 
Half a million pounds of the chemical methyl bromide was applied to local strawberry crops last year, sparking economic and environmental debates. Is there an alternative?
The strawberry fields are in full bloom along California’s Central Coast, where about half of the nation’s strawberries are grown. Last year brought landmark strawberry production in the Salinas Valley—it was the second time in history that strawberries surpassed head lettuce to become the second highest cash crop in the region. This year production is expected to increase, perhaps breaking records once again. “The freeze we had in January actually helped the strawberries, even if it didn’t help other crops,” says Robert Roach, the assistant agricultural commissioner for Monterey County. The success was celebrated last weekend at the Watsonville Strawberry Festival, where berry-shaped carnival rides and strawberry-flavored desserts generated strong ticket sales. Yet beneath the blossoms and berries of California’s rolling fields lies soil treated with one of the most controversial biocides in the world—the fumigant methyl bromide. Known for being a fungicide, herbicide and pesticide all in one, the chemical is also a major contributor to the hole in the ozone layer. Gases like methyl bromide rise to the atmosphere, where they convert ozone molecules to oxygen and expose the planet to harmful ultraviolet rays. While methyl bromide is sometimes used on conventional tomatoes and out-of-season vegetables, strawberries account for the vast majority of local and national methyl bromide applications. In Santa Cruz County, half a million pounds were applied to strawberry fields last year, and in Monterey this figure sits at 1.5 million pounds—an average of 170 pounds per acre. “It’s almost like addiction for the industry,” says Michael Cohen, a biologist at Sonoma State University. Because methyl bromide wipes out everything in the soil, it makes it much easier for incoming pathogens to take over, leading to additional doses of the biocide down the road. But local researchers now say there may be a way to end this cycle. The Santa Cruz-based company Farm Fuel Incorporated is testing mustard seed flakes as a methyl bromide replacement. When ground up, the seeds can help cultivate good bacteria in the soil, preventing many common strawberry pests from taking over. The product is among the only organic soil treatments designed to replace methyl bromide, and industry analysts agree it could help conventional farmers transition to organic methods. Hopped up on Seed MealCoastways Farms rests above Davenport, off Highway 1 and overlooks the sea. Farm Fuel scientist Stephanie Bourcier scoops her hand into a sack of seed meal. The yellow flakes are currently being tested on four sites in the Monterey Bay Area, including this picturesque family farm, where the company has treated several rows of strawberry plants. The meal is a by-product of biodiesel production, and can be made from many of the common seeds pressed to make oil. 
“After mustard seed is pressed to make biodiesel, you end up with flat, crushed flakes,” says Bourcier, as she turns her back to the ocean and looks out over the crop fields. Before rows of berries are planted, the meal is mixed into the soil and activated with water. As the flakes decompose in the ground, they release a natural fume that drives off pests, and fertilizes the soil. As the meal rains down from her hands onto the black earth, Bourcier looks proudly over the rows she has been cultivating. While the growing season is still underway, the plants treated with seed meal are, so far, healthy—they have long, green leaves, plenty of blossoms and good berry yields. At a different site, Bourcier planted a field grown with seed meal next to one treated with methyl bromide. So far, the meal seems to be working just as well as conventional methods—at least when it is applied in the right concentrations. “We are trying to figure out how much meal needs to be applied for strawberries—how much is too much and how much is too little,” Bourcier says. “We are trying to find the right balance.” In spots where the meal was mixed in at too high a concentration, the plants appear to be struggling. Bourcier says this is because the meal acts as a fertilizer, and just like in a home garden, overdoing the job can be just as bad as not providing enough nourishment. Too little meal might potentially result in pest problems, so testing ratios is critical. A single acre of mustard can produce more than a ton of seed meal, just enough to treat one acre of strawberry plants. “It works out nicely,” says Robert Van Buskirk, who heads Farm Fuel Inc.’s research efforts. “We would need to grow about 30,000 acres of mustard to treat all of the strawberry plots currently treated with methyl bromide, and there are certainly enough fields available to grow this much mustard.” While seed meal has been tried on apple orchards and fields of peppers and peas, this is the first time “real world” tests have been conducted on strawberry plants. The lab data, however, has been pouring in for more than a decade. Before setting up a lab at Sonoma State, Cohen studied the impacts of seed meal through a series of greenhouse experiments. He discovered that meal boosts levels of good bacteria that fight soil diseases. These bacteria then interact with