ELYRIA, Ohio — Most people were anxious to ring in the new year. COVID-19 and 2020 left a bad taste in the mouth of many. According to the Ohio Department of Agriculture, 65 percent of those involved in Ohio’s food supply system have been negatively impacted by the pandemic.

On the up side, the health crisis of the past nine months has many shoppers avoiding the supermarkets and heading straight to the source for their food supplies. That’s good news to the ears of small farms in Ohio and other states.

The small Our Hidden Acre Farm of Dan Ketcham in Elyria Township in Ohio did well in 2020.

“The health crisis has given farmers an opportunity to introduce people to fresh, locally-grown food,” Ketcham said. “Our egg sales have actually been through the roof. We have a waiting list now where we never had a waiting list and we had more people interested in our fresh veggies.”

“We’ve had to grow our business model based on the pandemic, because now we need to have more supply because we’re trying to get more people so that they understand what fresh and what local really does mean, versus trying to go to a big box store,” Dan said.

At the 10-acre, organic Tilley Farmstead in Pickaway County in Ohio, Rebecca and Justin Tilley are counting their blessings as they survived a spring amidst a pandemic.

“Due to the pandemic we cut plants specifically to order,” Rebecca said. “We didn’t waste anything and we didn’t have that extra produce sitting around for our customers. We also stepped up our online presence. We were blessed to have our customers support us. We were once terrified we wouldn’t have a market at all, but we’ve had a lot of support.”

 Last spring the couple found more success thanks to the Worthington drive-through market.

“We’ll get through this,” Rebecca said. “My goal for our farm is to get one-third our normal output from our farm. I set the bar low because I don’t want to be disappointed. Overall, we have a lot to be thankful for.”

At the Osswald farm in Lewisburg, Ohio, the pandemic is seen as a sort of blessing in disguise as COVID-19 has brought producer and consumer closer together.

 “It’s encouraging people to look around their communities, look past the grocery stores and look for places that produce their foods,” said Lane Osswald, who grows corn, soybeans and other crops near Lewisburg. “They can talk to the producers and buy their food from someone who is literally planting and growing it for them.”

Osswald says he’s optimistic and is doing all he can to make sure his business survives during these uncertain times.

Nadia Ruffin, who owns an urban farm in Cincinnati, agrees that the atmosphere that COVID-19 has created has resulted in a good opportunity for consumers to grow a connection with farmers.

 “It has opened up a new opportunity for people, not just myself, but other people as well, who are in this field,” Ruffin said. “It will allow them to have people come directly to their farm now and they don’t have to have that middleman.”

Gene DeBruin, who owns a small dairy farm in Fayette County south of Columbus, says his small day-to-day operation has been the same since the Stay Home orders of last March.

“Our life on the farm has not changed,” DeBruin said. “The milk truck comes. The service folks come. Our feed is delivered. So pretty much, we have just done our thing.”

The DeBruins have found safe harbor by keeping their farm small. It’s a family affair. They don’t rely on hired labor. They provide organic milk for a co-op and the DeBruins get a stable price for their milk. Their 33 cows produce more than 130 gallons of milk daily.

“We make a living at it and depend on it,” DeBruin said. “The reason a lot of farms have gotten so large is because the margins are getting thinner and thinner. It’s a boom and bust thing. When it’s good, it’s great. And when you are large, it is really great, right. But when they lose, they are losing a lot too.”