Thursday, August 13, 2020

Coronavirus: Farmers and the virus

A lot of early attention regarding coronavirus was placed on meat processing plants. When it comes to our food though, there are also farms. One might think that farms would not be a significant cause of the virus spread. Farms are outdoors. One would think it would be easy to keep social distancing. The problem with farms and COVID-19 is actually living conditions and migration.

Here are some of the articles that I've come across over the last few months.

Bloomberg via MSN (May 29):

All of the roughly 200 employees on a produce farm in Tennessee tested positive for Covid-19 this month. In New Jersey, more than 50 workers had the virus at a farm in Gloucester County, adding to nearly 60 who fell ill in neighboring Salem County. Almost 170 were reported to get the disease at a tomato and strawberry greenhouse complex in Oneida, New York.

There are as many as 2.7 million hired farm workers in the U.S., including migrant, seasonal, year-round and guest-program workers, according to the Migrant Clinicians Network. While many migrants have their permanent residence in the U.S., moving from location to location during the warmer months, others enter through the federal H2A visa program. Still, roughly half of hired crop farmworkers lack legal immigration status, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

. . . In Oregon, a farm worker often may move a half dozen times during the summer, working for new growers and housed in new labor camps as they shift from harvesting cherries to strawberries to blueberries to pears, said Dale of the Northwest Workers’ Justice Project.

So farm workers can get the virus at one location and not show any symptoms. Then they can move to another location, spreading the virus from one farm to another.

Just for some context, according to statisa, 158 million work in the United States. So about 1.7% of US workers are employed in the industry. I do think that this is an industry where fewer and fewer workers will be needed as technology becomes more advanced.

LA Times (Jun 9):

A bed fills most of the room that Odilia Leon shares with her five children. In one corner, a dresser spills over with clothes.

For the cramped room in a two-bedroom unit behind a house in east Salinas, she pays $1,050 a month. It’s what she can afford as a fieldworker picking strawberries, her job for the last nine years. A couple with three children rents the other room. In all, 11 people share a living room and kitchen. There is one bathroom.


How can anyone even live like that for a long period of time? I used to work at an over-night summer camp. When the children were at the camp, the staff stayed in the lodge and had 2 people to a room. When the camp season was done, the summer camp was rented out to various groups. During that time, a much smaller number of staff remained and they were crammed into much tighter spaces. Personally, I hung out sleeping in various unused conference rooms in the lodge to keep away from that crowded room. So personally, I can't imagine staying in a two-bedroom unit with 11 people.

Associated Press via the LA Times (Jun 25):

A group of about 50 farmworkers went on strike Thursday at a Central California pistachio farm [Primex Farms] demanding free face coverings, gloves and information from the farm’s owner after they said they learned from the media that dozens of their co-workers tested positive for the novel coronavirus, a union official said.

Yeah, shame on Primex Farms for not giving their workers free face coverings. And how evil is it to not tell people that co-workers are testing positive for the virus? In the LA Times (Jun 9) article, Monterey County asked for 100 trailers from the state Office of Emergency to house infected farm workers. Seriously, what is wrong with the owner of Primex Farms for not at least informing his employees?

As an example of how farm workers can result in a noticeable amount of cases in an area, the LA Times (Jul 15) reports:

Farm workers account for 7% of the nearly 5,000 positive coronavirus cases in Ventura County after an outbreak at a farmworkers housing complex, officials said Wednesday.

Venura County has a population of 846,000 with about 36,000 farm workers. This makes them about 4.3% of the total population, but 7% of the cases.

Just as a note that the spread of COVID-19 among farm workers isn't just a US issue. The Guardian (Jul 20):

In Canada, the centre is Ontario, where more than 1,000 migrant farm workers have tested positive and three have died. To prevent spread, some employers have implemented strict rules and surveillance to control workers. Under federal programs for migrant workers, their visas are attached to employers, so they can easily be sent home.

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