How to Get Berries: Migrant Workers Afraid of Viruses but Struggle

Hammonton, NJ—The largest blueberry plantation worker in the northeast, small groups move across the field, dancing with the speed of musicians with their fingers and picking fruity bushes.

The more they get together, the more payment they receive during the season, which lasts only about seven weeks.

They work seven days a week unless it rains. There is no time for illness.

But everywhere, there’s something reminiscent of its power to quickly sweep the coronavirus and its dense farm camps.

That’s why workers living together struggle to wear bandanas over their faces in the hot sun and work separated by Plexiglas in a fruit packaging facility.

Testing for viruses on a large farm in the Southern Blueberry Company’s southern New Jersey in Hammonton is lined up on a sultry morning a few weeks before picking begins.

“It feels a little uncomfortable,” said Angel Rodriguez, who works at a farm packaging facility. “I don’t know if anyone is contagious.”

Rodriguez, 34, left Puerto Rico in March and started on the east coast, stopping in Florida for two months before arriving in New Jersey’s heart of Atlantic County in late May. Flourishing blueberry industry..

He is one of the estimated 22,000 Seasonal workers who take care of and harvest crops in New Jersey Garden state Because of its robust agricultural industry.

Many workers, like Rodriguez, track ripened crops on the East Coast, Florida, Where The migrant’s residence was devastated It is infected by a virus and travels north to Maine.

This year puts life at greater risk and they are all considered Mandatory workers — Home orders and 14-day quarantine rule In New Jersey, for people from states where the virus is spreading rapidly. With every new influx of workers comes the risk of new outbreaks.

According to the Department of Health, in New Jersey, 3,900 farm workers were tested and 193 were virus-positive as of Thursday. Of these, 14 migrant workers who were unable to remain isolated were isolated in a state-owned field hospital at the Atlantic City Convention Center.

“It’s a bit dangerous,” said 56-year-old Felix Nieves, who works as a supervisor at Atlantic Blueberry. The 1,300 acre farm is considered the largest blueberry producing area in the northeast.

“But agriculture never stops. Fruits don’t wait for this to end.”

First round of testing Atlantic blueberries It took place early in the season, before most workers arrived. Three of the first 56 tested were positive for the virus.

The health risks posed by the virus make testing on large farms a priority, according to owner Paul Garetta.

“I will test as often as I can,” Garetta said of a healthcare worker wearing white jumpsuits, masks, face shields, and gloves when collecting nose swabs. They have returned 3 times.

A short growing illness workforce can be financially disastrous.

“This crop is viral or non-viral,” said Denney Doyle, chairman of the New Jersey Blueberry Industry Advisory Council.

Atlantic Blueberries purchased 3,000 bandanas, handed each worker two (one worn, one washed) and flame-retarded during the season between dorm beds in which hundreds of workers live. I hung a cloth of nature. Mr Doyle said the farm also purchased some additional buses to make additional space for shuttles to and from the field.

Agriculture is the third largest industry in New Jersey. The nation is one of the nations Top producer of blueberry, Cranberries, peaches, eggplants.

In May, state health authorities arranged for four federally qualified health centers to begin testing, Published safety guidelines This provided the farm owner with an ambitious (and impractical) range of suggestions. Farmers, among other recommendations, were told to avoid bunk beds, need masks, and create a separate housing for those who were determined to be virus positive.

There is no penalty for violations.

The 5% infection rate for New Jersey farm workers may actually be higher. Day laborers who do not live on the farm are unlikely to be among the workers who are screened at the health center. Workers tested in folk medicine are not included in the tally.

The inspection program is also voluntary, and 57 farms prohibit medical teams from conducting on-site inspections. ..

Dr. Talbot running the clinic Bridgeton, New JerseyShe said that 18% of the 200 farm workers she tested in May were positive for coronaviruses. Most were asymptomatic, but two patients died of Covid-19.

“This is a whole new level of pain for farm workers,” said Talbot. “They are arriving now and come from places with high rates of infection.”

State health commissioner Judith M. Persichili cites the prevalence of cases in farm workers as one of the reasons for the higher prevalence in South Jersey than in other parts of the state.

Linda Flakes, chief executive officer of the Southern Jersey Family Health Center, one of the four health centers coordinating the test, was, in a sense, aware that workers could carry the virus, and in a sense, the risk of the disease itself. Said that it would create the fear of being worse.

“The fingers are aimed at the farm workers,” she said. “I’m more worried about their criticism.”

In May, one in four Green Empire Farms was infected by the virus in a large agricultural greenhouse in Oneida, New York, according to a spokesman in Madison County, Samantha Field. The community continued to bounce and was played on social media and panicked phones.

“There was a lot of community anger,” said Field. “Many people were blaming them.”

However, the risk of spread is most pronounced in the cramped camp itself. Out of 100 workers tested in Florida watermelon plantationAccording to Florida Governor, 90 people have been infected with the virus.

According to owner George Cassade, 70 of 90 workers were infected by the virus at the Cassade farm in Gloucester County, New Jersey.

Mr. Cassadee asked the Southern Jersey Family Medical Center to perform an examination after an elderly worker became ill and stayed in the hospital for about a week. None of the other workers had any serious symptoms, said Cassadey, who also had the virus. He was tested after the smell of his favorite flower, hyacinth, had disappeared.

Most of his employees travel from Mexico every spring H-2A Stay for harvesting early and late crops such as worker visas, broccoli, corn, strawberries and squash.

He says his business is as dependent on their health as it is on his trust.

“I have a meal with a man. I visit them in Mexico,” said Cassadee. “We are one big family.”

According to Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy group focused on labor standards and occupational safety, at least half of the country’s farm workers are considered undocumented.

“What we often hear is that we can’t call for improved health and safety practices because people are afraid to be fired or deported,” Goldstein said.

Immigrant farmers are not included in the category of foreigners Workers were banned in June by President Trump From entering the country. But finding enough people to work in the fields has been a problem on US farms long before the coronavirus emerged.

According to the report, the number of H-2A visas requested and approved since 2005 has increased five-fold, reaching 258,000 last year. “One of the clearest indicators of agricultural labor shortage” To report Born in the US Department of Agriculture.

At Blueberry Farms in New Jersey, a labor shortage over the past few years has expanded the use of machines for harvesting fruits and can be damaged in the process, requiring them to be sold frozen rather than fresh. ..

Issue guidance The United States is not mandated for the safety of an estimated 2.4 million farm workers in the country. New Jersey Senator M. Teresa Luis has filed a bill to bind state recommendations.

“Each state is in a unique position,” said Amy Liebman, Director of Environmental and Occupational Health at Migrant Clinicians Network, a nonprofit organization for healthcare institutions. “In some cases, each farm is unique.”

Sarah A. Quant, a professor and medical anthropologist who teaches epidemiology and prevention at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, has begun investigating the understanding of farm workers about viruses and social distances.

She said she was dissatisfied with the “victim’s fault” and the suggestion that infection rates in the migrant community were somehow linked to poor hygiene.

“Indigenous racism is occurring,” said Quant.