Farmworkers in California face increased vulnerability to the coronavirus, due to working conditions and lack of access to healthcare, according to a survey released Tuesday by farmworker advocates.
In Monterey, one of the top farm counties in the state, the survey found that farmworkers were three times as likely to become infected by the coronavirus than people employed in the county’s non-agricultural industries.
The California Institute for Rural Studies coordinated the Covid-19 Farmworker Study Team, made up of six farmworker organizations. The team conducted phone interviews with 900 farmworkers across 21 counties in the state, concluding the survey on July 21.
Workers overall reported that few employers provided face coverings and more than half said employers failed to provide sick leave. A quarter of those surveyed said they feared seeking help because of risks of exposure to Covid-19 in healthcare facilities, but three times as many respondents said they were wary of seeking help because they distrusted government agencies.
Many immigrants have avoided seeking out government help for healthcare and even food aid, because of fears they would be deemed a “public charge,” threatening their future prospects to stay in the United States.
More than 54 percent reported limited healthcare coverage, lack of insurance, or lack of sick leave, the survey said.
But the survey found that workers were aware of the risks of coronavirus and were taking additional steps such as physical distancing and isolation practices, to slow the spread of the virus among their families. Covid-19 prompted 90 percent of the respondents to change the way they protected their families, such as washing hands frequently and changing clothes after work, according to the survey.
The study team found that farmworkers are trying to maintain safety protocols and believe that listening to farmworkers during the pandemic will help reduce the spread of new cases.
Preliminary data also provided strong evidence that California farmworkers are experiencing injustices that are magnified due to the pandemic.
Don Villarejo, the founder of the California Institute of Rural Studies, urged local officials to be transparent surrounding the loss of jobs due to the pandemic. More than 110,000 farmworkers have been at home, with no income — amounting to one-fifth of the state’s job losses during April and May.
“I looked at all of the websites of county health departments and any other information they had available, and found that of California’s 58 counties only four had information about the employment status of persons diagnosed with the Covid disease in their county,” Villarejo said. “How are we going to intervene if we don’t know what’s going on.”
As for healthcare access, some farmworkers do not take advantage of Covid-19 testing because they cannot read information about how to get tested.
Oralia Maceda, Centro Binacional para el Desarollo Indígena Oaxaqueño, said that indigenous people, who speak local dialects and not Spanish, do not get information translated for them.
“Linguistic rights in our community are important,” Maceda said. “We as an organization work with communities and we go to the committee of that community to share that info in an indigenous language.”
Fernando Serrano of Alianza Ecologista said that the organizations needed to work together to remedy the issues.
“We need to have better coordination from the state level, county level, city level, non-profit organizations,” he said, “and groups need to come together to discuss how we are going to approach this since some of the strategies we are using are not working, and in part, because the communication is not happening.”