Amid a world pandemic in which roughly 23% of Americans have faced food insecurity, America has begun paying especially close attention to those who feed us. From the farmers who plant and manage the crops, to the grocery store employees who keep the produce section stocked, America has realized that these workers are not just important but essential for our food supply and security. However, a category of these essential workers, farmworkers, have been especially hard-hit by the pandemic.
A recent study focused on farmworkers in the Salinas Valley, known to much of the country as "The Salad Bowl of the World," found that 13% of the study's participants, all farmworkers, tested positive for COVID-19 between mid-July and November 2020. This was almost triple California's general population positivity rate, which stood at 5% during the same period.
However, the high rate of COVID-19 among farmworkers is not just a problem in California. In Tennessee, "nearly 200 farm employees [100% of the employees] on a farm in Rhea County, Tennessee tested positive for COVID-19." In early July, Maine also reported 100 COVID-19 cases among farmworkers in that state. In Oregon, a single farm, had two separate outbreaks infecting almost 100 farmworkers in April and May 2020.
As experts have discussed, contact tracing is critical for containing the spread of COVID-19. However, farmworkers do not always have the ability to get tested. Sometimes, this is related to the fact that rural areas, where many farmworkers are located, may not have free and/or accessible testing sites, if they have one at all. Furthermore, those who do have the ability to get tested, may refuse to do so out of fear that "a positive test may mean a permanent job loss."
A positive COVID-19 test is only the beginning of a difficult process for farmworkers who may lack access to crucial resources.
When asked why they continued to work even after testing positive for COVID-19, or after experiencing symptoms, a quarter of the Salinas' study participants responded that they were concerned about losing pay, while another 13% expressed fear for losing their job if they stopped working. An additional 4% of the farmworkers in the study noted that they continued to work because their employer told them to. The fear regarding job loss is not unfounded, given that the agriculture industry has suffered deep economic loss during the pandemic. As discussed in this previous blog entry, small agricultural towns have been forced to improvise as the markets for their products continue to change during these unprecedented times.
The Salinas study also showed that farmworkers with a higher positivity rate were more likely to speak Indigenous languages as opposed to English or Spanish. This presents a problem as they may be unable to find necessary guidelines and/or resources regarding COVID-19, isolation, contact tracing, etc., in their native language.
Much of the nation's agricultural work occurs in the rural areas of the country. Unlike urban areas which may have a larger number of health care services, rural areas tend to have fewer healthcare services available, in the sense that a rural town might not have a medical care facility, thereby requiring access to transportation for those seeking to receive medical attention. Further, those health care centers that are available, may be less well-equipped to handle a large number of COVID-19 positive patients. Most concerning in rural areas, are the lack of physicians and available hospital beds. In addition, "many farmworkers have limited access to health care and live below the poverty line" making it even more difficult to receive medical treatment or receive COVID-19 testing. Thus, a farmworker in a rural area may have a difficult time seeking medical help following the onset of COVID-19 symptoms or testing positive for COVID-19.
As if this was not grim enough, research by UCSF shows that while California's "working-age-adults had about a 22% increased risk of dying from March on," as a result of "living during a pandemic," people in agricultural work "saw their chances of death double to 40%." That number is even higher for Latino farmworkers whose chance of death is about 60%.
In sum, the rapid spread of COVID-19 among farmworkers cannot be solved by simply enforcing social distancing guidelines and requiring masks because the issue is much more complicated than simply the higher infection rate. A lack of resources, a lack of access to health care, and language barriers are just some of the many factors playing into COVID-19's devastating impact on farmworkers. This is yet another challenge, much like California's wildfires this year, that farmworkers have been asked to endure for the sake of our nation's food supply. However, the question remains: if farmworkers are essential to our food supply, why are we not making more of an effort to ensure their health and well-being?
5 comments:
Really well researched Ana! Sadly it seems like some of these problems would take too long to fix to be completed prior to the vaccination process. For example, it would likely take a couple of years to correct the rural discrepancy in access to health care, and it would likely take six months or more to set up an agency that can guide indigenous speakers on how to get tested, stay safe, etc....
Hopefully these issues can be addressed over the years so that we're better prepared for a pandemic if one were to occur again.
I was so anxiuos to know what my husband was always doing late outside the house so i started contacting investigators and was scamed severly until i almost gave up then i contacted this one private investigator and he delivered a good job showing evidences i needed from the apps on his phone like whatsapp,facebook,instagram and others and i went ahead to file my divorce papers with the evidences i got,He also went ahead to get me back some of my lost money i sent to those other fake investigators,every dollar i spent on these jobs was worth it.Contact him so he also help you.
mail: bestappshackers@gmail.com
text on whatsapp +1 6026094730
Really great topic Ana! I feel like marginalized communities who are most impacted by the virus are still receiving the least resources, like testing or the ability to quarantine after a positive test. I think this is a really important thing to be paying attention to during the vaccine rollout. California is switching to an age-based priority system rather than one based on profession and risk level. This seems problematic given how essential our farmworkers are and their experiences that you describe here.
Very well researched Ana! I had no idea (1) that the Salinas Valley is known as "The Salad Bowl of the World," or (2) that 13% of the study's participants, all of whom were farmworkers, tested positive for COVID-19! It’s both astonishing and worrisome at the same time. I think it’s necessary that both the federal government, as well as local governments, get involved in creating accessible and free testing sites for these farmworks, especially since they are an integral part of our food source. I actually thought Professor Pruitt’s post “A vaccination party in a snowstorm” to be an interesting idea - perhaps it would be beneficial to curbside testing sites close to farms so that farmworks can have easy access to their healthcare. I think there also needs to be some sort of safety net for farmers that you mentioned are either scared to lose their job or face a reduction in pay if they stop working. Perhaps extra stimulus checks to these individuals might be an option.
This was a great post! The impact of Covid on farmworkers has been very disconcerting. From the start, as essential workers, they have worked hard to supply our nation with food. The fact that this sector experienced such high positivity rates is alarming—living in a rural community, it really upset me that the state did not focus more on the impact of Covid on farmworkers. The rural areas most of them live in, as you mentioned, don’t have the medical capabilities that cities have. More resources should have been dedicated to farmworkers, and I think after all of this we should better appreciate how hard they worked during such frightening times to keep our nation’s food supply safe.
Post a Comment