COVID-19 – hmcfarms

One Year Later: An open letter from Sarah McClarty

Posted on May 12, 2021 by Liz Piña

One Year Later: An Open Letter from Sarah McClarty, HMC Farms

Twelve months ago, I wrote an open letter to give an update on how HMC Farms was dealing with the pandemic. I was asked to write a follow-up piece once everything “settled back down” in a few weeks, which became a few months… fast forward to a full year removed from that letter, and things are still far from settled.

Something people often do not understand is that there is no rest in agriculture. Beyond farming being an all-consuming way of life, there is no pause button. If you are sick, the plum trees don’t prune themselves and the grapes don’t stop growing. If we miss a harvest by a window of even a few hours, we risk losing an entire block of peaches.

When you already work in an industry with no pause button and then must deal with new rules and regulations overnight, it is exhausting. Being an essential business is a privilege, but also a burden.

Over the past year, there have been several instances when a compliance deadline for a new rule or regulation was approaching with no formal guidance or FAQs from the issuing body, which meant we put our normal jobs aside to digest the new rules and create our own policies to be in compliance.

We did not have the ability to close the office for a short time to get this done. Instead, it meant working on these special projects all day (or week) and then starting in on our regular job duties when the workday would normally be ending. It also meant waking up in the middle of the night thinking about an angle that hadn’t been considered.

For the last year, owning and operating a vertically integrated farming organization has meant laughing at the idea of being able to take a day off. It has meant being tired all the time; it has meant no rest.

We, as owners and management, are not the only tired ones, so are our employees. Working in the field or a packing house is arduous work. Having to go home after a long day of work to help children do schoolwork, worry about being around vulnerable family members, and dealing with the burden of a global pandemic has weighed heavily on them too.

Our employees are our family, and not being able to give them answers or put all their worries to rest is hard. We have been able to offer them continued access to our free health care clinic, which included same-day appointments for COVID tests when everywhere else had a 3-5 day wait to get an appointment. We have also had the benefit of working with the California Farmworker Foundation to be one of the first sites in California to give on-site (literally right on the farm) vaccines to farmworkers in early February, and then again to any employees in our organization that wanted them a few weeks later. So many people left the building after receiving their vaccine smiling, thanking us for getting the vaccines to them, and in general, being able to finally put their minds at ease. In all honesty, seeing that weight lifted from their shoulders was the highlight of the past year for me.

Just like last year when I wrote the letter, we are approaching our harvest season, which again brings a lot of questions and unknowns. We have raised wages. Packaging has even longer lead times and higher costs. We are spending more money on PPE, increased sanitary measures, testing, and contact tracing; all while losing efficiencies because of the priority we put on safely distancing employees.

Most of our retail customers are not willing to pay more for our products, even though it is costing us more to produce them and the outlook for the foodservice industry is still full of question marks. Crunching those numbers keeps me up at night.

A year without rest is hard, but we believe in what we do and are dedicated to growing the best fruit we can. As always, we will get creative in the solutions we offer our customers and put our employees’ best interests at the forefront of our decision-making. Hopefully someday soon I can write that “settled back down” update and take a vacation, but for now we will be doing our best to get fresh fruit on people’s tables all summer long.

Note from The Produce Moms original blog post featuring Sarah’s letter:

One year ago, The Produce Moms Covid-19 content series provided our community of consumer followers with perspectives and real-life stories from the agriculture supply chain. In our series, we posted a guest blog authored by Sarah McClarty, Chief Financial Officer and Co-Owner of HMC Farms. You can read it here.

Rooting back to 1887, HMC Farms is a multi-generation family farm located in California’s Central Valley. HMC Farms is a leading grower in table grapes and tree fruit including peaches, plums, nectarines and plumcots.

HMC Farms is a leader in bringing fresh produce to schools. You can learn more about their commitment to schools at grapesforschools.com. And you can learn more about the family farm at HMCFarms.com.

HMC Farms and The Produce Moms have been brand partners for nearly 4 years. We are so passionate about what they do and the delicious fruit that they grow. Enjoy this reflective letter from Sarah, one year later.

HMC News – March 2021

Posted on March 31, 2021April 15, 2021 by Liz Piña

This month, HMC Farms held a two day COVID-19 vaccination clinic for employees of HMC and several nearby ag businesses. At this point, we have successfully distributed vaccines to more than 450 agricultural workers in California’s Central Valley, in partnership with the California Farmworker Foundation and Heart of Ag (the free-to-employee clinic we sponsor) – both relationships built before the pandemic. Sarah McClarty, Chief Financial Officer at HMC stated at the event, “To watch every employee in our organization who wants a vaccine receive one over the last two days has been the biggest win in what has been an extremely challenging twelve months.”

Research and development are crucial to our success as a farming business. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our farming methods by studying a wide variety of topics. One of our Plumsicle™ orchards is pictured above. This is one example of the results of years of research and development to improve the maintenance and growing processes, while planning ahead for the use of future ag technologies. While we often show you these trees during harvest time, the blossom stage gives a clear view of the high density setup.

