The state will coordinate with local health departments and with federal health centers to bring pop-up sites for COVID-19 vaccinations to farms and food-production facilities.

Governor Andrew Cuomo made the announcement on Tuesday at the Angry Orchard, a farm in Orange County. Starting on April 21, Sun River Health will administer 500 doses of vaccine to farm workers, including migrant workers, in Orange County.

“This new effort to bring the vaccine directly to farmers and food production workers at their places of employment is an important step forward to reaching a population that lives in more remote parts of the state,” said Cuomo.

He said the initiative builds on the Nourish New York program, which is funded with an additional $50 million in the 2022 state budget, bringing the total investment to $85 million and extending the program through 2021.

The Nourish New York program started when the pandemic put people out of work. The state purchased produce from farmers to feed the hungry.

“Over one million families have participated in the Nourish New York program: 30 percent was dairy, 30 percent was produce, 30 percent was meat and seafood,” said Cuomo. “Five thousand distributors of food across the state. Four thousand farms have participated, so far.”

Cuomo said of agriculture, “It’s a $3.6 billion industry in the State of New York; 116,000 people work on farms and over the past few years we’ve taken a whole different look at agriculture, and how do we grow it, and how do we incentivize it, and how do we synergize it with other industries in the state ….”

Ryan Burk, the head cider maker at Angry Orchard, said farm workers were grateful to have access to vaccines.

“So that includes people who are planting trees, picking apples, making cider and also selling it to drinkers. So, making sure that whole supply chain is safe and healthy is key to success of the New York State economy,” said Burk, noting New York is the second-largest apple producer in the nation; Washington State is first.

Farms across the state are eager to hold similar clinics, said Chris Kelder, the Hudson Valley representative on the New York Farm Bureau State Board of Directors. “We are fortunate to have migrant health clinics in New York State,” he said.

Juanita Sarmiento, with the Rural and Migrant Ministry, said, “Many farmworkers live in isolation and fear, a feeling which is only compounded by the realities of being a person of color or undocumented. The COVID pandemic has been painful for everyone but it has disproportionately affected farm-working communities and communities of color, especially rural communities of color.”

She concluded that allocating resources to community groups will “lessen the disparities in vaccination and meeting rural and migrant communities where they are and bringing the vaccine directly to their place of work.”