State plans to start pesticide notifications early next year
recent years, farmers voiced concern that publicizing planned applications could expose farm sites to demonstrations, trespassing, privacy violations or other forms of unwanted attention. “To send a thing out across the state saying you’re going to spray something,” said Kevin Merrill, a Santa Barbara County winegrape grower, “it opens up the door to these radical groups to go out and protest where a spray is going to happen.” The proposed system will not list the specific farm or address where an appli- cation is planned, but will identify the zone down to a 1-mile radius. That solution has left both farmers and community advo- cates unhappy. “In rural areas, you’re going to be able to figure out who is spraying,” said Isabella Quinonez, government affairs analyst for the California Farm Bureau. Meanwhile, community organizers have launched a campaign demanding that DPR modify the rule to include more precise location information, arguing the 1-mile radius is not specific enough to make the notification system useful. “It is not sufficient to protect the people who live in the communities surround- ing these applications,” said Vanessa Forsythe, a retired school nurse from San Diego and policy committee co-chair of California Nurses for Environmental Health and Justice. Yanely Martinez, a community organiz- er for Safe Ag Safe Schools who serves on
the Greenfield City Council in Monterey County, said that with advance warning of a pesticide application, she would take concrete steps to protect her asthmatic child and her aging father, including clos- ing windows and keeping vulnerable fam- ily members indoors. “It’s going to give me the opportunity to protect myself” from pesticide exposure, she said. The “Spray Days” system would be limited to applications of restricted-use pesticides, those judged to carry a higher risk of harm for people, wildlife and the environment if not applied with appro- priate restrictions. These pesticides account for a fraction of those applied on farms, typically being used only “when things have really turned for the worse,” Quinonez said, and for spe- cific uses such as to clear pests from an or- chard before shaking almond trees. DPR has deemed most pesticides safe enough to apply without providing notice. Farmers argued California already ag- gressively regulates pesticides, requiring applicators to be licensed and to get per- mits before applying restricted-use pesti- cides. Agricultural commissioners are en- trusted to assess local conditions to ensure restricted-use pesticides are applied safely. If DPR wants to improve safety around pesticides, Quinonez said at the virtual meeting, it should prioritize approving safer pesticides for farmers to use. The
By Caleb Hampton The California Department of Pesticide Regulation moved closer this month to finalizing a new regulation that would provide advance public notice of restrict- ed-use pesticide applications on farms. During the past few weeks, the depart- ment held public meetings and accepted a final round of comments on the proposed rule it has been developing since 2021. DPR plans to launch the notification sys- tem in the first quarter of 2025. The new regulation would create an on- line map of planned applications, drawing the data from the notices of intent farmers submit to county agricultural commis- sioners before they are permitted to apply restricted-use pesticides. The “Spray Days” map would allow peo- ple to zoom in to their town or region and zoom out to view pesticide applications scheduled statewide. California residents would also be able to sign up for text-mes- sage alerts for nearby applications for up to 10 addresses. Growers and farm advocates have com- plained the rule unfairly targets agricul- ture while exempting other sectors that use pesticides. And they have raised concerns that public access to planned applications
will trigger appeals from activists to cancel restricted-use pesticide permits and ex- pose farm sites to protests. Taylor Roschen, legislative and reg- ulatory advocate for the law firm Kahn, Soares and Conway, which represents various agricultural groups, said at a vir- tual DPR meeting last week that farmers in Monterey County, which has piloted a pes- ticide notification system, “already had felt the impact of appeals halting applications.” Adam Borchard, director of govern- ment and public policy at the California Fresh Fruit Association, warned of “crop losses that occur as a result of missed applications.” DPR sought to quell concerns that the notification system would enable ap- peals. The department has seen “a major increase” statewide in appeals to halt re- stricted-use pesticide applications “even before this system has gone into place,” Ken Everett, assistant director of DPR, said at the meeting. But he said the small window during which scheduled applications will appear online would be too narrow for the system to be used for appeals, which typically take longer for the department to review. With increased scrutiny of pesticides from community health advocates in
See PESTICIDES, Page 8
July 31, 2024 Ag Alert 3
Powered by FlippingBook