Drought Hurting Farm to Table Delivery

(KNSI) – The drought is making it harder for farm food delivery services to fill orders in Central Minnesota.

Sprout Minnesota is based in Little Falls and works with 150 Minnesota farmers to get fresh produce and meat to people who subscribe to their service.

Community Engagement Coordinator Fallon Ryan says the drought is starting to put a squeeze on those farmers.

“We are hearing about just a lack of growth and a need for more efforts in like tending to plants and like maybe doing more like shading or irrigation. And a lot more effort is going into keeping these plants alive. And we’re seeing a slight decrease in yields at points in time, and really a slight delay and plants in general.”

Ryan says eggs are becoming harder to get because chickens don’t do well in extreme heat.

Other livestock farmers will be affected soon if they aren’t already.

“I think where we’re really going to see a hard hit in the coming months is in animal production with the lack of rain and the extreme heat. It’s been really hard to produce hay. So there’s going to be a shortage of hay in the coming season, and so the harder to navigate feed for animals.”

She says while they’ve been able to fill orders up to this point, that could change if there’s not enough rain in the coming weeks.

Right now, the first tomatoes of the season are starting to come in, along with asparagus, rhubarb, radishes, mixed greens, and carrots.

Sprout delivers farm produce to people in the St. Cloud area at their weekly pickup location on Wednesdays from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at Bad Habit Brewing.