Malathion Outcry Angers Growers in Central Valley

A cold wind blew across Sarkis Sarabian’s back as he walked between a line of grapevines, which fill the landscape like rows of dark skeletons.

Four generations of Sarabians have lived on this land in the Central Valley, surviving successive invasions of powdery mildew, frost, torrential rain, root-eating nematodes, variegated leaf hoppers and any number of other pests and threats.

But on this wintry day, Sarabian stood in his field and worried about his chances of surviving a new invasion--this time from an enemy looming 200 miles away in Los Angeles.

“This may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” he said as he scratched his boot against the sandy loam of his farm.

The enemy is the Mediterranean fruit fly, a pest that is now separated from the farm-rich Central Valley--which encompasses the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys--by just the desolate peaks of the Tehachapi Mountains.

Seven months ago, when a single fly was found near Dodger Stadium, growers like Sarabian barely paid attention to the small talk about this tiny, exotic fly. It had been eradicated so many times before that everyone figured the state would do it again.

But as the months passed, the persistent spread of the bug in Southern California and the growing political opposition to aerial malathion spraying have farmers worried that it may not be so simple this time.

For growers, the battle over the Medfly has reached a disturbing point. The community opposition in Los Angeles and Orange counties to aerial spraying is both shocking and baffling to men who have sprayed crops all their lives with far more dangerous chemicals. The bevy of celebrities who have grabbed the attention of television cameras in the campaign to stop spraying has left them frustrated at their inability to fight back.

In the coffee shops, packing sheds and farmhouses scattered through the Central Valley, the farmers are beginning to murmur that this battle could be lost.

“It could get hairy,” said farmer Glenn Nilmeier of Sanger. “I haven’t lost any sleep yet, but it’s getting there.”

At stake is the economic well-being of one of the richest fruit producing areas in the world. The farms in the Central Valley’s southern half alone churn out more grapes, raisins, nectarines, peaches, plums and pomegranates than any other spot in the nation. The state estimates that $5 billion in crops are in jeopardy of being infested with the fly.

The danger to these farms that cut a jagged patchwork across the Central Valley is real. During the great Northern California Medfly infestation of 1980-82, the mere perception that California fruit was infested, coupled with an abundant crop that year, sent prices plummeting. Peaches that normally sold for $6 a box dropped to $2.50.

While the ‘80-’82 infestation was largely concentrated around Santa Clara County, some Medflies managed to find their way to Stockton and Westley in San Joaquin County. Crops in both areas were quarantined.

If that happened in Sanger, Sarabian said, he could lose not just a business, but a life that has been passed from generation to generation.

“The people in L.A.,” he said, “they just don’t understand. I’m going to lose a way of life. Maybe that’s nothing big to someone else, but it means something to me.”

Sarabian, 57, has lived nearly all his life within a few hundred feet of where he was born. Even today, within hollering distance of his office in an old farmhouse are four generations of Sarabians, including his 88-year-old mother.

The landscape is dotted with his family’s mementos. Just a stone’s throw from Sarabian’s window is a white mulberry tree his father planted 60 years ago with a clipping from their native Armenia. A decaying tree house built by his two sons dangles from its branches.

In his father’s days, farmers battled the constant flood of insect invaders with a mask, a hand sprayer and chemicals so dangerous that even Sarabian shudders to think about them.

Now it’s done with a tractor and a mechanized sprayer the size of a jet engine that can spew pesticide over 40 acres in a day.

For Sarabian, the problem in dealing with the Medfly is not killing it--that’s easy, even with a hand sprayer. But if even a few flies are found in the area, it would trigger a fruit quarantine by other states and countries where 90% of his grapes and tree fruit now goes.

If an infestation occurs, “Japan wouldn’t even talk to us. Taiwan is just looking for an excuse not to take our fruit,” he said.

He added, “If I can’t market my fruit, I walk.”

Infested fruit can be fumigated with a pesticide or put in cold storage to make it acceptable for export, he said. But it costs money to build those facilities, money that the average farmer doesn’t have.

Sarabian noted that farmers wouldn’t be the only ones to suffer if the Medfly found its way into the Central Valley. Much of his fruit is shipped out of Los Angeles, he said. The plastic bags for his grapes come from a company in Ontario. Labels for Sark’s brand peaches come from San Francisco and the paper trays he uses to dry raisins come from Oregon.

“They better think again about protesting” malathion spraying, Sarabian said. “It may mean no jobs up here, but it’ll also mean no jobs for people in L.A.”

