Safeguarding the Health and Wellbeing of Agricultural Workers in Monterey County: A 5-Year Glance at the COVID Pandemic & Lessons Learned

“Earlier this month marked the five-year anniversary of California going into shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Herald is taking a look back at how Monterey County residents and organizations navigated that time, as well as the lessons learned. Today, the challenge of keeping agricultural workers safe.

SALINAS – When the COVID-19 pandemic crept up on the world in 2020, it revealed vulnerabilities in everyday activities where people could be exposed to the illness.

It would be especially serious for the thousands of Monterey County agriculture industry employees whose working conditions placed them at risk of becoming sick and joining the millions to lose their lives to the virus.

The No. 1 economic engine in Monterey County is its more than $4 billion agriculture industry with its roughly 77,000 workers. The pandemic would test the health of the relationship between agriculture employers and ag workers, posing significant challenges to the industry’s job of keeping food on America’s tables.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses in the Monterey County agriculture industry, especially where workers were concerned, that included inadequate housing, crowded living conditions and limited access to health care and resources. All that contributed to the disproportionate infection rates among ag workers.

The COVID-19 Collaborative

Community support to help face the challenges of the pandemic came in many forms including the Monterey County COVID-19 Collaborative, which was created in response to the need for a coordinated, community-based effort to address the pandemic.

The COVID-19 Collaborative and VIDA (Virus Integrated Distribution of Aid) Programs were made possible by Monterey County and the Community Foundation for Monterey County with support from Together Toward Health, a program of the Public Health Institute and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

A report from the California Institute for Rural Studies in July 2020 found Monterey County farmworkers were three times more likely to contract COVID-19 than workers in any other industry.

Monterey County business and community leaders saw the need for a broad, coordinated response, and with the enlisted help of workers and their advocates, the County would become an example of how to protect workers.

“Leaders across multiple sectors including business, nonprofits, government, education and faith communities recognized that an organized, collective approach was necessary to navigate the uncertainties of COVID-19,” said Kim Stemler, who is currently the president and CEO of The Carmel Foundation.

Stemler initially participated in the COVID Collaborative as the director of the Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association, where she had already been building relationships with California Department Public Health and other local health care providers, establishing testing and vaccination sites.

“As the collaborative’s efforts grew, my role expanded to coordinating testing and vaccination clinics for the entire collaborative, distributing personal protective equipment and working on public communication,” said Stemler. “I was also part of a specialized health marketing subgroup, which developed community education campaigns.”

Click on the link below to read the full article.

Originally published by Monterey Herald