This month, we’ve had both rain and hail in the Central Valley. Hail can pose a significant threat to our crops if it occurs at the wrong time. Right now, our stone fruit is in three different stages: blossoms, developing fruit with the jacket (base of the blossom) still attached, and juvenile fruit outside of the jacket. Blossoms essentially have no vulnerability to the hail we’ve had – even if we lose some blossoms, that can be chalked up to thinning. The developing fruit with the jacket still attached still has some protection against the elements. The most vulnerable of these stages is the juvenile fruit that has just shed its jacket, and the growth process moving forward. About 20% or less of our crop is in the post-jacket stage at this point, and we will evaluate any hail damage in the coming days.

Bud break is happening in our early season table grape vineyards. This means that tiny buds on the vine have begun to swell up and give way to leaves using energy stored up during dormancy over the winter. Pictured above is a Flame red seedless table grape vineyard, our first variety to harvest. We generally compare the timing of the growth cycle with previous years, but bud break itself is not a solid benchmark for harvest time because the weather after it occurs has a significant impact on timing for the rest of the growth cycle. While bud break began about the same time as last year, the cooler weather over the past couple of weeks has slowed down growth across our vineyards.

We are now thinning our early season stone fruit varietals. During the thinning process, we remove excess immature fruit, leaving behind only about 2-4 pieces per hanger (shoots from permanent tree branches which bear fruit). This time consuming job is labor intensive, and can only be done by hand. The amount of fruit we leave behind varies based on the specific variety. Thinning will continue for months as our mid and late season varietals reach the appropriate point in the growth process.

HMC Farms COVID-19 Vaccinations Press Release

Posted on March 4, 2021 by Liz Piña

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HMC Farms Delivers COVID-19 Vaccinations to Agriculture Workers

Kingsburg, California – HMC Farms is excited to announce the successful distribution of 450 COVID-19 vaccines to agricultural employees in California’s Central Valley.

HMC Farms recently hosted vaccination clinics which distributed hundreds of COVID-19 vaccines to employees of HMC and several nearby businesses in the ag industry. More vaccinations are on the way as the first recipients near the second dose time frame.

HMC Farms is a family owned and operated business, and the McClarty family values their employees as an extension of that family. Sarah McClarty, Chief Financial Officer of HMC Farms, stated at the event, “To watch every employee in our organization who wants a vaccine receive one over the last two days has been the biggest win in what has been an extremely challenging twelve months. Partnerships with the California Farmworker Foundation and Elite Medical that were in place prior to the pandemic have played a huge part in HMC’s continued efforts to support our employees’ health and well-being, and are what made this week’s event possible.”

At the vaccination event, it was clear to see that people were relieved to have vaccines available to them. Several employees were seen having their photos taken while receiving the vaccine to share with friends and family. “This is such a relief,” said one employee as she received her shot. Another employee commented, “The distribution process for vaccines has been confusing. It’s so helpful that HMC was willing and able to bring vaccinations directly to us.”

The past year has been difficult for people and industries around the globe, and the ag industry has felt the weight of keeping employees safe and healthy while maintaining the food supply. Speaking about the partnership with the California Farmworker Foundation which helped make the vaccination even possible, Harold McClarty, owner and Chief Executive Officer of HMC Farms, expressed gratitude. “We have all struggled during these very difficult times,” said McClarty. “We are very grateful and supportive of all the work that this organization has done for farmworkers. It gives us some hope that we will persevere and continue to move forward with our work to support the nation’s food supply.”

HMC Farms is located in the heart of California’s Central Valley, and has been family owned and operated since 1887. All of their produce is grown sustainably, protecting the land, water, and people who make it possible to deliver delicious peaches, plums, nectarines, and table grapes year after year. To learn more, visit https://www.hmcfarms.com/

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HMC News – February 2021

Posted on February 28, 2021March 12, 2021 by Liz Piña

We received a total of 3.39″ of precipitation in the month of January. Compared with the past two years, this January had significantly more precipitation. January 2019 had a total of 2.83″ of rain, and January 2020 saw just 0.77″ in the entire month. We hope that this is a good sign for this year’s annual rain total in the Central Valley.

HMC Farms had the honor of partnering with the California Farmworker Foundation to begin to provide COVID shots to our farmworkers this month. Speaking about the event, Harold McClarty commented, “We have all struggled during these very difficult times. We are very grateful and supportive of all the work this organization has done for farmworkers. It gives us some hope that we will persevere and continue to move forward with our work to support the nation’s food supply.”

Blossoms are opening up in our stone fruit orchards and along the rest of the famous Fresno County Blossom Trail. This is arguably the most beautiful time of the year in the Central Valley, drawing people from near and far to drive or bike along the trail and take in the beautiful pink and white blossoms filling orchards for miles. For more information on the Fresno County Blossom Trail, visit their website here.

