Keeping the facts straight about California’s poultry industry and COVID-19
Recent commentary in The Modesto Bee inaccurately casts aspersions on the record of the California poultry industry in proactively responding to COVID-19, and on the steps the industry has taken to protect its workforce. The plain fact is, that among the five major producers who account for 95% of the poultry raised in California and employ more than 10,000 men and women, there have been less than 20 COVID-19 cases.
In all instances, the level of COVID-19 cases — as a percentage of the poultry plant workforce — is less than the corresponding level in the communities where the plants are located.
Major producers like Foster Farms, following CDC guidance, have responded proactively to the COVID-19 pandemic with multiple documented measures to protect plant workers, including wellness checks covering the eight major symptoms of COVID-19, installation of workspace and break area partitions, and the mandatory requirement that all plant workers wear masks.
As part of standard industry operating practices, plants are rigorously sanitized and must be approved for operation by the USDA each day. Producers like Foster Farms have gone the additional step of adding continuous cleaning of all common areas used by employees.
Our companies openly communicate information about COVID-19 to employees and their families and have systematic protocols for identifying any employee that may have been in contact with a COVID-19 co-worker.
The fact is that the California poultry industry is very much a part of our greater community, and is working to keep food on millions of family tables in our state and the western United States, in a way that is safe. The few dissonant voices with a self-appointed need to say otherwise are not in touch with the facts and are a disservice to the men and women that Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue has called “everyday heroes.”
This story was originally published May 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Keeping the facts straight about California’s poultry industry and COVID-19."