Giving Compass' Take:

• Kate Cimini explains that panic buyers and hospitals responding to coronavirus have created a shortage of face masks needed to safely conduct farm work. 

• Supply shortages can be combatted through better distribution of materials and the creation of more materials. Funders can provide funding to ensure that essential workers in hospitals and the food supply chain get the safety equipment they need. 

• Find COVID-19 funds to support. 

Masks shield them from pesticides and field dust, which cause respiratory problems. And as California enters fungicide season, soon followed by fire season, growers and laborers worry there won’t be enough masks due to the coronavirus.

Salinas farmworkers Juan Manuel Virgen and Daniel Lopez Aviles circled the field in a white pickup, a coworker behind the wheel. It was about 10 a.m., and the sun was starting to warm the air.

Salinas farmworkers Juan Manuel Virgen and Daniel Lopez Aviles circled the field in a white pickup, a coworker behind the wheel. It was about 10 a.m., and the sun was starting to warm the air. All of them had tied bandannas neatly around their necks, tucking them into the front of their shirts.

“No hay mascarillas de momento,” said Virgen.

They couldn’t find face masks, Virgen said, so they made do.

Face masks have flown off the shelves around the United States amid the coronavirus outbreak, even though experts have advised people against wearing them unless they are sick.

That has triggered a shortage for farmworkers like Virgen and Aviles, who work for a farm labor contractor in the Salinas Valley, a region that produces much of the nation’s fresh produce, including almost two-thirds of its leafy greens.

The two workers said their employer ran out of masks weeks ago for everyone except those applying pesticides, and even those are scarce, according to growers and farm labor contractors.

Right around now is the time growers typically start applying fungicides; the shortage could push growers to reconsider what types of fungicides they use, as the more dangerous ones require cartridge respirators or N95 masks, Sandoval added.

Read the full article about unprotected farmworkers by Kate Cimini at The Counter.