We are grafting in some of our stone fruit orchards. If you’ve ever driven past an orchard that looked like a bunch of stumps with only one limb, chances are you’ve seen grafting in progress. Grafting is the process of adding a new variety to existing rootstock. This allows us to harvest the new variety in a shorter timeframe by utilizing the rootstock that’s already in the ground instead of starting from scratch with completely new trees. Look closely at the photo above and you will see what appear to be sticks coming out of the cut portion of the tree. Those sticks are actually called scion wood, and are the June Time peach variety that will soon grow in this orchard. The remaining limb, called the nurse limb, is left on the tree to help keep it alive until the grafted scions are growing well, and it will eventually be removed.

Letter from HMC Farms co-owner and Chief Financial Officer, Sarah McClarty

Posted on April 14, 2020May 12, 2021 by Liz Piña

I’m writing this blog at 5:00 am, trying to get a few hours of work done in peace before I get to perform the exhausting dance of helping keep our company afloat, our employees safe, and the nation’s food supply secure while homeschooling our two children. I’ve been doing this for almost a month now. I’m tired, I’m scared, and I’m one of the lucky ones.

We had approximately 1.5 million pounds of grapes in our cold storage destined for schools, restaurants, amusement parks, airlines, and hotels when much of the nation was told to stay home, schools were closed, and businesses locked their doors. These grapes weren’t in bags you can find in the grocery store, they were prepped for food service channels – bulk grapes, pre-cut into perfect handful size bunches and grapes already taken off the stem, washed, and ready to eat. Overnight, a lot of our food service customers stopped ordering and sent us letters stating they have no idea when they’ll be able to pay us again. No money coming in and a mountain of perishable inventory is not a business model anyone would recommend, but as my father-in-law Harold put it – we are considered an essential business, and we had the chance to keep operating. It was time to get creative.

We started repacking our grapes into retail ready bags, worked with school districts to get them the product they needed in packaging that worked for their new meal pick-up formats, and pushed inventory into home delivery services that have seen an uptick in their businesses. We have a longstanding relationship with our local food bank, and have donated millions of pounds of summer stone fruit to them over the years. We knew there was no way we would sell all of our inventory, and we also knew there was a large population in our community that would need assistance during this time. Before the grapes deteriorated, we started sending the California Association of Food Banks several truckloads of fruit each week. Last week, our local food bank reached out to their longtime donors asking if there was anything more we could do – they had a 50% jump in need in the prior two weeks, and almost a quarter of the people receiving food and supplies were first time visitors to the food bank. Only a few months prior, HMC had hosted a volunteer night at the food bank packing up hundreds of boxes for their weekly distributions. With tears in my eyes, wondering what those families are going through now I wrote a large check on behalf of the McClarty Family.

In the forefront of our planning during this entire time has been the safety of our employees. Their health is not only required for us to keep operating, but they are part of our family and we would never want to compromise their safety. Across our operations, we have always maintained high sanitary standards as is required of food growers, handlers, and processors; but we have redoubled our efforts and taken further steps to allow for social distancing. As mitigation steps, we have broken our crews into small pods, we don’t move employees between pods, breaks and lunchtimes are staggered by pods, and in our packing facility the different pods wear different color labels to help promote separation. We sponsor a free clinic for our employees that has remained open and servicing clients during this time. Though we’ve had to lay off people in our processing plant due to the drastic downturn in business, we continue to allow them to access the clinic and receive both acute and maintenance care during this health crisis.

We are now looking forward. We have millions of dollars invested in the crops out in our fields right now. Our sales staff is doing their best to meet our customers’ ever-changing needs including adjustments to packaging that there are now even longer production lead times on. Supplies in general are hard to come by and must be ordered weeks in advance. We have started the labor-intensive practice of thinning our stone fruit, and must still pay for continued cultural practices, harvest, packing, storage, and shipment of our product before it gets to an end user. All of this means paying out money now, when we are facing the uphill battle of collecting receivables from longtime customers that are facing unprecedented financial challenges of their own.

As my son’s 2^nd grade teacher told her students during one of their Zoom instructional meetings last week, we are living through a significant historical moment right now. While many people continue to try to predict, none of us know the long-term ramifications this pandemic has or will cause. We as food producers have an opportunity to be part of that history lesson, to be part of a success story. To keep our food supply flowing, we need to see flexibility in trucking rules, we need the USDA to step in and use the existing PACA Act to help keep money flowing back to producers, we need to see relaxation in regulations that are now at odds with new COVID-19 requirements, we must keep farmers and ranchers growing and producing food. Decisions being made now will impact our nation’s food supply for years. HMC is committed to helping support these changes, our employees, and our community. This is a time for everyone to get creative and to help each other out. We will keep evolving to do our best under ever-changing circumstances.

Sarah McClarty,

Chief Financial Officer, HMC Farms