two hands grabbing broccoli at G. Flores farm

The pandemic could actually strengthen the U.S. food system

The shock to U.S. food chains from the coronavirus has been a boon to small- and mid-sized farms and distributors. Could it be the start of a new way to get food?

Broccoli is harvested at G. Flores Produce, a 50-acre farm in Virginia. The Flores family grows a wide variety of crops, traditionally sold at local farmers markets. The troubles in the U.S. food system have been an opportunity for G. Flores and others to expand their businesses.

Omar Flores holds up what appears to be a fluorescent green baseball sprouting a forest of leafy trees. Then he pulls a knife from the braided sheath at his belt and expertly cuts the vegetable into flat rounds.

The newest customer to visit G. Flores Produce on the sandy eastern Virginia peninsula known as the Northern Neck, Tom McDougall, chews the raw, crunchy kohlrabi with an expression of reverence. The plant, an exotic-looking German cousin of the cauliflower and cabbage, would fetch a good price in the cities of Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia.

“Here's this thing that looks like an alien—and it turns out to grow particularly well in the mid-Atlantic?" McDougall says.

It’s also a bright green representative of the

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