Farmers prepare for busy season with coronavirus restrictions

Farmers across the Willamette Valley are preparing for the busy summer growing and harvest season, made more complicated by new coronavirus-related guidelines.

The state is trying to get roughly 1 million masks to farmers across the state today and tomorrow-- before harvest begins.

Kezi 9 news reporter chris lueneburg spoke to farmers about what new challenges they'll face during their busiest season of the year.

Nat grass seed farmer brian glaser is used to hard work-- but pandemic guidelines are a new challenge.

"when do i have time to keep up on the new changes that are coming down when you are already burning the candle at both ends?"

He plans to have around 10 employees this summer-- training them and getting work done quick may be tough with social distancing requirements.

"we want to do the right thing.

I mean, we want to protect our employees, but we have a job to get done.

There's a balance there and hopefully we can all figure out how to migrate through that."

The state is trying to get farmers started-- today at osu's benton county extension-- officials tried to hand out 60 thousand masks.... and farmers were lining up this morning.

"these kn95 masks are meant to protect farmers in any number of close-quarters scenerios... from working on the fields-- to selling at the farmers market.

" osu extension says the need runs far and wide.

"there is a large agriculture community that is desperate for this ppe" this as oregon osha's temporary rules for agriculture go into place in june-- requiring social distancing, more bathrooms and sanitation... and even a worker to enforce these rules.

"resources are really hard to to come by and they are highly needed at this time."

Glaser says this ppe is a good start-- but he still has questions about the season... "it's been hard to keep up and even know what we need and where we need to get resources."

Getting the job done-- in the toughest of circumstances.

In tangent, chris lueneburg