Farmers, ranchers and their workers (officially essential) bear some of the hardest burdens in the pandemic

The Washington Post's Laura Reiley takes a deep dive into how the coronavirus pandemic is hurting two farming communities that serve the two major coasts of the U.S.: Moorefield, W.Va., pop. 2,500, and Salinas, Calif., in one of the No. 1 agricultural state's most productive river valleys.

"Named essential workers, the country’s small farmers, ranchers and farmworkers are coping with the pandemic without a corporate safety net, persevering through shutdowns, slowdowns and supply-chain meltdowns," Reiley reports. "In both Salinas and Moorefield, the coronavirus has contributed layers of complexity to an already backbreaking professional path. Several years of historically poor planting conditions and retaliatory tariffs under the Trump administration have cut off potential for agricultural exports and left farmers with few reserves before the pandemic began to hopscotch across the country."

Small farmers and ranchers have far less power and funding than the large agricultural operations that dominate the market, and have been disproportionately hurt by the pandemic. "Many didn’t qualify for Paycheck Protection Program loans or the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program payments, which excludes those who rely on direct-to-consumer sales," Reiley reports. "And while tens of billions of dollars have been funneled to large-scale ranches and meat processing companies and commodity row crop farmers in the South and Midwest, those who grow 'specialty crops,' the fruits and vegetables humans eat, have frequently not qualified for support."