This week’s excessive heat in the Eastern half of the country is straining farms already stung by drought and financial headwinds, while making life harder for the people who work there.
When temperatures soar near — or past — 100 degrees Fahrenheit, crop yields suffer, cows make less milk and farmworkers face heat-related illnesses. The heat wave is spotlighting those challenges, as well as gaps in government assistance.
“Heat waves like the one this week are becoming in recent years more extreme and longer-lasting,” said Manuel Gago, who advocates for farmworkers as program director for the worker justice program at the Legal Aid Justice Program in Richmond, Virginia. Temperatures there are forecast to flirt with 100 degrees for five days in a row.
“What used to mean triple-digit temperatures for a single day has now turned into a full week,” Gago said. “This is especially concerning because it occurs in the middle of the harvest season when more intense work is performed.”