Sarabian said he and other farmers could probably survive a Medfly infestation. But life in Sanger and thereabouts is economically precarious to begin with, and it doesn’t take much to tip the balance.

Down the road from the Sarabians, Keith Nilmeier and his father, Glenn, have built up their family’s farm during the past few decades to about 400 acres of grapevines and fruit trees. Nilmeier lost an entire crop of oranges once when temperatures dropped to 19 degrees.

“We lost everything,” the son said, adding that most farmers have lost at least one crop in their lives. He went back to driving a truck for a few years to keep the farm going.

Just last week, Nilmeier estimated he lost about 15% of his crop when the temperature dropped to 25 degrees for five hours. He stayed up all night, burning bags of peach pits to raise the temperature in the grove 2 or 3 degrees. The next day, Nilmeier was tired, but calm about the loss.

“It’s just something you live with,” he said. “You can’t fight nature.”

What is infuriating to the farmers about the Medfly infestation in Los Angeles and Orange counties is that, unlike the cold, they see it as a fight that can be won. All it takes is a little malathion, they say.

In Southern California, the debate over malathion’s safety has grown in intensity. On the farms around Sanger, people laugh. “I think they’re nuts,” Glenn Nilmeier said of the spraying foes. “They’re goofy, they’re crazy.”

For farmers, malathion is so tame that few have ever used it on their crops. There are numerous pesticides that do the job better. “For Christ’s sake,” Nilmeier said. “This kills me. My wife uses (malathion) to kill ants around the house.”

When Nilmeier sprays, he doesn’t use ounces of pesticide per acre, but pounds. “I just got through spraying a ton of parathion,” he said, referring to an extremely toxic cousin of malathion.

But Nilmeier, whose farm was started by his grandparents 90 years ago, is growing pessimistic that the state will be able to continue the malathion spraying in Southern California.

During the 1980-’82 Medfly infestation in Northern California, he lay awake at night worried about the bug slowly buzzing southward toward his farm.

This time, he’s not just worried, he’s mad. Speaking of Los Angeles, he said, “Some stupid jackass down there brought it in in the first place. A damn hippy town. The most narrow-minded bunch of people. All they can do is drive fast on the freeway.”

Not everyone in the Central Valley is comfortable with the heavy use of chemicals. Environmental and farm worker groups have raised concerns about the decades of pesticide use that in some cases have sickened workers and contaminated ground water.

Neither does every farmer support the repeated spraying of malathion to combat Medflies. Take David Mas Masumoto, one of the younger generation of farmers who have tried to move away from the traditional dependence on chemicals.

Masumoto, who farms 80 acres of grapes and peaches with his father in Del Rey, refuses to use highly toxic pesticides on his crops not only because of the cost, but also the danger. Several years ago, his father broke out in a rash after using a fungicide. “He spent the summer inside hiding,” said Masumoto, 36. “I thought, ‘This is no way to farm.’ ”

But even an organic-leaning farmer like Masumoto believes there should be a compromise in the Medfly fight. He favors continued spraying, but a restriction on the number of times any one spot is targeted.

Gerald Nakayama, 36, a third generation Japanese-American who runs a 250-acre farm with his father and brother in nearby Fowler, said the frustration of the farmer with the Medfly controversy is rooted in the maddening fact that so much of a farmer’s life is controlled by people who know so little about agriculture.

Nakayama gave the example of actress Meryl Streep--almost a swear word around his house--and her public call for a ban on Alar-treated apples. The federal government later declared the chemical safe. “She single-handedly destroyed the apple industry that year and not so much as an, ‘I’m sorry,’ ” he said in disbelief.

Nakayama said he’s given up trying to figure out the public. On one hand, they demand fewer chemicals on their fruit. But they also want fruit of such perfection that the farmer is forced to turn to an arsenal of toxic fungicides, insecticides and herbicides.

Years ago, Nakayama said there used to be a variety of peach raised around Fresno called the Alberta that locals still rave about today. It was sweeter, juicier and tastier than any peach he’s ever eaten, he said. But it spoiled quickly and didn’t have the red blush that the public loves.

About five years ago, Nakayama finally gave up on the Alberta and pulled out the last of his trees. “We could hardly give the fruit away,” he said.

If the Medfly reaches the Central Valley, it will only mean more pesticide spraying on fruit, he said. And he figures that can only lead to more farmer-bashing.

“The public has me scared silly,” Nakayama said.