Without Mandatory Safety Rules, Cases Among Farm Workers Likely To Start Spiking
Advocates for agricultural workers, who are predominantly low-income, say not enough farming operations have taken steps to protect their work forces, warning that fruit and vegetable pickers could trigger COVID-19 contagions in rural areas. Other food industry news is also on fast-rising prices and shortages.
Politico:
In Absence Of Federal Action, Farm Workers’ Coronavirus Cases Spike
Coronavirus outbreaks among farm workers are popping up in rural communities across the country, sparking fears within the agriculture industry that cases will skyrocket as harvest season stretches into summer. In the coming weeks, more crews will be sent into fields to pick, pack and ship ripening crops. About a quarter of the 2.5 million-person workforce follows the harvest into other regions, bringing concerns that migratory workers could spread the disease to more farms and states. (Crampton, 6/9)
Los Angeles Times:
Salinas Farmworkers Crowd Homes, Spreading Coronavirus
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. (Gomez, 6/9)
Bloomberg:
Coronavirus Outbreaks At U.S. Food Plants Raise Specter Of More Food Shortages
A caravan of vehicles decorated with black ribbons and memorial pictures crawled through Yakima, Wash., last week to mark the death of David Cruz, a 60-year-old fruit warehouse employee who died after contracting coronavirus. The county, a hub of agricultural activity where workers jam into often crowded factories to package apples and other foods, has the highest per-capita infection rate on the West Coast. It’s a grim reality that’s playing out across the country as COVID-19 spreads beyond the meat processing plants that have captured the national spotlight. (6/9)
The Wall Street Journal:
Fastest-Rising Food Prices In Decades Drive Consumers To Hunt For Value
Food makers are designing value packs, and supermarkets are restoring promotions, aiming to offset disruptions wrought by the coronavirus pandemic that have led to the fastest rise in food prices in more than four decades. While food companies and supermarkets say they have reopened plants and resolved supply constraints that contributed to higher prices, they also expect prices to remain elevated because of increased costs for labor and transportation. Companies are buying equipment and reconfiguring factories and stores to keep people safe from the new coronavirus. Some of those changes are adding costs that are trickling down to shoppers. (Gasparro and Kang, 6/9)
