The New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health, Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development and the Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship will be contacting farmers in the next few months to get their perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic and how it impacted their agricultural operations. Although surveys have already been conducted with the farm community, the flexibility of interviews provide farmers with the opportunity to talk about the issues or challenges that they felt were most important or to provide important details that are often missed in surveys.
A few examples of interview topics include: What was the financial and emotional impact of the pandemic on you, your family, your workers? Was infection control guidance helpful or not helpful? and What could agricultural or governmental organizations have done to be more helpful? These interviews will thus give farmers a chance to improve pandemic response programs in future. Feedback will be summarized and shared with the farm community, agricultural organizations and policy-makers.
If you have questions or you know of farmers that would like to participate, please contact Pauline Boyer at 1.607.547.6023, ext. 2238
