Dispute Over Pesticide for California Strawberries Has Implications Beyond State

[Ed Barrow]

Even as the sweet strawberry harvest reaches its peak here, a bitter disagreement has erupted between the State Department of Pesticide Regulation and a scientific review committee over the approval of a new chemical, the outcome of which could affect farmers across the country.

In a report and in public testimony Thursday before the State Senate Food and Agriculture Committee, members of the review committee said the state’s decision to approve the new pesticide, methyl iodide, was made using inadequate, flawed and improperly conducted scientific research.

“I’m not in blanket opposition to the use of pesticides, but methyl iodide alarms me,” said Theodore A. Slotkin, a professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University Medical Center and a member of the scientific review committee. “When we come across a compound that is known to be neurotoxic, as well as developmentally toxic and an endocrine disruptor, it would seem prudent to err on the side of caution, demanding that the appropriate scientific testing be done on animals instead of going ahead and putting it into use, in which case the test animals will be the children of the state of California.”

But farmers here — who grow nearly 90 percent of the nation’s strawberries, a $2 billion a year industry — say the state’s proposed regulations would far exceed those set by the federal government for the chemical, which they argue would be deployed safely and only when needed.

“The 500-plus growers of strawberries in the state are largely family farmers who live where they grow,” said Carolyn O’Donnell, spokeswoman for the California Strawberry Commission. “When they make decisions about how and where they farm, they make those decisions with the health and safety of workers and the community in mind.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/us/20strawberries.html?ref=todayspaper&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+StatelineorgRss-Environment+%28Stateline.org+RSS+-+Environment%29

[godai]

1. California strawberries are awful.

I won't buy them after a number of times getting big red strawberries that are white inside and the texture of an apple, with little taste. The article tries to spin 'family farmers' but all I see are Driscoll 'strawberries'. I'll take Florida berries over California any time, and pick locally, in Maryland, in season (now).

[bvar22]

2. Thats why we started growing our own.

That, AND the dismal taste of the Berry-like-Substances being sold in the markets.