News Photo by Crystal Nelson Rachel Taratuta, an employee of Netta’s Nursery, waters the flowers on Wednesday in one of the business’s greenhouses.

ALPENA — Farmers in Northeast Michigan are still milking cows, preparing to plant field crops, and ready to sell their nursery plants, but they can’t help feeling a little anxious about what impact coronavirus-related shutdowns will have on their businesses this year.

“At the farm level, things are progressing fairly normal, but we are concerned about the markets and the impact COVID-19 has had on markets virtually everywhere, because that does mean lower prices for our farmers,” Ernie Birchmeier, livestock and dairy specialist with the Michigan Farm Bureau, said. “Of utmost concern right now is the greenhouse and nursery industry. While there’s not a whole lot of that in Northeast Michigan, there are still some, and there are some greenhouse operations that want to sell plants, and the governor’s executive order does not allow that.”

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus. In an effort to prevent the spread of the virus, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on March 23 ordered all but the most essential businesses closed and ordered people to stay home unless absolutely necessary.

As of Friday afternoon, eight Northeast Michigan residents have been confirmed infected with COVID-19: two in Alpena County, two in Presque Isle County, three in Montmorency County, and one in Alcona County. One of the Alpena County patients died, and the Alcona County patient was hospitalized, according to local public health officials.

Statewide, more than 30,000 cases and 2,200 deaths have been reported.

‘HOW MANY OF THEM CAN PEOPLE SURVIVE?’

Annette “Netta” Taratuta, of Netta’s Nursery in Posen, ordered her inventory of flowers and herbs last fall. Her inventory arrived and is ready to be sold, but Whitmer’s restrictions have forced her to close her nursery to the public.

So Taratuta changed her business model for spring, opening an online store through which her patrons can order plants to pick up in May, when Whitmer’s orders are currently scheduled to expire.

“We had talked about doing it a couple of years ago, and I just couldn’t see how, and this forced us to do that,” she said.

While Taratuta said online sales have been “awesome” so far, the majority of her business comes from designing custom flower pots and from customers who browse the greenhouses before they purchase plants.

“I’m trying,” she said. “I’m not happy, like anyone else with the situation, but I’m going to do my part.”

Dwight Hardies, owner of Hardies Seed and Agriculture Supplies, is seeing the usual amount of foot traffic in his store, although he’s noticed producers are more anxious than usual. Hardies said his customers are following current events and watching the markets closely.

“The ups and downs of the ag industry, everybody’s used to it,” he said. “It’s just kind of the nature of the beast. It’s just, how many of them can people survive?”

Hardies said the whole agriculture sector is seeing a downward trend, and cash crop markets are down. He said dairy prices were starting to get better, and the outlook was good, but then the dairy market crashed, too.

Click through the interactive timeline below to see how the virus spread in Northeast Michigan. Story continues below the timeline.

‘BLEAK OUTLOOK’

Birchmeier, of the Farm Bureau, said dairy prices are down for farmers because of supply-and-demand issues.

Normally, 51% of meals are eaten outside of the home, Birchmeier said, but that isn’t occurring because of the stay-at-home order, so farmers have lost a large swath of their customers.

“The milk that’s being purchased is being purchased in gallon and half-gallon jugs at the grocery store,” Birchmeier said. “The demand there is strong, but overall consumption, because of the inability for restaurants to be open right now, that’s having a negative impact on prices.”

Dairy prices have been terrible for the last four years, according to Matt Noffze, owner of Noffze Dairy Farm. Noffze said dairy farmers lost $2 per hundredweight in January, but have lost another $3 per hundredweight since the coronavirus hit.

“It’s really just a bleak outlook for this summer, and possibly even longer,” he said.

Birchmeier said the livestock industry is challenged because some meat-packing plants are closed, which impacts the amount of livestock that can be harvested on a daily basis.

Additionally, he said, commodity farmers in 2019 had gone through one of the worst years on record because of an incredibly wet season. Commodity farmers are looking forward to a much more productive, and hopefully profitable year, he said.

Birchmeier said Michigan’s farmers are resilient and work hard every day to provide a “safe, wholesome, and abundant food supply,” but there will be impacts because of COVID-19.

“We’re going to see some economic struggles at the farm level, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “How long that lasts and how it turns out remains to be seen.”

Crystal Nelson can be reached at 989-358-5687 or cnelson@thealpenanews.com.