Farms in nearly every region are seeing a spike in positive cases. More than 100 workers at two large produce operations in New Jersey contracted the virus in May, as the state develops an aggressive testing campaign for migrant workers. In North Carolina, a strawberry farm in Guilford County temporarily closed after eight workers tested positive.
Fruit-packing workers in the Yakima Valley of Washington state have been protesting for weeks for personal protective equipment and other precautions. They successfully pressured Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to issue safety requirements that went into effect last week. Nearly 500 farm workers in Yakima, which produces most of the nation’s tree fruit, have gotten sick during the pandemic.
“People are really scared, there are a lot of unknowns,” Lupe Gonzalez, a longtime farm worker in Immokalee, Fla., told POLITICO via a translator. At the beginning of May, there were 44 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Immokalee, a major tomato growing region in South Florida. Today there are around 500 cases, according to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. There is evidence that an outbreak is spreading in Belle Glade and Homestead, two other large farm worker towns in the area.
“We’re still seeing a lot of issues here in Immokalee where people still have to go to work, still have to provide for their families, and don’t have that access or ability to be able to socially distance from one another not only in work but also their living situations,” Gonzalez said.
The medical organization Doctors without Borders set up a mobile clinic in Immokalee in mid-April to provide testing for migrant workers, as well as to distribute sanitation products and promote public health practices. It’s the first time the organization, which serves high-need patients mainly in conflict zones, has worked in the U.S.
In May, the clinic, which travels from farm to farm testing workers after shifts end, saw a whopping 35 percent positive rate, evidence that community spread was occurring, said Jean Stowell, head of the group’s Covid-19 team in the U.S. The national positive rate is only around 6 percent.
Stowell said the high rate is of “deep concern” to the medical team.
The rising numbers of reported cases is adding urgency to requests by labor leaders to government and farm industry representatives for expanded testing at individual farm sites and labor camps, contact tracing on farms where outbreaks are discovered, and industry-provided benefits like health care, hazard pay and safer housing accommodations.
But the workers lack clout: As many as half of them are estimated to be undocumented, and a significant portion of the rest are in the country on temporary work visas.
A spokesperson for the Labor Department said that the agency „is acting to keep America’s workers safe and healthy during the coronavirus pandemic.“ The department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration „has preexisting requirements and standards that not only remain in place and enforceable, but also apply to protect workers from the coronavirus.“ The spokesperson cited the the general duty clause, which requires employers to provide a work environment that is free from safety and health hazards, as well as guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when determining if violations of workplace safety requirements are taking place.
In the absence of federal action, advocates are turning to state governments with their pleas for more support to be provided to farm workers who form the bedrock of the U.S. food supply chain.
Crop-pickers work and live in close quarters, making it difficult to follow social distancing guidelines. So health care providers in Immokalee have been educating workers on how to protect themselves as best as possible, such as instructing those who become sick to shield themselves from others if total isolation is not an option.
Tomato season is wrapping up in Florida, and pickers are beginning to move north to follow harvests in other states. Stowell said the mobile clinic is evaluating where to travel next.
“Covid is here for the foreseeable future, so the issue of not having access to safe isolation will continue to be a problem for this community wherever they move, whether it’s Immokalee or Michigan,” she said.
Hindered by limited testing and stigma around the virus, public health and labor groups have faced difficulty measuring the severity of coronavirus outbreaks. In North Carolina, hot spots have emerged in farm worker camps across the state, but not all positive cases are being reported, said Anna Jensen, executive director of the North Carolina Farmworkers Project.
Jensen said the lack of access to comprehensive, clear test results is why she believes „things are going to get worse.“
The CDC and OSHA, the nation’s public health and worker protection agencies, last week issued additional guidance for farm workers during the pandemic.
The joint guidance noted that „agriculture work sites, shared worker housing, and shared worker transportation vehicles present unique challenges for preventing and controlling the spread of Covid-19.“ It recommended that farmers screen laborers for coronavirus risk, take temperatures and separate workers exhibiting symptoms when possible.
But Farmworker Justice, an advocacy group, said the guidance „seems to adopt language to make sure that essential workers are back to work as soon as possible,“ and repeated its call for OSHA to issue mandatory rules requiring more extensive protections, along with more investment in health resources for rural communities.
Marc Schenker, a public health professor at the University of California, Davis and founder of the Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, said that “all the characteristics of farm workers are risk factors,” such as an inability to keep distance from coworkers, lack of readily available clean water and housing accommodations. And he said that OSHA has a long history of a “hands off attitude” that doesn’t adequately oversee the safety of agricultural workers.
“Some farms are trying to implement safety and precautions, and that’s to be recognized, but the challenges are enormous,“ he said.
Source: politico.com
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