It will air on Tues., June 16th.
Owings Mills, Md (KM) The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agriculture in the state is the topic of next week’s “Maryland Farm and Harvest’ TV show on Maryland Public Television.
During the production of the program, Producer and Director Joe Ligo says the production crew did a number of different things to protect themselves and farmers from the coronavirus. “We’re doing interviews via video chat with different farmers, helping them figure out the technology so we can get the best video quality for our show,” he says. “We’re asking farmers to take footage with their cell phones, or take photos and send them to us.”
The “Maryland Farm and Harvest”crew usually visits farms, and has farmers explain or demonstrate the work that they do. But that wasn’t possible due to some restrictions put in place to battle COVID-19. But Ligo says his crew did visit a few places. “We went to Waverly Farmers Market and filmed some things there. I personally went to a grocery store to film some things there, farmers delivering fresh produce to the stores,” he says.
Ligo says the MPT crew interacted with several grain farmers who are keeping an eye on the volatile world markets, and poultry and dairy farmers who are experiencing costly bottlenecks for both milk and meat production.
The “Maryland Farm and Harvest” production crew also visited South Mountain Creamery in Middletown, which produces milk and delivers it customers. “With all these people not wanting to go to grocery stores, South Mountain Creamery says they saw their customer base almost double overnight because all these people realize how great it is to have farm-fresh milk delivered to their front porch,” says Ligo.
The program will air on MPT on Tuesday, June 16th at 7:00 PM. Ligo says the half-hour show will conclude with a tribute to farmers, whom he describes as essential personnel. “Along with just doing the stories about the farmers, we wanted to do a little more than that,” he says. “So we put together a short video at the end of the program which is a tribute to farmers with us thanking therm for their essential work.”
The program is rebroadcast on Thursdays at 11:30 PM, and Sundays at 6:00 AM. In addition, the program will be aired on MPT2/Create on Fridays at 7:30 PM, and will be available for streaming on YouTube..
By Kevin McManus