California’s Farms and Food Products Continue to Be a Source of Controversy

Harry Bernstein’s July 11 labor column, “Weak as It Is, the UFW Is the Farm Workers’ Only Hope,” calls for a fuller explanation of what is going on in California agriculture with regard to pesticides.

California farmers and farm workers work under the toughest pesticide regulations in the world. Not only are the fields frequently checked, sometimes daily, but residue samples are taken to ensure that all fresh fruits and vegetables are safe for consumers. With the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the California Department of Food and Agriculture and many independent labs continuously monitoring California farms, the workplace and the food produced is safe and getting safer all the time. California alone spends more than $40 million to enforce these regulations.

The positive aspects of using pesticides must be remembered. In America, consumers are able to buy large quantities of succulent, fresh produce at low prices. Unlike Third World countries, where fresh fruits and vegetables are plagued by bugs, slime, molds, mildews and blights, America’s produce is virtually disease-free. This is a direct result of the American farmer’s access to the greatest farming technology in the world, which includes the judicious use of pesticides. If growers did not have access to pesticides, then contaminants that can kill people and diseases capable of eradicating an entire field of produce would flourish.

According to every reliable scientific source, fresh fruits and vegetables should play a large part in each person’s diet. The American Cancer Society and the American Heart Assn. advocate eating fresh produce to fight cancer and reduce heart disease.

Growers are responding to consumer demand by implementing and researching many new, effective, non-chemical methods of pest control. They are reducing the use of pesticides by implementing other forms of “bug management.” The use of “good bugs” to devour the “bad bugs,” and the use of pheromones, which confuse moths and sidetrack mating, are becoming more widespread.

The chemicals that are used are completely safe, except to the bugs and fungus they are meant to kill. Even so, California growers have always called for more tests and restrictions on pesticides because we want our product to be the best possible. We ensure the public’s health and our own livelihoods by supplying the safest produce to consumers.

DAVID L. MOORE

Newport Beach

The writer is president of the Western Growers Assn.