SALINAS — Monterey County officials, agriculture leaders announce advisory to protect workers amid coronavirus pandemic
Monterey County officials and agricultural leaders released advisory recommendations for farmworkers and other employees in an effort to better protect them from coronavirus exposure, which comes as the industry continues to experience chronic labor shortages.
The announcement Friday afternoon comes after Monterey County issued its shelter in place order Tuesday with sweeping exemptions for agriculture, the county’s largest sector valued at $4.3 billion, as essential business. On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared “shelter at home” for most Californians, though designated food and agriculture as part of the state’s “essential critical infrastructure” on Friday.
The county’s new advisory adds voluntary enhanced worker health and safety measures, officials said in a press release.
“We knew that we needed to do more to protect our farmworkers as they are valued and do such critical work to ensure a stable food supply during this crisis,” said county Supervisor Luis Alejo, who represents much of Salinas, in a prepared statement. “With these greater measures that are supported by our agriculture and cannabis industries, we are leading and showing that we are doing all we can to better ensure their health and safety. This advisory can be a model for the rest of the nation to do the same.”
The Salinas Valley — long nicknamed the nation’s salad bowl — produces much of the nation’s lettuce and celery, as well as significant productions of strawberries, broccoli, spinach and cauliflower. Monterey County’s agriculture industry also cultivates wine grapes and cannabis, which has also been exempted from closure.
California, meanwhile, is the nation’s leading agricultural producer, and the fifth largest in the world.
The three-page advisory calls for preventing and reducing transmission of COVID-19 among staff, protecting people who are at higher risk for adverse health complications, maintaining operations and minimizing negative impacts to other entities in supply chains. With ever-changing guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies, agriculture industry leaders and officials said they will modify the advisory as necessary.
The recommendations outline employee hygiene, ill employees, routine cleanings, as well as training, changes to process, and limiting non-essential visits and travel, the advisory says.
Labor advocates have said farmworkers have historically been a vulnerable group extending back to black agricultural workers who were historically excluded from labor protections. The United Farm Workers of America said Saturday they needed to review Monterey County’s advisory.
Today, about half of U.S. farmworkers lack legal status in the country, with a minority but growing number of temporary seasonal workers mostly from Mexico through the H-2A visa, which has been restricted by federal officials due to the coronavirus pandemic. But of the 91,433 agricultural workers in the Salinas and Pajaro valleys, most have been in the country for more than a decade, as a regional study found in 2018.
There is also a chronic labor shortage that has impacted agriculture. A 2019 California Farm Bureau survey found more than half of farmers experienced labor shortages needed for production of their main crop at some point in the past five years. This may now also impact how cultivation amid the pandemic is handled, especially if workers fall ill.
In a letter distributed Tuesday, the UFW called on agricultural employers to take “further proactive steps” to ensure safety for farmworkers, buyers and consumers from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. UFW’s recommendations included extending sick pay, paid administrative leave for workers if they or their immediate family members are infected, and offer daycare assistance and flexibility since most schools have closed.
“We have started with our own house,” wrote UFW President Teresa Romero and Secretary-Treasurer Armando Elenes, saying they will contact unionized farmworkers with appeals to take these steps. “We ask you to do the same.”
Union leaders also asked growers to implement more sanitizing, education about the virus and encouraging workers to stay home, among other recommendations.
Along with county officials, leaders from the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California, Monterey County Farm Bureau, Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association, Coastal Growers Association and the California Strawberry Commission are supporting and encouraging members to implement the policies in their worksites.
“Farm employees continue to work diligently during this uncertain time to grow and harvest the fruits and vegetables shipped to consumers throughout the U.S.,” said Chris Valadez, president of the Grower-Shipper Association, in a prepared statement. “It is incumbent on all of us to ensure farm employees are protected and can continue to work safely in our fields and facilities.”
In a prepared statement, Carolyn O-Donnell, communications director for the California Strawberry Commission, said “strawberry farmers are well-prepared” to protect workers, consumers and continue supplying fruit to the market. The advisory, she added, synchronizes with procedures and tools prepared by the commission to reduce risk and protect farmworkers that have been implemented since February, she added.
Still, as Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner Henry Gonzales told the Monterey Herald last week, transmission of coronavirus, does not seem to spread from fresh or packaged produce. But he advised consumers to take normal precautions of washing fruits and vegetables before eating them.
Lettuce currently planted in the Salinas Valley will soon be harvested in the coming weeks, as will strawberries and other crops. Spring showers may slow production somewhat, though.
“The food produced by Agriculture is essential to our health and well being,” Gonzales said in a prepared statement. “Farmworkers and other agricultural employees are indispensable. This has long been recognized and is evident in the myriad of government and agricultural company rules designed to protect the health and safety of farmworkers.”
