Letter to the Hon. Sonny Perdue, Secretary of USDA - Congressman Costa, Colleagues Lead Bipartisan Call on USDA to Prioritize Farmworker Safety Funding

Letter

Dear Secretary Perdue:
As you work to continue implementing the agriculture-related provisions in H.R. 133, the
Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, we ask that you quickly commit to allocating funding
to protect our nation's essential agricultural workers. Specifically, we ask that you prioritize
funds for measures that will protect our agricultural communities and workers against the
coronavirus disease from funds provided by H.R 133 or from other available sources.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, frontline agricultural workers have labored every
day to put food on America's dinner table and maintain a secure, stable food supply. At the
same time, due to their living conditions and the nature of their work, many of these workers and
their family members have been disproportionately impacted by the virus and remain uniquely
susceptible to COVID-19. As the virus continues to threaten the resiliency of our food supply
chains, it has never been more critical to ensure the well-being of our agricultural producers and
workforce.
H.R. 133 directs the Secretary of Agriculture to use at least $1.5 billion for two main purposes:
to purchase and distribute agricultural products and to provide grants and loans to agricultural
employers or other organizations for the purpose of protecting workers from COVID-19. On
January 4, 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced its plans to implement
the first component of this language through $1.5 billion in a fifth round of the Farmers to
Families Food Box program.
Consistent with congressional intent, we now urge USDA to commit to swiftly implement the
second component of this language and prioritize significant funding for efforts to support
agricultural worker safety.
Over the past several months, Members of Congress worked in a bipartisan, bicameral fashion to
secure language in H.R. 133 that explicitly directs USDA to fund measures that protect
agricultural workers from COVID-19. Now that this bill has been signed into law, and as the
pandemic continues to ravage agricultural communities across the nation, we look to USDA to
act quickly to support our agricultural communities and the workforce. We ask that USDA also
work across all relevant Federal agencies to utilize H.R. 133 and any other available means to
ensure agricultural workers have the protections they need to continue their essential work. We
stand ready to work with you throughout this process.

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