Food and agriculture workers are designated to receive the vaccine in the next tier, Phase 1b Tier 1. The populations in this phase include: Persons 75 years and older and frontline essential workers including education, childcare, law enforcement, fire, food and agriculture.
If we do not have our stakeholders organized, vaccines for our workers could get delayed. It will be easy for the health department to identify educators and emergency services workers because they are part of large institutions. Even grocery store staff will be easily identified. Prioritizing food and agriculture workers is much more difficult and we want to do all we can to assist the County Health Department in identifying these essential workers.
This is why it is so important that we gather general information about the Estimated highest total number of employees on payroll or personal services contract at any time between February 1, 2021, and March 31, 2021, how many family members live on our farms and ranches and the contact information for their representative. Gathering this information ahead of time will expedite the process once the County determines how they will administer the vaccinations.
We must being proactive, so working alongside our partners here in Sonoma County, we at CAFF strongly encourage you to complete this easy, confidential form for agricultural businesses and employers to report the number of employees they have working for them that need to be vaccinated once Sonoma County reaches Phase 1b Tier 1 of the vaccination process.
Please share the information with any commercial food producer or processor you know. Don’t forget, we also need people who process and transport food to be added to the list.