which, he said, helps with the feeling of uncertainty in the coronavirus times.
SESE's Wallace says, for some people, it's a way to take control.
For the rooftop gardeners on Manhattan's Bowery Street, it was about building a refuge when coronavirus stay-at-home order came.
"We wanted another place to hang out and something to do outside," said Meagher. "It seemed like a perfect idea to do a roof garden during this this time where we can't really travel around too much."
Others, like Katie Nguyen, who, together with her mother and husband, grows vegetables and herbs on her balcony in Queens, said her motivation was just better-quality food.
"It's sweeter, and it has more flavor in it," said Nguyen, who has a four-month-old daughter. "And just because I know that I plant them, and I don't use any pesticides, so it's safer to eat them."
Ann Herren, a magazine publisher in New Orleans, Louisiana, said her garden didn't grow as much and as fast as she had hoped, but it brought other benefits.
"It started out as a project to do, to keep us busy, and to be productive when in quarantine," Herren said. "But t's been good for our mental health, but it's been really good and connecting with other people as well."
The other day she woke up to a bag of a bug-killing soil on her porch from a Facebook friend who had read Herren's posts about troubles with insects.
(Production: Aleksandra Michalska) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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