fumigants

Our strawberries’ safety: will California approve methyl iodide this year?

As Margot Roosevelt reports in the Los Angeles Times, California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation has signaled that it will make a decision before Governor Schwarzenegger leaves office about whether to approve the use of methyl iodide as a strawberry fumigant.  Farmworker advocacy groups and environmental advocates fear the pesticide will be approved, and are planning …

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Fumigants Take Center Stage in California

I wrote previously about the strange story of methyl iodide, a chemical purposely used by researchers to cause cancer in labs, being proposed for use as a fumigant for strawberry production in California.  The New York Times recently covered a  legislative hearing by the California Senate Food and Agriculture Committee in which the members of an external scientific review panel lambasted California …

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And the Beat Goes On . . .

Two recent reports drive home the fact that phasing-out harmful chemicals is typically only the beginning of effective chemical policy rather than the end.  Methyl bromide, widely used in the last decade as a fumigant in California and elsewhere, is a toxic volatile organic compound and is ozone-depleting to boot.  Although efforts are underway to …

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