Farmers and farm workers are critical to the secure supply of food, yet this population is potentially at high risk to acquire COVID-19. This study estimates the prevalence of COVID-19 among farmers and farmworkers in the United States by coupling county-level data on the number of farm workers relative to the general population with data on confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths. In the 13 month period since the start of the pandemic (from March 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021), the estimated cumulative number of COVID-19 cases (deaths) was 329,031 (6,166) among agricultural producers, 170,137 (2,969) among hired agricultural workers, 202,902 (3,812) among unpaid agricultural workers, and 27,223 (459) among migrant agricultural workers. The cases amount to 9.55%, 9.31%, 9.39%, and 9.01% of all U.S. agricultural producers, hired workers, unpaid workers, and migrant workers, respectively. The COVID-19 incidence rate is significantly higher in counties with more agricultural workers; a 1% increase in the number of hired agricultural workers in a county is associated with a 0.04% increase in the number of COVID-19 cases per person and 0.07% increase in deaths per person. Although estimated new cases among farm workers exhibit similar trends to that of the general population, the correlation between the two is sometimes negative, highlighting the need to monitor this particular population that tends to live in more rural areas. Reduction in labor availability from COVID-19 is estimated to reduce U.S. agricultural output by about $309 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Farmers and farm workers are critical to the secure supply of food, yet this population is potentially at high risk to acquire COVID-19. This study estimates the prevalence of COVID-19 among farmers and farmworkers in the United States by coupling county-level data on the number of farm workers relative to the general population with data […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":null,"msr_publishername":"","msr_publisher_other":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_edition":"","msr_editors":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_issue":"4","msr_journal":"PLOS ONE","msr_number":"","msr_organization":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_page_range_start":"","msr_page_range_end":"","msr_series":"","msr_volume":"16","msr_copyright":"","msr_conference_name":"","msr_doi":"","msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_mag_id":"","msr_pubmed_id":"","msr_other_authors":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_award":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_institution":"","msr_host":"","msr_version":"","msr_duration":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_s2_match_type":"","msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_published_date":"2021-4-28","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_notes":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_conference_url":"","msr_journal_url":"","msr_s2_pdf_url":"","msr_year":0,"msr_citation_count":0,"msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_s2_match_confidence":0,"msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":true,"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_pub_ids":[],"msr_hide_image_in_river":0,"footnotes":""},"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13547],"msr-publication-type":[193715],"msr-publisher":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-745048","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-systems-and-networking","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2021-4-28","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"PLOS ONE","msr_volume":"16","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"4","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"url","viewUrl":"false","id":"false","title":"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0250621","label_id":"243109","label":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_citation_count":0,"msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_pdf_url":null,"msr_attachments":[],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"text","value":"Jayson Lusk","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Ranveer Chandra","user_id":33344,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Ranveer Chandra"}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[199565],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[144899,916890],"msr_project":[918261,881235,239387],"publication":[],"video":[],"msr-tool":[],"msr_publication_type":"article","related_content":{"projects":[{"ID":918261,"post_title":"Work & well-being","post_name":"work-well-being","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2023-10-25 20:54:47","post_modified":"2023-10-25 20:54:50","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/work-well-being\/","post_excerpt":"The COVID-19 pandemic changed the lives of people around the world at home and at work, with effects lasting beyond the lockdowns. Along with Microsoft\u2019s New Future of Work Report 2022, this research looks at the impact of remote work on the personal productivity and well-being of Microsoft\u2019s own employees, the effects of remote work on cross-group collaboration, how working from home affects work relationships, how the pandemic has affected farmers and farmworkers and exploring…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/918261"}]}},{"ID":881235,"post_title":"Project FarmVibes","post_name":"project-farmvibes","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2022-10-06 08:00:00","post_modified":"2024-07-29 09:55:45","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/project-farmvibes\/","post_excerpt":"Democratizing digital tools for sustainable agriculture As one of the biggest contributors to climate change, agriculture, along with land use degradation and deforestation, account for about a quarter of the global GHG emissions and consumes about 70% of the world\u2019s freshwater resources. Agriculture is also amongst the most impacted by climate change. Farmers depend on predictable weather for their farm management practices, and unexpected weather events, e.g., high heat, floods, etc. leaves them unprepared to…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/881235"}]}},{"ID":239387,"post_title":"FarmBeats: AI, Edge & IoT for Agriculture","post_name":"farmbeats-iot-agriculture","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2016-06-16 20:10:17","post_modified":"2024-08-29 22:15:59","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/farmbeats-iot-agriculture\/","post_excerpt":"Our goal is to enable data-driven farming. We believe that data, coupled with the farmer's knowledge and intuition about his or her farm, can help increase farm productivity, and also help reduce costs. However, getting data from the farm is extremely difficult since there is often no power in the field, or Internet in the farms.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/239387"}]}}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/745048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/745048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":745051,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/745048\/revisions\/745051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publisher?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=745048"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=745048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}