A potato farm in Oakley, Idaho, is helping its neighbors put food on their tables during the coronavirus pandemic.
While many businesses remain closed due to the health crisis, farmers have been forced to throw away some of their crops.
However, when thousands of potatoes began piling up at Cranney Farms with no one to buy them, CEO Ryan Cranney decided to do something different with the overabundance of food.
He told KING 5, a local television station — “I didn’t really have a market for those potatoes, it’s something I would have had to dump or go to like cattle feed.”
On Facebook recently, the farm shared a picture of the mountain of potatoes and announced it would give them away to anyone in need.
Since that post, people from all over the state traveled to the farm to take advantage of the offer.
Some came from miles away and there have been 20 or 30 cars lined up to gather the potatoes. He ventured that with the huge turnout it would take several hours before the mountain of potatoes would be gone.
Normally, the majority of potatoes purchased by the food service industry would be made into French fries.
Even though Cranney is concerned about the future, he said it was encouraging to see people helping each other amidst the difficult circumstances.
He added, “A lot of the people there were not necessarily gathering for themselves, but they were gathering for someone else and going and delivering those to friends, neighbors, someone they know is struggling.”