SALEM — Oregon will provide $30 million to help protect essential agricultural workers and maintain food supplies amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Kate Brown announced May 28.

Funding will go toward distributing personal protective equipment, quarantining sick workers and helping farms to comply with temporary rules increasing field sanitation and housing restrictions.

“Oregon’s agricultural workers on the front lines during this COVID-19 crisis, working to provide food for Oregon families,” Brown said. “This investment will bring essential resources to agricultural producers and farmworkers, providing critical resources to keep workers safe and mitigate COVID-19 outbreaks while protecting the food supply chain.”

State lawmakers set aside $200 million from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act to assist cities, counties and tribes paying for items such as face masks and hand sanitizer, contact tracing and testing capacity.

Part of the money was also made eligible for agricultural field sanitation and worker housing under rules implemented by Oregon OSHA, the state’s occupational safety and health administration.

Among the requirements, farms must roughly double the number of portable toilets and handwashing stations for crews picking crops and keep beds at least 6 feet apart or separated by an impermeable barrier — such as plastic sheets or Plexiglass — in labor camps.

Oregon OSHA will begin enforcing the rules June 1, and they will remain in effect no later than Oct. 24 during the busy summer harvest season.

The governor’s office worked with state agencies, farmers and worker advocates to develop the Food Security and Farmworker Safety Project using $30 million in coronavirus aid. Volunteers have already handed out 1 million masks and 500 gallons of hand sanitizer to farms statewide at local drive-thru distribution centers.

Other components of the program include:

• $14 million for mitigating COVID-19 outbreaks, quarantining sick workers and awarding grants to community-based organizations for field education, outreach and engagement with migrant workers.

• $10 million for agricultural workforce housing and reimbursing farms to pay for motels and alternative housing for displaced workers.

• $5 million for field sanitation, reimbursing farms for additional portable toilets and handwashing stations.

• $1 million to support social distancing restrictions in farm vehicles and transportation to and from work.

Oregon Housing and Community Services will also provide up to $3.5 million for “safe shelter alternatives,” which can include hotel and motel vouchers for farmworkers and other vulnerable populations.

Applications for funding are due June 10, with workforce housing reimbursement back to May 11 and field sanitation and transportation reimbursements back to June 1.

“Together, growers, workers and public partners all play important roles in keeping our farms and ranches safe,” said Alexis Taylor, director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture. “As Oregon’s 2020 harvest season begins, we are proud to be a part of the effort to protect an industry that supports nearly 720,000 jobs and more than $34 billion in wages.”

Dave Dillon, executive director of the Oregon Farm Bureau, said the assistance package is “a very important step toward helping Oregon’s farm and ranch families meet the new standards that Oregon OSHA has put in place for this growing season.

“Times were tough in agriculture before the pandemic, and they are much tougher now,” Dillon said.

Reyna Lopez, executive director of Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, or PCUN — Oregon’s largest Latino union — praised the state for doing right by migrant and seasonal farmworkers.

“Ensuring farmworkers have access to the quarantine fund and (personal protective equipment) sends a strong message to essential workers across the state: You are essential, and you deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” Lopez said. “In addition, housing funds will provide migrant farmworkers with alternatives as they arrive to ensure crops are not left unpicked.”