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As many as 3 million migratory and seasonal labourers work on American farms. By one count, more than 100,000 of them have now been infected by the coronavirus. Yet the federal government has made no effort to test, trace or even document these cases. Instead, state and local officials have once again been asked to manage a pandemic that flows across their borders, damaging lives, communities and potentially the nation’s food supply.
The toll has been rising since spring. In Wasco,
California, more than 150 workers were infected at a pistachio processing plant; in Ventura County, 188 others tested positive at a berry farm. Similar outbreaks have been reported in Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee and elsewhere in recent weeks.
Even in the best of times, the life of an American farmworker is not an easy one. Most are foreign-born, primarily from Mexico, and at least half are undocumented. Wages are low, days are long, and benefits, including health insurance, are rare. Still, work is steady, and a committed farmhand can spend much of the year following the harvest seasons for different crops. It’s an often-social lifestyle in which families travel, live and work together, typically in close quarters.
And that’s why Covid
has hit so hard. Hispanic
communities appear to
be particularly vulnerable. Workplaces and living conditions in which social distancing are difficult heighten the risks. And many undocumented workers, fearful of revealing their immigration status, are hesitant to report symptoms, ensuring that outbreaks remain unaddressed until it’s too late. Even workers who have green cards may worry that they could become entangled in Trump administration rules making it difficult for immigrants to obtain permanent status if they’ve received public assistance.
It’s a familiar problem. Early in the pandemic, the US confronted dozens of outbreaks at meat and poultry plants, which share many of the characteristics that make farms so susceptible. That crisis didn’t last long, though: Meat and poultry are highly consolidated industries, dominated by a handful of big companies that can afford to test, trace and treat workers while reconfiguring job sites for safety.
That’s far more difficult to do with America’s approximately 2 million farms, many of which are small businesses that lack the resources to prevent outbreaks. And unlike meat and poultry operations, which run year-round, farms are seasonal.
—Bloomberg