Farmers face COVID-19 epidemic

BOISE-Farmers and other rural residents may have some unique challenges in dealing with the COVID-19 situation.

A public health expert says the COVID-19 epidemic is tough for everybody but for farmers and other rural residents it presents unique problems. This from Doctor Jeff Binder from the University of Minnesota he told a special Webinar;

“Many of our folks that work in our rural environment feels safe because they already feel isolated and thinking this isn’t going to come to me,” said Binder, and points out, “Our rural population is older.”

Making them more at risk of serious problems if they contract the disease plus Dr. Binder says in some rural areas:

“We have limited healthcare access where medical care is not readily accessible or we know that many of our rural hospitals are closing. We also have this feeling of invincibility, ‘no I'll be fine,’ And then another thing is that we don’t have redundancy in our workforce. We have a limited workforce, so if somebody gets sick then we really do have limited folks that can carry on.”

So indeed the COVID-19 situation raises unique challenges for farmers and other rural residents. Their burden is not only to stay healthy, but raise the food that feeds America, keeping us healthy.

For the voice of Idaho Agriculture, I'm Jake Putnam