Pesticide decision stuns Watsonville ag community

WATSONVILLE — The news this week that Arysta LifeScience — maker of the pesticide methyl iodide used primarily in the strawberry industry — would withdraw the product from California and the U.S. sent shockwaves through the local agriculture community Wednesday.

Tokyo-based Arysta LifeScience said that it was immediately suspending the sales, marketing and production of all formulations of the fumigant Midas, (aka methyl iodide) in the U.S., and said the decision was based on the product’s economic viability in the United States.

Since it was approved in 2007 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, methyl iodide has seen little use across the nation. California’s $2 billion strawberry industry, which produces more than 90 percent of the nation’s strawberries, has shunned its use, in part because it carried severe restrictions on use near schools and residential areas.

Methyl iodide had been widely seen as a replacement for another fumigant, methyl bromide, which is being phased out under international treaty because some claim it depletes the Earth’s ozone. Some growers are currently using up their supplies of methyl bromide, while others have switched to fumigants such as chloropicrin and metam sodium as alternatives.

Methyl iodide, which is injected into soil, kills bugs, weeds and plant diseases. It was also used by some growers of tomatoes, peppers and other crops.

The news was the talk of the town at the annual National Agriculture Day Spring Luncheon at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville Wednesday.

John Eiskamp, past president of the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau and a grower of raspberries and blackberries, called Tuesday’s methyl iodide decision “out of the blue.”

“It’s a concern. The science indicated it was safe, “ Eiskamp said.

Eiskamp said he didn’t know why Arysta LifeScience decided to withdraw the product and could only speculate. 

“Maybe they bowed to political pressure,” he said.

Eiskamp said methyl iodide hasn’t been used in Santa Cruz or Monterey counties. Growers are still using methyl bromide, which they are allowed to use until 2015, but “the supply gets less every year,” he said.

Eiskamp said Arysta LifeScience developed methyl iodide and has the patent for it, and is the only maker of it in the world, as far as he knows.