Gov. Newsom returned to Fresno County on Friday to promote the administration’s efforts to bring vaccine doses to the Central Valley and to farmworkers.
“Let us never take for granted our farmworkers, our ag workers,” he said. “Let us never take for granted these food processing plants and all of those individuals who make it possible to lay claim to our status as the breadbasket to the world.”
Four state lawmakers, as well as celebrity comedian and actor George Lopez, applauded Newsom’s leadership during the crisis. Newsom visited a refugee assistance organization and praised community-based organizations like this for helping farmworkers get vaccinated.
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Newsom reiterated that he has redirected 34,000 vaccines to the valley and helped to increase the supply by 58%. Yet a coalition of ag and farmworker groups and state lawmakers has grown increasingly concerned that the priority for ag workers is being diluted as more groups are pulled into the same tier. This includes Newsom’s recent decision to stockpile and preserve 10% of all doses in California for teachers beginning today.
CEO Casey Creamer said in a statement that California Citrus Mutual “continued to grow more and more frustrated—not with the fact that each of these groups are not deserving, but with the changing priorities that delayed access to agriculture.”
