Ag Workforce Vaccination Push Pt 2
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. If you hadn’t noticed, it’s spring time here in the Pacific Northwest, and with harvest time fast approaching, farm employers are working quickly to prepare for vaccinating the ag workforce.
Washington State Tree Fruit Association President, Jon DeVaney says it’s taken a full year to get to this point, but the time has come …
DeVANEY … “We joined a number of other agricultural groups in communicating to the Governor our desire to see the ag workforce prioritized as soon as possible, as soon as supplies were available. So, we’re pleased to now have date-certain and our ag workers are now eligible for vaccination.”
Some employers, DeVaney says aren’t wasting any time …
DeVANEY … “I’ve talked to a number of growers who said they’ve had some of their workers already be vaccinated, which is great. And, now plans are underway to have vaccination on-site clinics for packing house employees and on farms so that we could quickly through getting our workers vaccinated.”
It won’t be long, DeVaney says before things get very busy …
DeVANEY … “The more we do now, the more we can keep up with workers as they arrive in this state over the coming months as harvest ramps up. And, as the weather warms, we’ll get more and more farm activity going on and we’ll get workers come from out of state and from overseas to do this agricultural work. We want to make sure they can do it safely.”
Listen tomorrow for more on the getting our essential ag workforce vaccinated.
