By Marnie Eisenstadt
Oneida, N.Y. — All of the farmworkers at a large greenhouse in Oneida that’s the center of a coronavirus outbreak have been tested, county and company officials said today.
On Tuesday, 151 Green Empire Farms workers were tested for the virus by the state and local health department at the Madison County indoor farming operation. Those workers were longtime local residents. The results will not be in until later this week.
Those tests followed tests Saturday of the 186-person contract workforce who were brought in for temporary work; 139 of the contract farmworkers have the virus.
Those workers, mostly from Spanish- and French-speaking countries, were brought to work at the farm by MAC Contracting, a company that provides migrant labor.
The labor company put the workers up at hotels and drove them to and from the farm daily. They have been living at the hotels for several weeks while they’ve worked at harvesting the farm’s large strawberry crop.
Madison County reached out to the state Department of Health to help with testing after getting back positive results for some of the farmworkers.
“By doing targeted testing we are better able to understand how far this virus has spread, and we are able to isolate those individuals that have tested positive, and put into quarantine, those individuals who were potentially exposed to a positive case,” said Madison County Health Director Eric Faisst.
The county’s first positive case of COVID-19 came from Green Empire Farms on March 22. That person was part of the local labor force at the farm, not a contract worker, according to the county. That person was quarantined, as were others who came in contact with the worker.
The greenhouse, which opened in the late summer, is owned by Mastronardi Produce of Kingsville, Canada. It grows and packages strawberries, tomatoes and cucumbers.
Do you work at Green Empire Farms? Reporter Marnie Eisenstadt would like to speak with you. Reach her at 315-470-2246 or meisenstadt@syracuse.com.
Article Obtained from: https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2020/05/green-empire-farms-outbreak-madison-county-tests-150-more-farmworkers-for-coronavirus.html
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