While many of us isolate in the safety of our own homes, ‘essential’ workers face exposure on the front lines. In this article Florida’s Coalition of Immokalee Workers stresses the grave implications for agricultural workers amidst the coronavirus pandemic. 

Immokalee tomato farm

Immokalee is a prominent agricultural hub in southwest Florida. Known as the “tomato capital” of America, thousands of workers are busy picking tomatoes brought to your shelf as harvest season is underway. The circumstances of many workers makes infection extremely likely— almost half of Immokalee’s residents live in poverty, with farm workers often living in cramped trailers and busing to the fields each day. The opportunities for infection are clear and expected, but still little has been done to provide protection. The coalition has urged the governor to provide Immokalee farm workers with gloves and face masks, economic assistance for sick workers, and free virus testing. Their request for a field hospital was determined unnecessary despite the nearest facility being forty minutes away, with many residents not owning cars.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers demonstration (2013)

What’s happening in Immokalee is representative of the hardship facing farming communities across the United States. In order to maintain vital food production while ensuring the safety of farmworkers, reasonable health protection measures—like those the coalition requested— should be implemented by state governments and agricultural companies. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is revealing gaps in our systems, gaps that put people at risk of falling through the cracks. If actions aren’t taken to protect farmworkers, agricultural production will suffer as coronavirus ravages these communities. In response we must assuage the American tendency towards individualism and fight to protect the most vulnerable among us. As the title of the piece suggests, how can we call these workers ‘essential’ if we fail to treat their lives as valuable?