The largest peach grower on the East Coast — a farm in Ridge Spring, S.C. — is leading the way in inoculating migrant workers against COVID-19.

From March to November on the farm less than an hour northwest of Augusta, Ga., Titan Farms owner Chalmers Carr oversees up to 750 temporary agricultural workers. The workers, hired through the federal government’s H-2A visa program, tend to the 6,200 acres of peach trees that blossom in the spring and bear fruit in the summer.

On Saturday, Titan Farms became a very different operation — a mass COVID-19 vaccine site. Carr, collaborating with Carolina Health Centers, arranged for 1,000 full-time and temporary farm workers from Titan Farms and other growers in the region to receive first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. They’ll receive second doses April 10.

The event happened less than a week after the workers became eligible for the vaccine. Phase 1b of the vaccine rollout began March 8 and, Gov. Henry McMaster announced, the phase includes “migrant farmworkers living in shared housing or reliant on shared transportation,” as well as frontline workers with occupational risk.

Carr said he expects 80% of the 400 farm workers currently at Titan Farms to opt for the vaccine.

“We just told [the workers], for us to return to as much a normal life as we could, we believed that the vaccine was important, and they needed to make up their own mind,” Carr said.

KEEPING FARM WORKERS SAFE
Even before the vaccine was released, advocates across the country had called on states to prioritize farm workers in the vaccine rollout, as they feed the country and live and commute in close contact with one another. A county in California was the first to prioritize farm workers for the vaccine.

It’s unclear whether there have been major COVID-19 outbreaks among farm workers in South Carolina, as there have been in other states, including North Carolina.

Asked last week about the number of farm workers who had become infected with COVID-19, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control spokesperson Laura Renwick said she did not know but that “whatever number we currently have is likely inaccurate because many people in this industry don’t choose to provide a lot of detailed information, such as their occupation.”

Eva Moore, spokesperson for the state Department of Agriculture, said the department does not track the number of farm workers with COVID-19.

During the pandemic, officials from Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, which provides affordable health care in the Lowcountry, said the organization has not been able to help the area’s farm workers because they were not allowed to leave camp or have people come to them at camp.

Farmers “tried to protect them that way,” said Mari Valentin, director of BJHCHS’ agricultural worker health program. “We are very thankful and very grateful that our growers allow us to go and offer our services to farm workers. That’s the important part of it — we have a good relationship with the community.”

Growers say they are taking every precaution to keep their workers safe.

Carr said his farm has worked to keep COVID-19 under control by asking workers to limit their trips to town and holding weekly meetings to discuss COVID-19. He said the farm saw spikes in COVID-19 after Thanksgiving and Christmas, but now, no workers are in quarantine.

“There was so much stuff going on back then where you would get things through social media, and half of it [would be] wrong or not full of truth, so we opened up lines of communication with our workers for them to ask questions, and that really made it real for them,” Carr said. “They really bought into if one person gets sick, another could get sick, and it could really affect everybody.”

At his Charleston-based Low Country Labor Company, Michael Lalich said he brings thousands of H-2A workers into the state each year. He said there’s a profit motive for growers to keep their workers safe.

“Unlike a factory, if 30 of the 50 people call out, [and they’ll] just start working third shifts. ... If that peach is ripe and needs to be picked in two to three days, it’s lost and it’s not coming back,” he said.

During the 2020 fiscal year, employers were approved to hire 5,942 temporary agricultural workers at sites around the state, according to public Department of Labor data. For non-agricultural work, 4,259 temporary workers were approved for visas during the same year.

In June, former President Donald Trump suspended most non-agricultural visa programs in an effort to redirect job openings to Americans during the COVID-19 unemployment crisis. The H-2A program was unaffected. The suspension on non-agricultural visas remains in effect as of early March.

The most recent data available from the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce estimated the state had 14,476 agricultural workers in 2020. About 11,000 of them were migrant seasonal farm workers hired through the H-2A visa program, DEW’s Labor Market and Information director Brian Nottingham said.

“THE SUNSHINE IS COMING THROUGH THE WINDOWS”
Most farm workers in South Carolina and the U.S. face multiple risk factors for COVID-19 — most are Latinos, a group that has been disproportionately hurt by the virus nationwide, and they usually live and travel in tight quarters, often in rural, isolated areas. With widespread vaccination comes relief.

“I was jumping and dancing in the street. I can’t wait for the farm workers to get their vaccines,” said Valentin, BJHCHS’ agricultural worker health program director. “We have a little ray of hope. The sunshine is coming through the windows.”

Later this month, BJHCHS plans to host a vaccination clinic at night for farm workers. Dr. Faith Polkey, BJHCHS’ chief clinical officer, said they are still working out details, but expect to have several for the Lowcountry’s vast agricultural sector.

“All different cultures react differently to some of the issues we present,” Valentin said. “I did present this to a group of farm workers already, and they were excited about the vaccine, but not everybody might react the same way. Everything is really fresh and new.”

State and national officials have expressed concerns about vaccine hesitancy among Latinos, but several health experts, including Polkey, have said the larger issue is access to the vaccine — a challenge that mass vaccine initiatives like Titan Farms’ and BJHCHS’ seek to tackle.

On March 5, following the governor’s announcement, the South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs’ Hispanic/Latino Affairs Division announced a “COVID-19 Action Plan” for agricultural workers and Latinos in rural areas.

The plan seeks to bring together state agencies, organizations, service providers and community leaders to ensure agricultural workers and rural Latinos have access to vital COVID-19 information, vaccines and tests.

Ivan Segura, program manager for the Commission’s Hispanic/Latino Affairs Division, said that while the agencies and organizations involved in the action plan — DHEC and the Department of Agriculture, as well as the S.C. Primary Health Care Association’s Agricultural Worker Health Program — have working together for the past year, this initiative will allow them to pool resources as the vaccine rolls out and the summer growing season begins.

“The big season starts in April,” Segura said. “This month, a lot of agricultural workers are going to be coming into the state.”

And when they do, Valentin, who got the Pfizer vaccine through her job, will be there to offer vaccines that she hopes will provide them the same relief she feels now. Valentin, who was born to a family of pharmacists and doctors in Puerto Rico, plans to tell the farm workers how the vaccine will keep them safe from illness.

“I think [the vaccine is] going to stop this pandemic, and I am part of it,” Valentin said. “We are part of history because we are vaccinating our community.”

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