Cherry farmers find creative solutions during challenging season

By Madeleine Hill Vedel

Sun contributor

“Back in March we knew this would not be a normal year,” says Kathy Garthe about cherry farming during the Coronavirus pandemic. “Carol [Frederickson of Frederickson Farm] and I put our heads together. We started researching (what was available) in California … North Carolina had good information. The health departments in Cadillac, Benzie/Leelanau, and District 10 had very good materials for us to use, in English and Spanish, and instructions. And the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) did as well.”

With her background in nursing and hospital management, Garthe, of Garthe Farms in Northport, knew that the only way her family would be able to harvest their cherry crops this year was if they took all known precautions to keep their crews safe and healthy. This included sharing advance materials instructing each of the crew what would be expected of them and how to comport themselves, to quarantine both before they arrived at the farm and for the first week of their work at the farm, to maintain physical distances as possible, and to put a daily check-in log in place.

“People who poopooed this early on—one farm, maybe in Tennessee—100% of their workers were positive (for COVID). There were fairly high rates in Washington State. Carol and I knew we could get into a really difficult spot if our workers got sick. We saw it happening in other states. We really took it seriously and so did our workers.”

Once onsite, there were daily logs, temperatures taken, symptoms checked. Masks were required inside all buildings, workers who would come into contact with each other daily were instructed on gradual cohorting. Hand-washing and sanitizing solutions were provided. And the daily farm lunch traditionally provided to the crew was updated to incorporate safety measures.

“The mechanical crew sometimes has very long days,” Kathy said. “Mechanical things tend to have some maintenance work that has to happen as they go along. I tell them, ‘the machines need an hour off and so do you.’ In the past we cooked family style. This year, I realized that they needed space—eight feet apart while they were eating—and needed to follow all of the guidelines. I then bought already wrapped sandwiches from a local restaurant—individually wrapped cookies, chips, ice cream, drinks. I’d ask what they liked and vary the menu based on what they answered. It ended up being no more expensive than preparing family meals. Even-Steven. I was surprised; I was really surprised that the cost was no greater for food than any other summer, and probably less if I go back. Other summers we paid both for base ingredients and the cook.”

Full disclosure: my son Jonas has been part of the mechanical crew and assisted the hand harvest crew at Garthe Farms for the past four years, and I once worked as the harvest cook, preparing meals of couscous, lasagna, salads, brownies, fruit crumbles and such. Once it was decided that Jonas would work for them again this summer, we were instructed that he quarantine himself at home for the week before he went to work, that he arrive a few days before harvest to extend his quarantine period, and that once on the farm, he not leave until the job was done, five weeks later. He participated in the orientation program, read the materials given to him, and along with his co-workers, had his temperature checked daily, and filled in the symptom log.

Harvest has been over for a few weeks now, and no member of either the hand-picking crew nor the mechanical crew has fallen sick, and Kathy assures me, “We are not aware of any among the people we talk with and are in touch with in this region. We have no awareness that there have been any issues.”

For Cheryl Kobernik of Northstar Organics in Frankfort, the challenges were similar and different. The Koberniks open their tart and sweet cherry orchards for U-Pick every year. Confronting the challenges of COVID and the state requirements meant coming up with creative solutions. To begin, she investigated what colleagues in strawberries had done before her. Strawberries being the first fruit crop of the year, they were the guinea pigs of the COVID season, the first to face missing crews, challenging state directives and skittish, if eager, consumers. Michigan State University developed webinars to assist and the Northwest Michigan Horticulture Research Center distributed guidelines for Michigan’s U-Pick farms.

“Luckily, socially distancing in a cherry orchard is easier than in a strawberry field.” Cheryl says, “We would just tell people, ‘Yes you are required to wear a mask within this circle. If you need help to figure out social distancing in an orchard, you’re on your own.’ We’d wipe down the ladders every thirty minutes, place hand wipes at every interaction—put in your credit card, no need to sign [no touching the screen].”

She slimmed her U-Pick staff to a minimum crew (seven rather than ten to twelve), provided food grade plastic ice buckets (after considering cardboard popcorn buckets) that people took home with them, and as they drew the line to designate the point past which all must be masked, her artistic impulses took over and the line became a ring of cherries.

“We started to spray paint a line—twelve feet from us—for wearing a mask, then changed the line to a cherry to make it more friendly and less formal. Certainly the idea is that we do need to make money. But if I could bottle all the thank-yous I get—particularly for the organic. It’s almost unnerving to have people say thank you. As farmers, we normally have so little face to face [with the consumers of our product].”

When I bring up the higher price per pound that farmers have received this year for the small cherry crop, Cheryl informs me, “The highest price may be fifty cents a pound (for 100% perfect cherries) but most will be in the thirty-forty cents because of the grade. Your fruit could have wind damage, or too many stems, too big, too small, under color—twelve different items… if you go down below 80% they won’t even take them.” But she agrees that at the very least, having a small harvest this year (a quarter to a third depending on the processor) will help empty the reserves of frozen fruit at the processing centers and “clean out the pantry.”

Farming is never easy. It might be something you grew up in, married into, or chose. “It would be really hard not to provide the service to our community members. We don’t want to do this at a loss, but…” her voice trails off. She and her husband plan to continue farming, and to continue offering their organic cherries for U-Pick, even if year after year the challenges multiply. 

As for the Garthes up in Northport, “for us, our cherries mostly were pretty darn good. We had a lot of hand harvest to do. One of our customers wanted Stem On—which must be hand harvested. That went well. When we came to mechanical harvest, we had two kinds of cherries—one set very light, not much fruit. The other one we had very bad rain in the middle of the season, which cracks the sweets. One set we had to just shake and dump, unsellable.” However, “We’re still in the game. We had some really good cherries to eat this year. We love fruit and we had great crews.” For the foreseeable future, hurdles aside, cherries will continue to be an important Michigan crop, and one you can count on finding in farm stands throughout the county.