I've spent a decade working with rural immigrant communities across South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota. Everyone I know is telling me that the meat packing #COVID19 outbreaks in their communities are way worse than what's being reported locally and nationally. #Immigration
The Trump Administration's response to protect the food system has been non-existent. There needs to be a national task force to keep food and farm workers safe and healthy so our food system can stay open. politico.com/news/2020/04/1…
To understand the full impact of COVID on the food system you have to look at the entire meat packing region that roughly follows the boundaries of the Missouri and Upper Mississippi River Basins. State and local metrics are missing the big picture. 
In plants across this region, I am consistently hearing from local leaders that the health and safety of meat packing workers are largely being ignored. This isn't just happening in South Dakota. Its industry wide.
In the COVID, era farmworkers and meatpacking workers should be treated like royalty. When they get sick, the entire system shuts down. Instead plants are trying to pay packing workers to work while being sick. And Trump wants to cut pay for farmworkers. motherjones.com/food/2020/04/t…
Tweets and press conferences won't save American farms. We need a national response to protect food and farm workers. This is already the worst farm economy in our lifetimes. If we don't protect frontline workers more American farmers will go bankrupt.
THIS is the leadership rural folks need! The White House and federal agencies MUST coordinate with state & local govs and the private sector to protect essential workers and the food supply from further damage. Thanks @SenStabenow & @SenSherrodBrown! brown.senate.gov/newsroom/press…
