Essential but disposable: how California farmworkers battle COVID-19
byJenny Manrique, Ethnic Media Services February 11, 2021
Study reveals the high degree of exposure to the coronavirus in the fields and the profound impact on the economy and mental health of these families.
In addition to high risk exposure to COVID-19, farmworkers in California have borne the brunt of setbacks caused by the pandemic: loss of income and employment, sudden childcare costs due to school closings, problems with distance learning due to poor or zero Internet access, food shortages, housing insecurity and even mental health problems.
The dire diagnosis was compiled in the report “Always Essential, Perpetually Disposable: California Farm Workers and the COVID-19 Pandemic,” a research conducted by the California Institute for Rural Studies and several grassroots organizations.
Palm Springs Desert Sun
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. – The Coachella City Council unanimously approved hero pay for certain essential workers Wednesday night and extended the controversial hazard benefits to farmworkers.
The emergency ordinance requires certain agricultural operations – as well as grocery stores, retail pharmacy stores and restaurants – to provide an additional $4 per hour to their employees in Coachella for at least 120 days. The regulation applies to those who employ 300 or more workers nationally and more than five employees in the city.
Coachella is the first city in the nation to require premium pay for farmworkers, according to city leaders.
Three cities sued in federal court
Online Journal of Rural Research and Policy announces Thomas P. Gould Prize winner
The Online Journal of Rural Research and Policy, a publication of the Chapman Center for Rural Studies, has announced the winner of the third Thomas P. Gould Prize for the best article published in the journal.
The winner of the 2021 prize is John Truden, doctoral student at the University of Oklahoma. Truden received his master s degree in 2018 in history from the University of Oklahoma.
Truden s article, You re in apple land but you are a lemon: Connection, Collaboration, and Division in Early 70s Indian Country, examines case studies about the transformation of Oklahoma s Indigenous communities in the 1970s. The findings of this research present a portrait of emerging collaboration through Native media within a diverse, indigenous world that was simultaneously wrought with emerging ideological schisms.
It s been nearly 11 months since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, and the virus continues to exacerbate existing vulnerabilities in farmworker communities. Farmworker advocates say that as the health crisis continues, its impacts have only intensified workplace inequalities and economic burdens, household and community-level stress, and even more disparate access to health care, and a lack of social and economic support. click to enlarge File Photo By Jayson Mellom
ESSENTIALLY NOT HELPED The pandemic continues to affect farmworkers throughout California, including the Central Coast, as the population experiences job loss, heightened fears of contracting the virus, and economic burdens.
California farmworkers severely impacted by COVID-19 pandemic, study shows
KFSN
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FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) California farmworkers have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
A just-released study by the California Institute for Rural Studies shows the effects of rising infection rates and vaccine uncertainties may be putting ag workers lives at risk. The long-term substandard working and living conditions of farmworkers combined with the historical disposable that shoulders agricultural production in California has been amplified during the pandemic, anthropologist Bonnie Bade said.
This 2nd phase study on California farmworkers and COVID-19 shows many of the people who toil in fields are ripe for transmission of the virus.