Farmworker cases spike in tight housing
As Eppie Ordaz, a grape grower in Sonoma County, readies his vineyard for the late August harvest season, he is stocking masks and gloves for employees, planning empty rows to allow workers to keep their distance, and putting extra disinfectants and sanitation stations into place. The changes are new, but having to change isn’t, he says.
“Every harvest there are some crazy changes, adjustments and events, so I think we are pretty well prepared for anything,” he said. “There’s always something Mother Nature is going to throw at us, and COVID is another Mother Nature curveball, I guess.”
But a big part of the problem isn’t easy to fix. Coronavirus cases among farmworkers have been rising, with outbreaks tied to lowincome, multifamily housing, rather than fields. The Bay Area's crushing costs mean farmworkers have few housing options that they can afford, and closer quarters make them more vulnerable to the virus.
Ordaz, like many growers, worries that this could make his efforts “meaningless.”
Napa and Solano counties have been added to the state’s monitoring list for a spike in cases among farmworkers tied to crowded housing facilities, according to the California Department of Public Health.
Napa County tested 70% of the 180 residents in its three farmworker housing centers, said Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Relucio. She told the Napa Valley Register that the county had seen 30 positive test results as of July 7. Each center, funded by a selfimposed growers tax and praised as a solution to the lack of affordable housing for workers, houses 60 people in 30 bedrooms with two beds each. Relucio did not respond to a request for comment.
Solano County’s farmworker cases totaled “many dozens” over one to two weeks, according to the state. Solano County Public Health Officer Bela Matyas told the Register that there have been “at least 60” cases among people working in Wine Country. Solano officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Many farmworkers who don’t live in housing centers still tend to pack lots of people into one home to make living more affordable, Ordaz said.
Sonoma County was added to the state monitoring list amid rising case rates among the Latino community “due to exposure of essential workers, household clusters, increasing workplace and community transmission with the state’s reopening, and large social gatherings,” according to the state.
In Sonoma County, 65% of positive cases are in the Latino community, a county official said at a July 9 Board of Supervisors meeting. Almost 20% of people in the Latino community who tested positive worked in agriculture, more than any other employment sector.
However, Sonoma County Health Director Sundari Mase said that workplace transmissions account for less than 10% of cases, and most are tied to family and community spread.
Many growers in the region like Ordaz feel confident in their ability to keep workers safe. The months between the onset of the pandemic and the beginning of harvest has educated them on how the virus spreads and given them time to buy enough masks, gloves and disinfectants for their employees.
Many say that a vineyard is the ideal place to be physically distant. Long Meadow Ranch in Napa County put up a sign showing that workers should stay three vines apart, a distance of 8 feet. Some growers plan to run two shifts instead of one, having fewer workers in the vineyard at once. Growers are having daily discussions with their crews about the latest public health updates and safety measures.
“We feel so good about employees coming to work and getting information,” said Jennifer Putnam, executive director of the Napa Valley Grapegrowers Association. “So I think the safest place to be right now is in the vineyard.”
Farmers and county officials both point to the kinds of housing centers where cases have been cropping up as one of their biggest worries. Health experts have said the risk of infection is higher indoors than outdoors.
“Farmworker centers here in Napa, like all congregate living environments, are at higher risk because of the density of people coming and going and living together,” Putnam said.
Ana Lugo, founder of Equity First Consulting, stressed that it was imperative that government officials and agricultural employers address the structural issues that cause crowded living conditions in the first place — low wages and high living costs.
“We do not place the responsibility on the people with less power and privilege to be the ones to fix the issue,” she said. “You have the private sector — individual employers — and then you have the government, and so it is really on both of those groups to figure out how to work together and leverage resources to be able to address some of those issues.”
Ordaz agreed that much of the problem is systemic, and he doesn’t see the problem letting up any time soon, especially with “outrageous” Bay Area housing costs that lead to not only crowded housing, but crowded carpools.
“When you’re on the vineyard, it’s pretty easy to scatter employees around,” he said. “What is often overlooked is the fact that no matter what we do, most of the workforce carpools to work, and that’s common among all agricultural workers.”
Philip Martin, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Davis, said that because labor markets for farmworkers have been tight in recent years, vineyard work in Wine Country pays relatively well compared to similar work in the Central Valley. Because of this, many workers tend to commute, often in family groups, from areas that have more affordable housing.
“There’s high housing costs in Napa, there’s no two ways about it,” he said. “A lot of people can’t afford to live there, and so you get a lot of commuting in.”
But farming experts say the solution isn’t as simple as raising wages. Daniel Sumner, director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, said higher wages raises the cost of production, but many consumers do not want to see higher food costs as a result.
“Every farmer would like to pay more if they could, but they haven’t figured out a way to stay in business doing that,” he said.
Lugo of Equity First Consulting said the Latino community also lacks information about what to do when they are sick, and some are hesitant to be tested.
“Many people didn’t want to
get tested because they were afraid that if they got tested, they were going to be forced to isolate. And if you isolate, you can’t go to work. So then how do you make money for your family?” she said. “It’s all interconnected.”
Farmers and government officials are increasing outreach to workers, which they hope will alleviate some of the fear around the virus.
In Sonoma County, officials have created a Latino community health working group, which Lugo said is focusing on sharing information on the virus in a way that fits with farmworker culture.
The state recommended that Napa and Solano counties also focus on education as a means of preventing the spread of the virus.
The Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation created a coronavirus task force at the end of June. The group focuses on outreach to farmworker communities to “bridge the information gap” among the government, employers and working communities.
Putnam, who is also head of the foundation, has been working on producing resources for farmworkers since early in the pandemic.
“We’ve really been thinking outside the box,” she said. “How do you reach that community at a deeper level?”
One way is through churches, where they distribute informational pamphlets and free masks. The group has also partnered with the St. Helena Hospital Foundation to fund mobile testing for its members’ vineyard and office workforces.
Ordaz, whose father emigrated from Mexico and got his start working on vineyards, thinks talking about the labor behind the food system is imperative to helping improve the lives of farmworkers. He and his family also want to do their part in helping make the wine industry more sustainable.
“One of the dreams is to build some lowincome housing for farmworkers,” he said.