Coronavirus Impact on Ag Pt 2
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. The coronavirus situation in the U.S. is changing daily. But, so far, what impact the outbreak will have on the ag industry is unknown.Northwest Horticultural Council president, Mark Powers says other industries have a bit of an advantage over agriculture on how they’ll deal with coronavirus …
POWERS … “My thoughts, immediately, were more on the people that are already here and working in the packing houses and sales desks and everybody in industry, right. I mean, we just heard that Amazon and Microsoft and Google and other groups are telling people to work from home and, you know, if you’re in an industry like that that makes perfect sense. We can’t do that.”
Right now, Powers says producers are weighing all of their possible options …
POWERS … “So, you’ve got those kinds of questions and I know the principals in our industry are looking into that and going over all the information from CDC and FDA and evaluating that, but you know right now people, as far as we can tell, everybody’s healthy and things are working like they normally do, but the anxiety level is clearly much higher.”
But, is there anything ag producers can do right now?
POWERS … “You know, I think you’re asking the same questions everybody else is asking right now and I’m not aware of any answers.”
Powers says shipping fruit to China was already hampered some by tariffs or the problem might be worse. The question now is how might the coronavirus spill over into other trade lanes and export markets.