Fields Of Protection: Navigating Farm And Crop Insurance Options

 Fields Of Protection: Navigating Farm And Crop Insurance Options - Farm workers harvest crops with few protections from the coronavirus: Shots - Health News Labor advocates say the lack of enforceable federal standards to keep the coronavirus at bay allows farmers to prioritize bring to harvest as well as worker safety.

As the coronavirus spreads, farms try to keep workers like this one in Greenfield, Calif., safe through physical distancing and other measures, but worker advocates say protections are often lacking. suitable Brent Stirton/Getty Images hide caption

Fields Of Protection: Navigating Farm And Crop Insurance Options

As the coronavirus spreads, farms try to keep workers like this one in Greenfield, Calif., safe through physical distancing and other measures, but worker advocates say protections are often lacking. suitable

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It's a busy time for the tomato producing farms in eastern Tennessee. Farms are staffed by hundreds of workers, most of them Latino. Some live locally. Others are migrant workers who travel from farm to farm, running the summer growing seasons. Others are coming from Mexico or Central America on temporary agricultural visas to work on specific farms.

But, this year, the season is taking place under a cloud of coronavirus concerns, for these agricultural workers, hitting close to home.

"Almost every part of the process of picking tomatoes has to be considered because of COVID-19," says Ken Silver, associate professor of environmental health at East Tennessee State University, who studies health migrant workers on Tennessee tomato farms.

After all, the workers live in close quarters, sleep in bunk beds, and share bathrooms and kitchens. They ride crowded buses to fields and often work in groups. And even though farm workers are considered essential workers, they often don't have health insurance or paid sick leave.

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Farms have already reported outages among hundreds of workers in states that include California, Washington, Florida and Michigan. And yet, the federal government has not established any mandatory regulations either to protect farm workers from the coronavirus or to tell employers what to do when their workers get sick. While migrant worker advocacy groups say this allows farms to take advantage of their workers and increase their risk of exposure to the coronavirus, farms say they are doing more they can to protect workers with the limited resources they have, and at the same time harvest the crops. .

The situation isn't exactly clear, says Alexis Guild, director of health policy and programs at the advocacy group Farmworker Justice.

"I think some employers are putting in necessary safeguards," Guild says. But she has heard of workers who, after testing positive for COVID-19, were still working or were sent back to their countries - an economic threat that creates a strong incentive for work without reporting mild symptoms. "I think it's hard to generalize. It's very different from employer to employer."

In June, 10 temporary workers out of about 80 at the Jones & Church Farms in Unicoi County, Tenn., tested positive for the coronavirus. Another farm in that county had 38 workers tested around the same time.

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Nationally, there have been at least 3,600 cases of farm workers testing positive for COVID-19, according to media reports collected by the National Center for Farm Worker Health.

Add to this the fact that farm employers and workers alike admit that even the most basic interventions to stop the spread - social distancing and mask wearing - are often not possible, especially in the hot temperatures .

Farm workers arrive for their move in Greenfield, California, April 28, 2020. Traveling to the fields in overcrowded buses is one of many hazards that workers often face each day. Brent Stirton/Getty Images hide caption

Saul, 52, is a temporary farm worker who has traveled from Mexico to Virginia every year since 1996 to harvest tobacco. In a WhatsApp message interview, he said that masks are uncomfortable at work because he works outside, writing in Spanish,

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(Kaiser Health News is not publishing Saul's last name so that it is not identified by his employer.)

Saul said he is worried about the coronavirus, but since he is staying at his job on the farm, he feels safe.

When he arrived in the US in April, the farm gave him information about the pandemic, masks and hand sanitizer, he said. No one is taking his temperature, but he works in a team of eight, lives with only three other workers and no one on the farm has yet been diagnosed with COVID-19.

In Tennessee, the Jones & Church Farms implemented their own worker safety protocols at the beginning of the season. These included increasing hygiene, taking daily temperature readings and keeping workers in groups so they live and work with the same people.

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After the 10 workers tested positive for COVID-19, the farm kept them all in the same housing unit and away from the other workers - but those who were asymptomatic also kept working in the fields , although they were able to stay away from others on. the work, says Jones Rogers.

In June, 10 of about 80 temporary workers at Jones & Church Farms in Unicoi County, Tenn., tested positive for COVID-19. Nationally, at least 3,600 positive cases have been reported among farm workers. Hide subtitles Victoria Knight / KHN

Although the Department of Labor has not offered federally enforced safety standards for COVID-19, it collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to publish a set of voluntary, agriculture-specific guidelines. Those were released in June, just days after Jones & Church discovered the farm had started.

Much of what had already been done at Jones & Church, however, closely followed those recommendations, which also recommended that workers be screened daily for symptoms of COVID- 19 and that those who are sick get their own place to recover apart from others. .

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Other recommendations in the CDC and Department of Labor guidelines, aimed more at indoor food processing plants such as tomato packing plants, included installing plastic shields if not 6 feet of distance between employees is possible, installing hand washing stations and providing personal items. protective equipment or clothing face covering.

"We do not believe that the health and safety of workers should be left to the good will of employers," said María Perales Sanchez, communications coordinator for Centro de Los Derechos del Migrante, an advocacy group with offices in Mexico and the SA.

A spokesman for the Department of Labor offered another opinion. "Employers are and will be responsible for providing a workplace that is free from known health and safety hazards," the spokesperson says, adding that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's general safety standards and CDC guidelines are used to determine workplace safety violations.OSHA is an agency within the Department of Labor.

"I don't think OSHA would be able to have some kind of mandatory regulation that wouldn't disadvantage some farmers," says Allison Crittenden, director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation.

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Farms have already put many COVID-19 safeguards in place, she says, "and if these actions are taking place voluntarily, we don't see that we need a mandatory requirement to have."

Immigrant farm workers, despite being an essential link in the country's food supply chain, often lack workplace benefits such as health insurance or paid sick leave.

Saul, a tobacco farm worker from Virginia, says he didn't think he had health insurance. If he got sick, he had to tell his farm employer, who then had to drive him to the doctor. The nearest town to the farm is 15 miles away. Who is responsible for these costs - the worker or the farm - depends on individual circumstances.

Many farms employ predominantly Latino workers, and CDC data shows that Hispanic or Latino people are much more likely to be infected, hospitalized or die from complications of COVID than whites . Experts also warn that because the COVID pandemic disproportionately affects people of color, it could widen existing health disparities.

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Fresh Harvest farm workers harvest romaine lettuce on a machine with heavy plastic dividers that separate workers from each other in Greenfield, California, April 27, 2020. Brent Stirton/Getty Images hide caption

Also, seeking medical care can be dangerous for migrant farm workers. Undocumented workers may worry about being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while workers with green cards may worry about an administrative "public charge rule" Trump. This controversial rule weighs immigrants' use of public programs, including health care, against their applications for citizenship. However, the federal government has said that treatment for COVID-19 would not fall under the rule.

And while contact tracing is important to stop the spread of COVID-19 among farm workers, many health departments do not have translators on staff who can speak Spanish or Central American Native languages, and will not farm worker outbreaks have been systematically investigated across the country to date. , as was done with the outage of long-term care facilities.

So "it's really hard to understand the number of farm workers who actually test positive," says the Guild with Farmworker Justice.

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That could pose a problem for detecting outbreaks, especially as the harvest season ramps up for certain crops and farms strengthen their workforces.

In late July, nearly 90 additional temporary workers arrived at Jones & Church Farms to help harvest tomatoes through October, says Jones Rogers. Although the 10 employees who had

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