WILMINGTON, Ohio – Oh, you’re out of milk? Ouch! Sorry, but farmers everywhere have contracted COVID-19 and have halted work on the farm, so you better put some water on those Frosted Flakes.

Running low on eggs? Sorry. Those eggs are piling up by the dozens in the coops on many farms and there’s no way of getting them to market.

It’s spring, and you just planted some grass seed and need some straw. Oh, darn! The farmers have taken time off and haven’t had the time to get into the fields. Better sprinkle some garlic salt on that newly planted grass seed. As least that’s what the Farmer’s Almanac advises.

Such scenarios might be hard to fathom, but imagine if farmers stopped production on the farm for a few weeks if they tested positive for COVID-19 or wanted to spend a month in Florida. The world outside the farm might come to a standstill.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses have come to a screeching halt. Many sports events have been canceled, restaurants have limited hours of operation, concerts have been scrubbed, schools have trimmed hours of operation and many traditional church services have been sidelined. The list goes on and on.

Perhaps one of the least changed professions during this time has been farming. Agriculture is, of course, deemed an essential industry for the obvious reason that it provides food, fiber and other resources that are essential to human life and existence. Simply put, farmers don’t the option of shutting down their farm.

This is not to say, though, that farmers cannot take a vacation from their daily duties. Most of them do.

“Everyone needs a break or some type of vacation, but it becomes very difficult to leave the farm,” said Tony Nye, The Ohio State University Extension specialist in Clinton County. “And it depends on what they’re doing. With animals it’s a 24/7 thing, and with dairy it’s more than that. With crop production, perhaps a farmer could take a few weeks here and there, but a lot of producers are marketing grain year round and they have to pay attention to the markets.”

Chris Bruynis, OSU Extension educator in Ross County, said there are multi-generational farms and large farms operations in his county that allow those farmers to take time off as needed.

“Here in Ross we have large farms with a lot of employees and those farms can trust the employees to take care of things while the owners can get vacation time,” Bruynis said. “With multi-generational farms that we have here those people can stagger their vacation times to take that much needed break.”

Dairy farmers may find taking time off a bit more difficult. On a dairy farm, cows must be milked multiple times every day, seven days a week, 365 days per year. A dairy farmer cannot simply stop milking cows. But with the right help even dairy farmers can get some R&R.

“Oftentimes here in Ross County we’ll have neighbors who live in the country yet work in the city, and these same people grew up on a farm and can check up on these farms and lend a hand because of their experience,” Bruynis said. “Any time you add livestock to a farm operation you need someone there to take care of the animals, whether it’s dairy, swine, beef or horses.”

Grain crops produced during the summer growing season, like corn and soybeans, are the major portion of the ration for feeding cattle, hogs and poultry. If the grain cannot be grown, meat cannot be produced. Protein would quickly be a problem in the diet of everyone. In addition, corn and soybean farmers who have irrigation concerns find it’s a full-time job keeping the equipment up and running, day and night. If it’s a vacation they want, it might just have to wait.

“The winter months are a good time of year for farmers to get away, at least here in Ohio,” Bruynis said. “All the corn and soybeans have been harvested, the wheat for next year has been planted and farmers this time of year are doing management duties, like taking care of their equipment. They could slip away to Florida in these cold-weather months.”

Farming is essentially a production business in the supply chain. Farmers take resources and inputs and produce commodities, goods and sometimes services that are then passed on to packers, processors, manufacturers, wholesalers, grocery stores, restaurants, and then ultimately to the consumer. They can, and do, take vacations but their operations never come to a halt.

Smaller producers, who have no one else to rely on, may find it hard to take time off from the farm.

“Any farmer with animals is going to have the burden of responsibility to make sure someone is caring for their animals while they’re gone or even sick,” said Lindsay Sykes, a part-time nurse’s aide at a hospital who also raises a large herd of alpacas and llamas outside of Urbana, Ohio. “I get tested twice a week for COVID-19 and so far have tested negative. If I contract the virus, though, my herd still needs tended to. I can’t take leave of absence or take vacation time. Most people are fortunate that they can head to their day job with its sick days and paid vacations. But a farmer doesn’t have those kinds of perks.”

According to Nye, with seasonal activities like crop production, the scenario of a break in production would play out much differently. If the break in the Midwest occurred in November and December, the impact would be very limited. Not so any other time of the year.

“Farmers can’t just pack up and leave in the middle of July,” Nye said. “They can’t be off the farm in October when harvest is going on, and the months of March, April and May are tied in to planting. A farmers needs to monitor crops for weed pressure, disease and insects. If they need to be treated or sprayed they need to be done in a timely manner for efficient control.”