Isabel Rafael Pérez, a Florida farmworker, with her family.
Photo: Yaissy SolisFarmworkers across the U.S. often live in tight conditions, with multiple families inhabiting a single dwelling or dozens of workers sharing dormitory-style housing.
Those arrangements can pose significant risks amid the coronavirus pandemic, leading some U.S. farms to take the unprecedented step of securing socially distant housing for infected or quarantined workers as they try to keep their operations humming.
Dozens of farmworkers from North Carolina to California have tested positive for the coronavirus, and at least one has died, according to companies and state health departments. However a national tally isn’t known since most haven’t been tested. As they try to prevent the virus’s spread and keep food flowing to customers, agricultural employers have recently begun securing hotel rooms and other shelter so that potentially contagious workers can self-isolate.
Many farmworkers do their jobs outdoors, and sometimes harvest crops at a distance from one another. Yet crowded housing and buses that transport workers to and from fields pose a risk, labor advocates say. They worry many more workers will fall ill as the busy agricultural season in many states is just ramping up, with thousands of workers yet to arrive on farms.
Many farmworkers, including those who migrate, live in apartments, houses or trailers packed with others trying to afford monthly rents. Foreign guest workers recruited from countries like Mexico often live in dormitory-style housing provided by employers. Federal housing standards require beds to be spaced at least 3 feet apart, with one shower and one stove for every 10 people. Some states require more.
“There’s multiple opportunities for this virus to leap across workers,” said Erik Nicholson, national vice president for United Farm Workers, a union. “We want to make sure people don’t lack food and it’s getting harder every day to make that happen.”
In California’s Monterey County, home to some of the nation’s most productive farmland, fresh-vegetable behemoth Taylor Farms is paying two local hotels for 20% of their rooms each night, an arrangement that gives the company access to the full hotels if needed to quarantine workers or family members who may have been exposed to the virus. So far, only one out of the 5,000 people Taylor Farms employs in the county has tested positive for the virus and is recovering at home, according to Chief Executive Bruce Taylor.
The Salinas-based Grower-Shipper Association of Central California, which represents about 400 producers of crops like spinach and strawberries, has contracted with multiple hotels and motels left empty amid the pandemic. Christopher Valadez, the association’s president, said he has begun filling the rented rooms with coronavirus-positive workers, as well as some who may have been exposed to the virus.
The group is also coordinating meals and medical services for workers and joining with local hospitals to send doctors and nurses to fields, packing sheds and processing facilities to train workers on protective measures for coronavirus.
“Conditions are just ripe for the spread of coronavirus,” he said.
Meat plants also rely heavily on immigrants and refugees to do tough, low-paying jobs, and some live in close quarters. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and meat-industry executives have expressed concerns about workers’ ability to practice social distancing at home. In some states, like Kansas, empty hotels and community colleges have offered to house family members of affected meat plant workers, said Matt Teagarden, chief executive of the Kansas Livestock Association.
In April, United Farm Workers and other groups sued Washington state, saying farmworkers there lacked sufficient protections against Covid-19 and seeking updates to the state’s health and safety standards.
State officials last month issued a draft of emergency rules for housing temporary farmworkers, including requirements to space beds 6 feet apart and in many cases only use the bottom bunk on bunk beds. The state also responded to the suit, saying the court should deny the unions’ requests, in part because state agencies alone had discretion over their rules.
The rules came after Stemilt Growers LLC, a Washington grower of apples, pears and cherries, said more than half of 71 asymptomatic workers at the company tested positive for Covid-19. Fifty-three of Stemilt’s workers have now tested positive, according to Roger Pepperl, Stemilt’s marketing director.
Washington fruit growers and state lawmakers have pushed back on the rules, saying there is no proof the measures would protect workers’ health and that flexibility is required to manage risks.
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Robert Kershaw, president of Domex Superfresh Growers, a major Washington fruit producer, said his company has spent millions of dollars in recent years to build government-approved apartment complexes with central heat and air conditioning, and that the company takes seriously its responsibility to keep workers safe.
Domex said the new rules would cut its housing capacity by 60%, potentially resulting in more than 400,000 bins of apples, or $200 million worth, it may not be able to harvest. Statewide, industry losses could be $2 billion for apples, Domex said.
Farther east, farmworkers said their living conditions, trying under normal circumstances, now feel perilous.
Isabel Rafael Pérez, a Florida farmworker, said there are few choices for her six-person family this season, when they pack their belongings and travel to farms in Georgia and North Carolina, following the tomato harvest north.
Last year, Ms. Pérez stayed with her sister’s family, squeezing 11 people into a trailer where their combined seven children slept on the living room floor and lined up to use a single bathroom. Some years, her family has slept in their car until they find housing.
“It’s the reality we have to live with,” Ms. Pérez said.
Write to Jesse Newman at jesse.newman@wsj.com
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