Back in mid-March, when sustained community spread of coronavirus first became obvious, our team rapidly reconfigured operations to provide heightened levels of people safety as well as food safety. These changes were in line with New York State's “on PAUSE” executive order.
As an agriculture and food production business growing crops for human consumption, certain Square Roots employees were designated as “Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers” by the US Department of Homeland Security as well as the New York State executive order. This designation has allowed those employees to move freely in order to get to work and perform essential duties—growing food and distributing that food to people who need it.
Since then, we have been following re-engineered workflows that ensure social distancing, while implementing numerous additional precautions to protect our teams and the wider community. You can find the full list of safety measures in Square Roots’ COVID-19 New York Forward Business Reopening Safety Plan (updated 02/09/2021).
Our farms will continue to operate through this pandemic, in line with Governor Cuomo’s executive orders and NY Forward Plan, to bring as much food to as many people as possible, while ensuring food-safety and people-safety are the top priorities.
Obviously, this situation is very fluid, and we are constantly assessing information to make the best decisions in line with our mission of “bringing local, real food to people in cities around the world by empowering next-gen leaders in urban farming.” If anything changes, as the full extent of the pandemic unfolds, we will do our best to provide transparency and clarity on this blog and through our social channels. But please feel free to email me directly if you have any questions or additional thoughts. ([email protected])
Stay safe!
Tobias Peggs
Square Roots CEO
