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Fall Harvest Brings New Challenges During Pandemic

Mariella Toro, from Blue Ridge Health, prepares to visit the home of newly arrived farmworkers for the apple harvest. In addition to a COVID-19 orientation, they provide workers information on hygiene and physical therapy movements to prevent injuries.
Cass Harrington
/
BPR News
Mariella Toro, from Blue Ridge Health, prepares to visit the home of newly arrived farmworkers for the apple harvest. In addition to a COVID-19 orientation, they provide workers information on hygiene and physical therapy movements to prevent injuries.

 

It’s apple season in Western North Carolina. Hand-painted roadside signs boast cider doughnuts and homemade pies. The beloved seasonal fruit is picked by thousands of migrant farmworkers. But with the pandemic, advocates want the government to provide safer living and working conditions for the at-risk population.

Mi Casa, Su Casa

On a dusty gravel road in Polk County, a rustic cabin sits facing an apple orchard. After each 12-hour workday, six men kick off their muddy boots and unstrap their picking buckets and leave them here on the porch before going in for the night. 

Farmworkers wait on the porch for their health screening. Blue Ridge Health typically conducts visits indoors, but due to the pandemic, they're meeting farmworkers outside their temporary living facilities.
Credit Cass Harrington / BPR News
/
BPR News
Farmworkers wait on the porch for their health screening. Blue Ridge Health typically conducts visits indoors, but due to the pandemic, they're meeting farmworkers outside their temporary living facilities.

Thirty-year-old Franco Manuel is from Queretero, just outside of Mexico City. Manuel says he and the others couldn’t afford to go to college back home.

“And here, for us, we make more than a professional would back home. Here, there’s more opportunity,” Manuel said.

They make about $13 for each wooden crate they fill. Their wages vary day-to-day, depending on how high they have to climb for fruit. And after such a strenuous day, an apple is the last thing the workers want to eat.

“Maybe back in Mexico we’d fancy an apple,” Manuel told BPR. “But when you get here and you see it all--no. You lose your appetite.”

Manuel says after a day in the orchard, he and his housemates just want to relax. They cook dinner together and quickly fall asleep. 

It’s in those off-hours that have migrant health outreach workers particularly concerned. Jackie Antiveros is with the non-profit Blue Ridge Health that serves migrant workers in nine counties, including Henderson, which she says faces a shortage of affordable housing.

“If farmers can’t find more housing for their workers, then they’re all forced to be crammed, 16 guys to one small trailer,” Antiveros said, adding that if more resources were provided to growers to offer more spread-out living spaces, the situation would be “vastly different.”

The Core Issue

With about 150 orchards, Henderson County is the state’s leading producer of apples. It also has just over 2,000 coronavirus cases. About one third of them are Latinos. 

A farmworker leans against the wall of his cabin, where he and his fellow apple pickers rest after a day's work in the orchard.
Credit Cass Harrington / BPR News
/
BPR News
A farmworker leans against the wall of his cabin, where he and his fellow apple pickers rest after a day's work in the orchard.

“There’s so many different factors that affect the farmworker’s health, such as breathing in pesticides, just being around dirt all the time,” said Antiveros. “So you don’t know if you’re coughing because of the pesticides you just breathed in or because you have COVID. So many of them just don’t reach out, until they're so sick.”

How many migrant workers in Western North Carolina have contracted COVID-19? That data isn’t currently publicly available because the health department does not share employment information. Advocates are pressing the state to share this data.

Antiveros says undocumented workers who travel from nearby states like Florida or Georgia are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19, but they also don’t have the same access to prevention and treatment.

“The reality is those that have lived here and that have done this work for the longest are the ones that suffer the most because they can’t take advantage of any of the resources that are being provided,” Antiveros said. 

The majority of hired hands to pick the signature fruit are temporary migrant workers, either undocumented or on temporary H2-A visas. Those visa applicants had to test negative for coronavirus before being allowed to cross the border. 

“We’re talking about people who are here under a government program,” said Lariza Garzon, executive director of the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry. The nonprofit in Dunn advocates for policies to better protect the state’s estimated 150,000 farmworkers. “The least we can do if we’re going to invite them to North Carolina to work in the fields is to provide them the dignified and safe conditions to work and live under.” 

Garzon and other advocates are pressing lawmakers to pass spending to ensure adequate housing and health services for migrant workers. 

On August 13, Gov. Roy Cooper issued an executive order pledging to protect the state’s temporary workers in agriculture and meat processing. That order would have ensured protections for workers, including mandatory personal protective equipment and screenings for the virus. But in early September, the governor rescinded the order, citing pushback from state officials.

Apple pickers at this orchard in Polk County say they receive $13 for each crate they fill. Their daily wages vary, depending on how high they have to climb to harvest the fruit.
Credit Cass Harrington / BPR News
/
BPR News
Apple pickers at this orchard in Polk County say they receive $13 for each crate they fill. Their daily wages vary, depending on how high they have to climb to harvest the fruit.

“Whether you like it or not, there are documented and undocumented immigrants who live in North Carolina,” said Garzon. ”They’re part of our society, they’re part of our community, they’re contributing just like you are. If their well being is assured, then the well being of all of us will be assured.”

At the log cabin in Polk County, Franco Manuel and his fellow apple pickers are doing their best to stay safe from COVID-19 for the remaining weeks in their temporary home. 

But that’s just one concern. After a long day in the orchard, their bodies ache. So Blue Ridge Health taught the crew new stretches for their backs and shoulders they can begin now and continue after they’ve returned to their homes in Mexico. 

Copyright 2021 WFAE. To see more, visit WFAE.

Cass Herrington is BPR's Morning Edition host and news reporter. Her reporting largely focuses on stories dealing with health, race, and immigration.
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