Covid-19 Ideas, Tips & Guides

As with many programs begun under President Donald Trump, the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program 2 (CFAP 2) underwent considerable examination when the Biden administration took over in January 2021.

On Monday, March 28, President Biden unveiled his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2023. The $5.8-trillion proposal is an interesting one; we’re one more year removed from, hopefully, the worst of COVID-19, and the government is eager to adjust spending back to more normal levels. So, what’s in this budget proposal for food and agriculture?

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In its efforts to keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic, the government made a lot of money available. Probably, in retrospect, it was too available.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve all had to get used to communicating across a distance, whether that’s through video chat or with significant physical separation.

The USDA has a long and upsetting history of discrimination against farmers of color.

A crack in a bridge in Tennessee over the Mississippi River could disrupt huge shipments of corn and soybeans from growing regions up north to transportation down south. 

Luiz Jiménez, 39, has been working on American dairy farms for 20 years. He is used to working long hours for little pay, fearful of losing a vital source of income for his family. A father of three, Jiménez is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico and came to the United States undocumented. He is one of an estimated 238,000 undocumented agricultural workers in the US. Like many others, he is without a visa, credit or health insurance, making it difficult to safely advocate for better working conditions without putting his livelihood at risk. 

We are all switching on to the healing power of plants and flowers. Many of the plants we grow have the potential to act as sources of healing, as well as being profound mood-boosters. Some of the simplest floral arrangements of posies (or nosegays) have transformative powers. And while these small fragrant arrangements seem innocent enough, they have hidden depths which date back centuries.

In mid-March 2020, California became the first state to order its nearly 40 million residents to stay home and all nonessential in-person businesses to close down in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19. Cases of the novel coronavirus had been in the news, at first sparingly and then ever more urgently, from January to that moment in March, so the crisis response was not a surprise, but the halting of life as we knew it was as novel as the virus. 

As we’re all stuck at home for the moment, I thought it would be nice to take some virtual tours of lovely places. It might lift our spirits momentarily, and give you some ideas of new places to visit when we are free to wander once more.

Header image: Richard Bord/Getty Images

Looking for a little novelty during Lockdown, I chanced upon an intriguing blog post about flaming tuna. It’s a simple enough idea – you set light to a tin of tuna (or, one supposes, anything else) in oil. The idea is to transform said tuna from meh to a smoky delight. (If you’re really in trouble then you can use the same principle to create an impromptu oil lamp, although it won’t burn for hours.)

It’s Day 19 of the Great British Blast Off, and crew is finding it hard to adjust to life in the isolation of space. Mission Control is having trouble controlling its Isonauts, many of whom keep popping out of the airlock on “essential business”. Some of the Space Dogs are complaining of exhaustion from all the extra spacewalks.

Hello, and welcome to Gardeners Off World! I am writing this from lockdown, and you’re probably reading it from lockdown, too. The good news for UK gardeners is that it’s still OK for most people to do some gardening – and that includes people who grow their food on an allotment.

Another week in Lockdown, and another edition of Gardeners off World. We’re all now supposed to feel like astronauts, cooped up inside a small space with the same companions for weeks at a time. The barrage of isolation advice articles from astronauts, analog astronauts and Antarctic scientists continues. If you’re not bored of them yet, Space Nation has thoughts from Jane Poynter, who spent two years locked inside Biosphere 2 and Smithsonian magazine has spoken to people from all three groups of career isolators. I prefer Marina Koren’s article in The Atlantic, which explains why advice from astronauts may not be enough to help us survive a pandemic.

Header image: A researcher in a spacesuit on “Mars” outside the Mars Society Desert Research Station in Utah. David Howells/Corbis Historical via Getty Images

As we’re all stuck at home for the moment, I thought it would be nice to take some virtual tours of lovely places. It might lift our spirits momentarily, and give you some ideas of new places to visit when we are free to wander once more. Today I am sharing one of my favourite places – Butser Ancient Farm. Have you been? Let me know in the comments!

A while back, when Brexit mania was at its height, I was part of a Facebook prepper group for a while. Its premise was that Brexit would cause disruptions to our food supply, and that it would be worth getting in a stock of staple items to see you and your family through the worst of any crisis, and maybe buffer you a little against price rises.

Header image: George Frey/EPA

As we’re all stuck at home for the moment, I thought it would be nice to take some virtual tours of lovely places. It might lift our spirits momentarily, and give you some ideas of new places to visit when we are free to wander once more. It’s no secret that the Eden Project is one of my favourite places. I try and make an annual pilgrimage there. Our most recent visit was in February; some of these images are from October 2019.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC.gov) the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may be stressful for people.

During these uncertain times, as we cope with keeping ourselves and our families healthy and practice social distancing, many are asking how the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) affects the safety of our food supply. The US Food and Drug Administration reports that “Currently there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with the transmission of COVID-19” (USFDA, 2020). Unlike foodborne gastrointestinal (GI) viruses like norovirus and hepatitis A that often make people ill through contaminated food, SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is a virus that causes respiratory illness. Foodborne exposure to this virus is not known to be a route of transmission. Grocery stores and restaurants providing take-out food, are taking the necessary precautions to keep consumers and their employees safe. However, consumers should continue to practice proper food safety and personal hygiene practices. It is also important for consumers to follow the additional recommendations given by the CDC in order to stay safe (CDC, 2020). Along with the safety precautions given directly related to limiting the spread of the coronavirus, here are some practices that should be followed when purchasing and preparing food:

Pfizer Vaccine