Morning Coffee

Methyl Bromide not going away

Not fast enough, anyhow. Well, you shouldn't purchase U.S. grown strawberries, blueberries, or grapes anyway, you will support companies like Driscoll's who engange in unfair labor practices. Even besides the pesticide exposure, despite what they say.

Si se puede!

Pesticide Persisting Beyond Scheduled Elimination Date

By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: October 8, 2004

WATSONVILLE, Calif. - Planting time is near in John Steinbeck's old haunts. A fork on the back of a tanker-tractor dips 12 inches down into the soil and emits a gaseous cocktail to kill any fungus or micro-organism that could threaten next spring's strawberries. Mexican workers, wearing antiseptic white suits but no face masks, follow close behind, tamping down the white plastic sheeting that covers the loamy fields.

They are fumigating Will Garroutte's strawberry fields with methyl bromide, a pesticide so witheringly effective it is a farmer's dream. But it is not an environmentalist's.

Methyl bromide is considered more destructive to the protective ozone layer in the stratosphere than some banned chemicals and has been linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer in farm workers.

After a decade in which the use of the fumigant decreased by more than 70 percent among developed nations, consumption of methyl bromide is poised to rise next year. That has environmentalists worried

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Posted by sciencegrrl at October 9, 2004 08:20 PM