COVID disruptions and climate change to affect worker health and safety, income
In July 2021, USDA Chief Economist Robert Johansson said in a post that the impacts of COVID are forecasted to continue into next year – the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri said that it expected farm income to fall by $21.9 billion in 2021 compared to pre-pandemic forecasts.
With this in mind, the continued disruptions caused by COVID have led Congress to consider additional assistance for agricultural producers.
These past 18 months have been extremely difficult for farmers, who have had to continue working to ensure that Americans were fed during the pandemic while also contending with ever-evolving guidelines and the threat of COVID.
“I think everybody tries the best they can, and not just in agriculture [but] anywhere – we just try to get through this,” says Ken Forth, farmer and Chair of the Labour Section of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association.
And as well as a financial hit, the pandemic has also obviously had an impact on worker health and safety.
With COVID, Forth says that the sector has been coping and following COVID guidelines such as masking and social distancing to limit exposure to the least amount of people possible (no small feat in an industry like agriculture).
Despite best efforts however, there have been multiple reports in North America of agriculture workers – notably migrant workers – who have died of COVID.
Climate change
And while the pandemic will hopefully wind down at some point in the near future, farmers aren’t out of the woods just yet. Indeed, Forth points out that it’s not just COVID that has impacted the agriculture sector but also the ongoing issue of climate change.
Periods of extreme heat – which will be made more frequent in future due to climate change – are going to have a huge impact on American lives, and various economic sectors.
A recent report produced by the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center with analysis conducted by Vivid Economics has revealed just how much workers will be impacted – notably agriculture workers.
Certainly, the report points out that sectors that involve significant amounts of outdoor labour would be disproportionately affected – this includes agriculture and construction.
With wildfires having ripped through the West Coast this year, the dangers of extreme heat on agriculture workers are well documented. States such as Oregon and California have implemented more stringent measures to protect workers from extreme heat, but these measures are not uniform across the U.S.
Lastly, with regards to finances, as mentioned earlier the agriculture sector has already taken a beating due to COVID, climate change would only exacerbate these economic losses. For example, the report points out that Illinois could face up to $1.6 billion a year in heat damage to major crops by 2050.
