COVID-19 Response and Health and Safety Challenges / Solutions in the Agriscience Sector

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Corteva is an Agriscience company with 21,000 employee in more than 140 countries producing both crop protection chemicals, seeds, and digital agriscience solutions. The global COVID-19 pandemic posed some unique issues, requiring some novel solutions, given the rural, remote and seasonal nature of the workforce. Materials & Methods: A case study of how a large global Agriscience company managed through a coronavirus pandemic to maintain the health & safety of employees and maintain business continuity. Results: Corteva had a multidisciplinary Pandemic and Infectious Disease Planning Team in place since the inception of the company in 2019. This team had produced plans and guidelines in anticipation of an influenza pandemic. This meant when the COVID-19 pandemic started Corteva was able to quickly modify these materials for use in a coronavirus pandemic. Workers who could work from home were quickly allowed to do so and only those who were required to work from site eg operators at production facilities, were allowed on site and followed strict infection control measures. Conclusion: Pre-pandemic planning was essential to being able to respond to a pandemic rapidly to protect worker health and business continuity. Some unique challenges required some novel solutions and these were worked out in a process that included health, safety, managers and workers.