Trouble in Strawberryland

From food-borne illnesses to pesticides to farm labor, it seems the strawberry industry almost inevitably winds up in the middle of every problem facing modern agriculture.

The most recent controversy has involved, of course, frozen strawberries tainted with the hepatitis A virus. More than 150 people in Calhoun, Mich., became sick in that outbreak and schoolchildren across the country, including more than 3,000 in Southern California, were given shots of immune globulin to head off possible illness.

The strawberries in question were grown last year in Mexico (despite having been certified by the processor as being American-grown); it is yet to be determined whether the hepatitis was introduced in the field or later in handling.

The crisis has prompted some consumers to be wary of all strawberries, including fresh strawberries from Mexico.

But as Arthur Whitmore, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration, says, “There is absolutely nothing about this [outbreak] that has any implications for fresh berries. Fresh strawberries are not the culprit here.”

For California growers, though, this has an eerie ring to it. Last year an outbreak of illnesses in Texas linked to the cyclospora parasite was mistakenly blamed on California strawberries. Guatemalan raspberries eventually were determined to be the cause. (Again, it is not known for sure whether the berries were infected in the field or in processing.) Before things were straightened out, California strawberry growers lost $20 million in sales, they said.

Both hepatitis A and cyclospora can be spread by water that has been contaminated with sewage. But growers point out that such problems with strawberries are unlikely because water is an enemy of the fragile fruit, which spoils quickly when wet. In fact, in California, most strawberries are planted atop plastic-lined rows that are raised some two to three feet above the irrigation channels, specifically to prevent contact with water. Similar drip irrigation techniques with plastic “mulch” are used in Mexico too.

If strawberries are infected with hepatitis A, cyclospora or E. coli, the only definite solution is to cook them. Washing will not remove the problem and, in fact, might make it worse as many viruses thrive in moisture.

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Pesticides are another thorny problem for the strawberry industry, particularly the ongoing battle over methyl bromide, a soil fumigant that is to be eliminated from use in this country by the year 2001. An international agreement, signed by the United States, calls for its global banning among developed countries by 2010, because of its possible role in depleting the ozone layer.

Methyl bromide was supposed to have been eliminated from use in California last year, but a suitable safety test could not be found before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s re-registration deadline passed. (Pesticide tests typically measure residue on foods, but methyl bromide is used before planting, thereby leaving no residue.)

In March 1996, a special session of the state Legislature passed a bill allowing the use of methyl bromide at least through the end of 1997.

An extremely toxic gas (it is also used for fumigating homes), methyl bromide is used on many agricultural products, including cherries, walnuts, grapes, nursery plants, almonds and sweet potatoes.

In strawberry fields, it is injected 18 inches below the surface of the soil, which is then covered with plastic tarps to reduce the amount of gas that escapes.

Methyl bromide is used to kill soil-born fungi such as verticilium wilt that can wipe out a field of strawberry plants overnight. In fact, until the advent of chemical pesticides in the 1950s, strawberry fields needed to be rotated every four or five years and planted with another crop for 15 years before being used again for strawberries.

A study by the state Department of Food and Agriculture claims outlawing methyl bromide would cost the California $346 million in direct losses and a further $241 million in lost exports to countries that require fumigation before shipping.

Facing the 2001 deadline, strawberry growers are scrambling to find a substitute pesticide, disease-resistant plants, or both. Already the strawberry industry has reduced its use of methyl bromide from 4.6 million pounds in 1992 to 4.2 million pounds in 1995.

“The thing we find almost ironic is that there is no industry doing more to find alternatives to methyl bromide than the strawberry industry,” says Teresa Thorne of the California Strawberry Commission, pointing to $500,000 worth of industry-sponsored research--almost half the total research budget. She says that without methyl bromide, growers would have to go back to the old methods of rotation farming.

“We won’t allow a pesticide to be used unless it can be used safely,” says Veda Federighi of the EPA. “But we have been increasing the restrictions on methyl bromide because of concerns about toxicity. We do believe it can be used safely, but we would like to see alternatives.

“Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet. There is never going to be a single chemical that will replace it. Because of that, the search is very complicated.”

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Labor issues are also big news in the strawberry industry as the United Farm Workers and the AFL-CIO are beginning what they call a two-month “blitz” beginning this week to unionize the state’s roughly 20,000 field workers, primarily in the Watsonville growing area north of Monterey.

The push began in November, when the union called for a nationwide campaign of demonstrations and speeches. It got a shot in the arm when Ralphs Grocery Co., the Compton-based supermarket chain, voiced its support in mid-December. So far, boycotts have not been threatened.

Certainly, picking strawberries is backbreaking work. Because the berries are so close to the ground, it is rare to see anyone standing straight up in a strawberry field.

Organizers say unionizing would help workers victimized by lack of clean drinking water and toilet facilities, low pay and inadequate health insurance.

Growers say the union is overstating the problem in an effort to recruit more workers. “Strawberry workers have a living wage, they have clean drinking water, they have clean bathrooms in the fields,” says Gary Caloroso, spokesman for the industry-backed Strawberry Workers & Farmers Alliance. “In fact, California has some of the strictest health, safety and labor laws in the country.”

The truth lies somewhere in between, said Mark Carleson, deputy chief of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, told The Times last year. He said about half of the work sites his agency inspected fell short of some state sanitation requirements, including drinking water or bathrooms.