Groups Take Aim at Strawberry Pesticide

As California moves towards approving the carcinogenic pesticide methyl iodide, a coalition of farmworker, children’s health and environmental groups on Tuesday asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to ban the fumigant and set the stage to take their plea to Gov.-elect Jerry Brown should the current administration ignore them.

 “Gov. Schwarzenegger and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation must deny the approval of this cancer-causing strawberry pesticide, methyl iodide,” says Pesticide Watch community organizer Dana Perls. “We have the science, we have the farmers, we have public health doctors, we have chemists across the nation on our side. Farmworkers, children and people in the communities where this chemical will be used are at serious, serious risk, and we cannot subject them to this.” On Nov. 30, past the Weekly’s deadline, Perls, along with Assemblymember Bill Monning (D-Monterey), Swanton Berry Farms President Jim Cochran, Jacobs Farm/Del Cabo co-founder Larry Jacobs, UC-Santa Cruz professor emeritus Steve Gliessman and Dr. Ann Lopez, founder of the Center for Farmworker Families, gathered at Wilder Ranch State Park to protest methyl iodide, an industry replacement for methyl bromide, an ozone-harming strawberry pesticide being phased out.

 The group also announced Californians for Pesticide Reform's Healthy Children and Green Jobs: A Platform for Pesticide Reform campaign, which will be presented to governor-elect Jerry Brown. Intended to protect child and farmworker health through tighter restrictions on pesticides, the plan also encourages the administration to set the goal of shifting 20 percent of California’s agricultural land into organic production by 2020. The group's top priority, however, is stopping methyl iodide, which has been banned in New York and Washington state. Arysta LifeScience, the largest private pesticide corporation in the world, wants to sell its pesticide product MIDAS, which contains methyl iodide, for use on California strawberries. Scientists who sat on the Department of Pesticide Regulation’s scientific review committee raised concerns about the chemical’s links to cancer, late-term miscarriages and a lack of information about neurodevelopment problems. They also said it has the potential to contaminate groundwater.

 Still, in April, the DPR proposed approving methyl iodide as a soil fumigant. As part of the approval process, it solicited public comment and received a staggering 53,000 comments—the largest number of comments on a pesticide in the department’s history. The agency hasn’t yet made a final decision, but late last week it announced that it will decide whether the pesticide can be used in California by the end of the year. “We’re hoping that Gov. Schwarzenegger sees the outrage and the outcry and understands that there will be serious consequences if this is approved,” Perls says. “And if he doesn’t ban methyl iodide, then we are going to be targeting Jerry Brown. He can ban it and we are going to focus on making sure that happens. He has a unique opportunity to make sure in his term in office that we’re not subjecting people to dangerous pesticides. He has the opportunity to strengthen the economy by investing in greener pest management technologies, jobs and prioritize healthy children ad healthy farming.”

 If the Schwarzenegger administration approves the pesticide, Brown, who takes office in January, could reopen the registration process and rule that it cannot be used in California. However, strawberry farmers would be able to spray the dangerous chemical until the Brown administration ruled on its use in the state. Organic farmer Cochran doesn’t buy the industry argument that strawberry farmers need methyl iodide to remain competitive. “This chemical pesticide is particularly dangerous and a big step backward from the direction that California agriculture really needs to be moving in,” Cochran says.

“Hundreds of organic farmers around the state, from small farms to very large farms, have proven that it’s entirely possible to grow all kinds of food including strawberries and other crops without methyl iodide. Approving this chemical is not necessary.” He likens the California agriculture industry to the U.S. automobile industry of the ’70s. “The U.S. automobile industry claimed it was impossible to make small cars that got better mileage and were safer and that people would want to buy. The industry refused to change with the times and they suffered the consequences. Agriculture is in danger of going down the same path. So this is an opportunity for agriculture to see the writing on the wall and listen to the customers and the health experts and to shift their direction accordingly.” - See more at: http://www.santacruz.com/news/2010/11/30/In_Santa_Cruz_groups_take_aim_at_strawberry_pesticide#sthas...