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Planning for winter & 2021 commodity meetings: COVID updates
Story Date: 10/26/2020
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Source: NC AGROMEDICINE INSTITUTE, 9/27/20
Good afternoon:
As you may know, the NC Agromedicine Institute has been working closely with the NC Department of Labor, NC Department of Health & Human Services, NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, NC Farm Bureau, NC Cooperative Extension and others since March to try and address many of the COVID issues arising relative to farms, farmworkers and other agricultural-related businesses. We have made a lot of progress but there is still much to be done as we look toward preparations for 2021.
Our collaborative state workgroups would like to work with as many commodity groups and farm-related organizations as possible over the coming months to share information about COVID prevention and response. If you are a part of one of these groups/organizations, please let us know how we can be of service. We are happy to share information with you that can be disseminated to members/clients through newsletters/other publications or list serves. If time allows, one or more of our team members would also be happy to participate in a webinar or annual meeting. Here are just a few of the topics that we have been working on:
• Isolation & quarantine housing for workers (e.g., identification, emergency housing requests, changes to reduce exposure in existing housing)
• Internet capacity for migrant housing – use for telehealth, training & check-ins
• COVID testing & knowing when a positive worker can return to work
• COVID vaccine distribution
• Educating workers on the seriousness of COVID & complying with daily health check & personal protective equipment requirements
• Managing visitors to the farm
• COVID prevention/outbreak response
• Best practices learned from other farms/agricultural-related businesses
• On-site consultation visits to help problem solve steps for COVID prevention & response
• Personal protective equipment acquisition & challenges for COVID, soil fumigants, Worker Protection Standard, and other on-farm uses
If there are other topics that farms/agricultural-related businesses need help with that aren’t included here, please let us know. If we aren’t aware of needs, we can’t work to address them. That being said there are many difficult challenges that we have been working on such as housing and transportation that we could use everyone’s help with. If you have ideas we would certainly like to hear them!
Please let us know if we can be of service to you, your group/organization or someone you know. Be sure to give us the best contact(s), time frame, topics to be addressed and delivery method. We look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Robin
Robin Tutor Marcom, EdD, MPH
Director
North Carolina Agromedicine Institute
Agromedicine Extension Specialist
North Carolina Cooperative Extension
1157 VOA Site C Road
Greenville, North Carolina 27834
252.744.1008 (office)
919.880.4225 (cell)
tutorr@ecu.edu
www.ncagromedicine.org
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