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Reporting

A Moment On The Farm

May 29, 2020 | Valeria Fernández & Karen Coates | LatinoUSA

South Texas is known for commercial agriculture, with its vast fields of sugarcane, citrus, and vegetables. And most of that food goes far beyond the Rio Grande Valley. But one immigrant family from El Salvador is doing something different: Everything they grow stays near home.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a moment in which our broader food supply chains have been challenged—dairy farmers dumping unused milk, farmers plowing over produce, meatpacking plants closing, and grocery store shelves running empty.

In some communities, that means people are now turning to smaller, local farms for their produce. One of those farms is run by the Hernández family in Edinburg, Texas. Their farm, Nature’s Heartland has a mission to sustain its community with healthy pesticide-free produce, and has been a regular at local farmers’ markets for years.

Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, 26-year-old daughter Civia Hernández has been working to adapt and bring the farm online, to survive in this new world. In this dispatch, Civia brings us on the ground to her family’s farm, which has become a place of peaceful sanctuary for her in these difficult times.

You can find the accompanying podcast here.

This story was produced with support from the International Women’s Media Foundation.

About the Authors

Valeria Fernández

Valeria Fernández is an investigative independent journalist and filmmaker focused on amplifying voices of immigrant communities. She has produced documentaries for Discovery Spanish, CNN Español, and PBS, and co-directed the… Read More.


Karen Coates

Karen Coates is an independent journalist who reports primarily on issues involving the environment, science, food, health, and human rights. She is a contributing editor for Archaeology Magazine, and she… Read More.

Original Publication
LatinoUSA
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Business
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