plant roots, and help them produce protective hormones that fight off fungi. This is a very different approach to pest management, says Cohen. Seed meal helps replenish the earth. “Methyl bromide is analogous to using a neutron bomb,” Cohen notes, “It’s traditionally used to disinfect the soil, and applications of the biocide typically kill both good and bad bacteria.” Two Farming ParadigmsThe dusty fields of the Salinas Valley stretch for miles, and the rows of crops sometimes extend farther than the eye can see. Many stretches of land have been farmed for decades, and, in some cases, for more than a century. Whether or not seed meal will hold up here, in the Mecca of industrial agriculture, is a topic of debate. “It isn’t like starting an organic farm, where you can sample the soil and choose fertile ground that has never been touched,” says Roach. “The big industrial farms have to make do with what they have got.” All too often this means soil ridden with disease, some argue because of pesticide overuse and the lack of crop rotation—both can pave the way for invasions. Wiping the soil clean while simultaneously stripping it of nutrients makes it all the easier for bad bugs to take over, and that much harder for plants to fight them.  This is why methyl bromide remains popular. The more you use it, the more you need it. A product of cold-war farming, entire agricultural systems now revolve around the biocide. From the companies that pump the gassy fumes through the earth, to those that lay big strips of plastic to protect the soil after fumigation, entire industries of specialists make their living by treating fields with methyl bromide. “It’s all systematized,” says Roach. “Farmers have been fumigating with methyl bromide for decades, and they know it works.” Complex calculations are made to determine how much methyl bromide has to be added to any given acre, and the permitting process is long and difficult. Yet after the fact, farmers are almost certainly ensured good yields. The federal government even offers better insurance premiums when methyl bromide is used because crops are considered less likely to fail. Whenever a part of the equation is changed—either by introducing an alternative chemical or a piece of new technology—everything has to be recalculated and tested, says Roach. “This is why you can’t simply replace methyl bromide,” he says. “It encompasses an entire way of doing things.” This approach to farming is also much larger than any single chemical. In the Salinas Valley, trees and vegetative buffers are often ripped out to thwart hungry birds, ponds are drained and rodent bait is sometimes laid out in the fields. This is where rows of migrant workers chop lettuce alongside industrial-scale tractors, all in an effort to maximize crop yields and revenue. Strawberries bring in more money per acre than almost any other crop. Because they are picked all summer long, a small field can bring in as much as $61,000. There were almost 10,000 acres of strawberries grown in Monterey County last year, generating more than $500 million in revenue. Yet berries are also expensive to plant, and because they are vulnerable to a wide range of diseases, farmers don’t want to take any chances. “Everything is susceptible to pests and diseases, but there are pests in the soil here that make it hard to grow strawberries without fumigating,” says Roach. The soil fungi verticillium causes strawberry plants to wilt, for example, and methyl bromide is one of the only treatments. Strawberries also generate enough income to justify fumigation expenses. While it might cost $3,000 to fumigate a field with methyl bromide, strawberries are more likely than other crops to make this back. “I’m sure some growers would like to fumigate their lettuce field, but the returns don’t make this feasible,” says Roach. Larry Jacobs, a founder of Farm Fuel Inc. and the Santa Cruz-based Jacobs Farms, doesn’t pretend that seed meal will compete with the methyl bromide industry, but he says the alternative might help usher in a new farming paradigm. “We aren’t looking for a miracle pesticide to wipe everything out,” he says. “The idea is that you cultivate the soil rather than sterilize it. You try to understand its chemistry, and make it healthier so that it withstands pests.” The soil treatment has been shown to kill strains of verticillium in lab and greenhouse tests. It also kills a wide variety of other pests, including the dreaded fungi phytophthera and some microscopic worms. It is the dual ability to promote healthy bacteria while killing soil pests that makes the seed meal so appealing, says Cohen. After seeds are pressed to make oil, disease-fighting chemicals are compounded. The remaining meal is chock full of glucosinolates—the spicy compounds found in horseradish and wasabi that make your mouth burn. When glucosinolates break down in water or moist soil, they release non-toxic fumes, although the range of bugs killed is much smaller than with methyl bromide. “Unlike methyl bromide, mustard seed meal doesn’t have as much potential to travel and pollute aquatic ecosystems through runoff,” says Bourcier, who has continued her field research despite being eight months pregnant. “I couldn’t keep my job if the meal was toxic,” adds Bourcier. “It wouldn’t be safe [for my baby].” As Bourcier squats down to count