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North Carolina To Help Farmer Costs For Quarantined Farmworkers

NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

North Carolina has set aside money to reimburse farmers who bear the economic toll of quarantining their workers during the COVID-19 outbreak last year. The News & Observer of Raleigh reports the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services says the state has made $2 million available for farmers who employ immigrant farmworkers with H-2A work visas that allow them to work temporarily in the U.S. Funding for the department’s COVID-19 Farmworker Quarantine Reimbursement program comes from federal CARES Act money approved by the state legislature. After COVID-19 outbreaks spread widely in farmworkers’ congregate housing last year, the state has been actively moving to vaccinate that portion of the workforce.