‘We cannot harvest our food remotely’: Farm workers anxiously await their turn for vaccinations

Planting and picking America’s food is an essential role in the pandemic, writes Andrew Buncombe, but for Washington state’s migrant workers, it’s been a long wait for the jab that will take their worries away

A farm worker harvests lemons at an orchard in Ventura County, California. The United Farm Workers (UFW) union is urging state and local governments to greater prioritise Covid-19 vaccines for farm workers and perform outreach activities to help workers who often lack technology access to sign up for vaccinations (AFP/Getty)

The man with the apple trees did not want to get sick. And neither did he want to wait his turn to get vaccinated. So the 60-year-old and his brother drove to Seattle, flew to Oakland, California, where many counties had prioritised farm workers, and got the jab. They then flew home.

“There was no paperwork, nothing,” says the man, who asks not to be named. “We have some relatives there. They just put our names on the list.”

None of the men employed by the cheerful farmer, who gently lists off the varieties of apples he grows on his 450 acres – gala, granny smiths, ambrosia, golden delicious, red delicious – have the means to do the same. The same goes for the bulk of the several million farm workers engaged in one of the most fundamental of tasks, whether or not they officially qualify as “essential worker” – growing the nation’s food.