As the covid-19 crisis continues, we have seen packing and agricultural workers testing positive across North America. Experts agree that contact tracing will be needed going forward to avoid bursts of new Coronavirus infections, which could lead to complete shut downs of many essential operations.
We’ll be updating this page with more information as it becomes available.
What is contact tracing?
Contact tracing is detective work of sorts, tracing back through a potentially exposed person’s recent activity and finding everyone they may have come into contact with. While many of us are hearing about contact tracing for the first time, historically it has been widely used to curb the spread of diseases such as tuberculosis, ebola, and even the bubonic plague.
How can Croptracker help accomplish this?
Agricultural work, where employees may work in close proximity on a line, live in the same buildings, and travel in the same vehicle to and from work, has seen additional challenges when trying to stop the spread of COVID-19 between agricultural workers. Last week the CDC and the U.S. Department of Labour released a joint guidance document for agricultural workers and employees. Key points from this twelve page report include work site assessments to identify risks, prevention practices to put into place, and further recommendations on organizing workers to limit exposure and limit the number of employees quarantined in the event of an outbreak.
Organizing workers into “cohorts” based on living arrangements is one simple improvement employers can make, ensuring that workers who live together share the same vehicles and work in proximity only to each other. By reducing the number of people each worker may come into contact with, risk of exposure is lower, and isolation in the event of exposure can be limited. With Croptracker, it is simple to organize employees into work crews, assign them to specific areas, and track each worker and each task.;
Croptracker's GAP audits module includes employee health and safety training, cleaning, and maintenance recording and reports.
In the agriculture world, one of the most important things is accurate record keeping. The same goes for contact tracing. Work site assessments, visitor sign in records, and even sanitation and maintenance activities are already a part of Croptracker’s Global GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) module.
In the event of an outbreak, Croptracker makes it easy to review work histories, work locations, and to see which employees were working in fields or on packlines in proximity to affected employees. With the punch clock module, you can narrow the focus to isolate only affected workers, rather than shutting down an entire worksite.
The mock recall report allows you to trace the full history of a product, and see every location and employee who came into contact with it.
Croptracker’s mock recall report, one of our most powerful traceability tools, can trace the history of a pallet all the way back to harvest, so you can see every employee that came into contact with your product. In the image above, we can track a bin of apples harvested by employee Miles Edgeworth from harvest all the way through to shipping. If it comes down to pulling potentially affected inventory, you’ll have all the data you need to minimize product loss while maintaining your rigorous standards to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
With Croptracker you continually track who worked with whom, where, and when, and can produce reports instantly. The software makes the tedious and time consuming process of contract tracing as easy as 2-3 swipes on a phone or tablet; which could be the difference between simply quarantining 3-4 people and a complete facility shutdown.
Interested in learning more about Croptracker? Learn more about our Farm Management Software, or book a demonstration to schedule a meeting with our product experts.
And as always, if you're ever stuck, never hesitate to e-mail us at support@croptracker.com or Live Chat with us by clicking the green speech bubble 
in your bottom right-hand corner. We're always happy to help you make the most of Croptracker to make your farm more efficient, safer, and more profitable!
