California plans to enact the most costly pesticide regulation in state history as it cracks down on use of fumigants in farm fields to comply with a court-ordered deadline to combat smog.
Under the proposed regulation, to be unveiled today, California will be the first place in the nation to target the widely used chemicals, imposing statewide restrictions on how fumigants are applied as well as limits on use in three farming regions.
State officials warned that the cost will be extremely high -- estimated at $10 million to $40 million a year -- and that growers of strawberries, carrots, tomatoes and peppers will bear the brunt of it. The biggest burden will fall on Ventura County's strawberry growers, who will face strict caps on emissions and may have to resort to pulling thousands of acres out of production to meet the smog targets.
"We are very concerned about the cost of the regulation," said Rick Tomlinson, director of public policy for the California Strawberry Commission, which represents the state's strawberry growers, who produce almost 90% of the nation's crop.
"Using old, obsolete data, they are imposing a regulation that could drive a third of the acreage out of production in Ventura [County]. If the draft that is proposed is implemented, it will definitely drive growers out of business," he said.
Mary Ann Warmerdam, director of the state Department of Pesticide Regulation, said her agency "will do everything we can to keep California farms producing while we take these necessary steps to clean up our air."
Fumigants are poisonous gases that are injected into fields before planting to sterilize the soil, killing insects, weeds and diseases. When they evaporate from the soil, smog-causing gases waft into the air.
The proposed rules, expected to go into effect by the end of the year, will "fundamentally change the way agriculture uses this class of materials," Warmerdam said. No legislation is necessary; the agency has authority to set regulations.
"This gives us a fighting chance to meet our obligations under a federal court order. At the end of the day, that's what we're looking for, to meet our obligation to improve air quality in California," she said.
California's crackdown on the pesticides comes more than 10 years after the state first promised to force farmers to do their part to clean the air.
