Garlic workers wary of infection as demand soars
Christopher Ranch, the nation’s largest garlic producer, thought it was doing everything it needed to adjust to the pandemic. It told workers to keep their distance from each other in the fields and in processing facilities. It required employees to wear masks. It checked everyone for symptoms.
By the time the garlic harvest began in early June, ushering in the Gilroy farm’s busiest time of year, the company had no reported coronavirus cases among its 1,000 fulltime employees. And garlic was flying off the shelves, as consumers sought out its health properties.
But then, on June 16, an employee called in reporting flulike symptoms. The person did not come into work and got a test for the coronavirus. It came back positive.
The result jolted the huge ranch, which immediately quarantined and tested dozens of people who worked closely with the infected person. About 100 tests were administered, and one additional worker was found to be infected.
The relatively low numbers so far, three months into the pandemic, reflect that California farms remain fairly wellpositioned to withstand the virus. Outbreaks are certainly occurring. In the most severe situation so far, 204 people tested positive at a facility housing farmworkers in Oxnard (Ventura County), the Ventura County Star reported. In Solano County, which recently landed on the state’s coronavirus watch list, one driver of rising cases is a surge among farmworkers who commute to Wine Country vineyards. The same appears to be be true in Napa County, where the state cited “disproportionate impact on agricultural workers” as one reason the county landed on the watch list, causing reopening plans to pause.
Still, farming may be better off than the meatpacking industry, which has seen significant outbreaks in the nation’s heartland. Farm work is often outside. Using protective equipment like gloves or masks is already routine. The work can be made relatively safe, according to Daniel Sumner, a UC Davis professor and the director of the University of California Agricultural Issues Center.
“There have been hot spots, but that’s to be expected,” he said.
The industry is under scrutiny. On June 15, a day before the first Christopher Ranch case emerged, the California attorney general’s office sent a letter to agricultural employers inquiring about their plans for coronavirus prevention, workplace safety, and training and sick leave policies, with a goal of ensuring workers’ health.
Many farmers fear the environments they cannot control — what happens when their employees are off the clock, according to Karissa Kruse of the Sonoma County Grape Growers Foundation.
Isaac Nadal, a foreman who manages contract worker crews at a grape farm in Delano (Kern County), said that he talks to his crew about coronavirus news every morning and what they can do to stay safe. He and his workers are also required to wear masks at all times, which he says is “going to be a way of life from now on.” Despite these efforts, he’s especially worried about what happens outside of work.
“You could be really clean at work, but when you get out of work, that’s the problem,” he said. “I don’t know who you’re around, who comes and visits you, where you go, everything like that.”
Sumner of UC Davis said that the use of carpools, tight living spaces and other outside activities can make it hard to determine whether or not a person contracted the virus at work.
People of Latino heritage — who include many farmworkers — have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, as The Chronicle has previously reported.
“Farmworkers are lowwage, lowincome people, and they’re going to be hit worse,” Sumner said. “Poverty is a bad thing. It’s bad for your health, and it’s bad for disease prevention.”
Leonor Ramos works peeling garlic at Christopher Ranch. She said that she feels that the company is doing everything it can to keep workers as safe as they can be from the coronavirus, following all the rules and providing the employees with the protective gear that they need.
“We have everything we need to be healthy and to protect ourselves,” she said.
Even with safety precautions, many farmworkers are worried about going to work.
Ramos added that even though she and the company are being as careful as possible, the threat of the virus is still there every time one leaves the house.
Juan Luis Rodríguez, who works in fields in Coachella Valley (Riverside County), said that he always wears a mask to work but is still worried about getting sick. “In a word,” he said, “fear.” Sylvia Lopez works in the Central Valley picking grapes. Like Rodriguez, she is also scared of getting the virus at work, even though she’s been wearing a mask and keeping the mandated distance from others. She feels like she’s in a difficult position because she has to keep working, even though she isn’t sure if it’s safe. She added that it’s even more difficult for workers who are undocumented, because they have nowhere else to turn for income.
At Christopher Ranch, when the first worker tested positive, farm executives enlisted the help of the Santa Clara Department of Public Health and sprang into action. The building where the employee worked inside cleaning garlic bulbs was shut down for 48 hours and sanitized. The 80 employees who worked in the same department as the infected person were put on mandatory quarantine and tested, even though they had been observing distancing, said Ken Christopher, executive vice president of the operation.
The second employee to test positive remains in quarantine, while the rest of the employees — all of whom tested negative — are back to work.
Christopher also got tested in order to underscore its importance, as he thinks mass testing will become routine for businesses.
Employees are now required to wear face shields in addition to masks for even more protection, Christopher said, adding that the employee who got sick has recovered and has been cleared to return to work.
Infections aren’t the only worry for farmers amid the pandemic. When the shelterinplace order hit, the food supply chain was upended. Restaurants and schools suddenly dropped orders. No one knew what the next day would bring.
“I remember coming into the office on March 15 or 16, turning on my screens to look at production and sales, and I saw that all of our orders for restaurants went to zero,” Christopher said. “We had to scramble and shake up our entire business almost overnight.”
Unlike many other types of farms, Christopher Ranch was able to redirect its supply — about half of which normally goes to restaurants — to grocery stores with relative ease, thanks to a surge in demand for garlic during the pandemic because of its immuneboosting properties.
Smaller or imperfect garlic, which would normally go to restaurants, was going straight to consumers for the first time, Christopher said, and demand hasn’t slowed. And more good news: Christopher says this year’s crop is one of the biggest he’s ever seen.
“We’re getting requests from multiple countries across the world, demanding more and more garlic,” Christopher said. “So even though we’re having a spectacular crop and we’re really proud of what we’ve done — another hundredmillionpound harvest — demand is going to outstrip it still.”