MONAHANS — In a court agreement that sends a strong message to agricultural producers about workplace safety, greenhouse grower Village Farms L.P. has agreed to implement new COVID-19 policies to protect more than 100 migrant farmworkers at its Monahans facility.

U.S. District Judge David C. Guaderrama of El Paso on January 15 entered a consent decree that requires Village Farms to enact COVID-19-related housing, testing and notification measures to protect its Monahans workers. Village Farms is a subsidiary of Canada-based Village Farms International, one of the largest producers, marketers and distributors of greenhouse-grown fruits and vegetables in North America.

The consent decree resulted from a federal lawsuit Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) filed on November 20, 2020, on behalf of an employee at the Monahans greenhouse, Maria de los Angeles Calzada Navarrete of El Paso. TRLA provides free legal services to people who cannot afford an attorney, including residents of the Texas-Mexico border.

TRLA attorney Maxwell Dismukes, who represents Calzada Navarrete, said Village Farms deserves credit for “coming to the negotiating table quickly and agreeing to implement the measures we requested.”

According to the suit, Village Farms had refused to implement “simple, obvious, and cheap” measures to protect its employees’ health and safety during the pandemic.

The suit asked the U.S. District Court in El Paso to require Village Farms to quarantine sick workers, notify workers who have been exposed to sick workers, provide access to free testing, and report positive cases to public health authorities.

“These measures are hardly extraordinary,” said TRLA attorney Christopher Benoit, who also represents Calzada Navarrete. “They are required by longstanding federal regulations that set standards for conditions in migrant labor camps. What is extraordinary is that a farm is now bound by a federal consent decree to protect its workers in their housing.”

The consent decree requires Village Farms to provide isolation housing in Monahans for workers who test positive for COVID-19. Village Farms may no longer require workers to return to their families in El Paso or elsewhere while they are sick.

It also requires they provide separate quarantine housing in Monahans for symptomatic but unconfirmed COVID-19 cases, and the company may no longer send workers who are symptomatic for COVID-19 back to housing shared with healthy workers.

The multinational corporation must also notify all employees who have been exposed to COVID-19 within 24 hours of exposure, arrange medical appointments and provide exposed employees with time off work and transportation to get a free COVID-19 test.

Finally, the order mandates Village Farms must promptly report positive COVID-19 cases among its workforce to the regional director of the Texas Department of State Health Services.

“This order delivers a clear message to agricultural producers across the country that they can and should implement certain basic measures to keep migrant farmworkers safe during the pandemic,” Dismukes said.

Monahans is a small, rural town located 40 miles southwest of Odessa. It is one of a few Village Farms greenhouses in West Texas, along with locations just outside Fort Davis and Marfa.

Many of the Monahans employees are based in the El Paso area and commute to Monahans and back every two weeks. While in Monahans, workers stay in mobile homes provided by Village Farms.

In September, there was an outbreak of COVID-19 at the Monahans facility. Managers told workers who reported symptoms to get tested, but the company did not provide them with any assistance to obtain testing.

Managers also told sick workers to return to shared housing with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities while they awaited results. When the results came back positive, Village Farms told its El Paso-based employees to make the three-and-a-half-hour trip back home to “quarantine.”

Calzada Navarrete said she was shocked when she found out one of her trailer-mates had lived with her while symptomatic for COVID-19 and later tested positive for COVID-19.

“I’m a 61-year-old woman with high blood pressure,” said Calzada Navarrete. “I want to work, but I also want to live.”

“Maria and thousands of other farmworkers have gone to work every day during this pandemic to keep our grocery stores and kitchen cabinets stocked with food,” Dismukes said. “All she wanted was for Village Farms to take the simple steps needed to decrease her risk of contracting the virus and spreading it to others.”