berries, a family of newborn ducklings waddles into a nearby lagoon. The rows of crops end near the water, where birds perch on reeds. Occasionally one swoops down to the field, and darts back to the surrounding eucalyptus groves with a large red berry in its beak. “The birds aren’t a big hit because they eat the strawberries,” admits Bourcier, “but the farmers are committed to keeping them around. The crop is still successful, and the birds are a sign that the farm is healthy.” Seed meal is also generally considered nontoxic to wildlife, which is important along the Central Coast, where farms are located near estuaries. The Dirty Little SecretRegardless of the replacement, finding alternatives for methyl bromide is a sensitive subject to broach. Some of the government scientists interviewed for this article asked to remain anonymous, and at times refused to answer questions, saying their jobs might be jeopardized if they spoke out against the Bush Administration’s environmental policies. According to the Montreal Protocol—an international protocol signed by Ronald Reagan in 1987—ozone-depleting chemicals are to be entirely phased out of the world economy. Methyl bromide was added to the treaty in 1992, and was supposed to be phased out of use in the United States by 2005. Yet under the Bush Administration, the EPA started appealing to the international community for critical-use exemption permits that allow ongoing methyl bromide use. “The Bush Administration is more or less calling its normal use ‘critical,’ and continuing on with exemption applications,” says Edward Parson, a professor of law and natural resources at the University of Michigan. While most of the world has now entirely quit using the chemical—including some developed nations—the U.S. continues with 40 percent of its original methyl bromide use. Unlike the phase-out of the chemicals found in aerosol sprays, in which the United States led the world, methyl bromide phase-out attempts trail nearly every nation in the world. On average, 60 percent of all exemptions are sought by the United States, and this number will likely increase as other countries continue to diminish use. “The methyl bromide problem is hard to fix because farmers are a powerful lobby,” says Parson. Chlorofluorocarbons and other aerosol chemicals were easier to reduce because manufacturers agreed to explore new markets. Methyl bromide, however, seems to be the one thing the agricultural industry believes it can’t live without. “There is no true replacement for methyl bromide,” says Roach. “There is nothing else out there that kills absolutely everything in the soil.” Strawberries are also sensitive to weed killers, making chemical replacements hard to come by. Even organic advocates agree there is no true replacement. “Farmers get higher yields after methyl bromide use,” says Craig Ficenec from the Salinas-based nonprofit The Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA), “this doesn’t mean methyl bromide is the only option, but there are challenges that must be faced if we are going to phase it out.” While ALBA does not support the use of methyl bromide, a spokesperson for the EPA says that many organic farmers are proponents. While organic strawberry growers can’t fumigate their own cropland, they often buy nursery plants that have been grown in soil treated with methyl bromide, says the spokesperson, who wishes to remain anonymous. Organic growers reportedly went on the record with the EPA in favor of methyl bromide use, saying it is vital that farmers start with clean rootstock, as spraying later in the season when pest problems arise is not an option. Local organic certifiers voice a different opinion. “We know for a fact that there are suppliers that produce organic strawberry root stock, and we require [growers] to start with these,” says Peggy Miars of the Santa Cruz-based California Certified Organic Farmers. No organic certifier interviewed believed that methyl bromide was needed for strawberry farming. None of the strawberry sellers at the Santa Cruz farmers market said they use methyl bromide. According to the Watsonville-based California Strawberry Commission, 50 percent of farmers have phased methyl bromide out entirely, and the remainder are in process. Farms like Swanton Berry continue to grown high-yield strawberry crops without methyl bromide, demonstrating the practice can even be profitable. Despite these examples, the EPA insists there are many cases when strawberries cannot be grown without methyl bromide. In order to be awarded a critical use permit, industry groups must prove there is no economically feasible way to grow strawberries without fumigating. Yet when asked whether the EPA evaluates whether organic farming is an option for each applicant, the spokesperson admitted this was not a criteria. “Both sides of the debate are right,” says a local researcher affiliated with the U.S. Department of Agriculture that also wishes to remain anonymous. “Santa Cruz is a very special place, and not everyone believes going organic is a viable option. While it’s true that you can grow strawberries without methyl bromide, whether this is economically feasible is up to the individual grower.” While perhaps trailblazers, the organic farms of Santa Cruz County are not the only ones to overcome methyl bromide use. Countries such as Spain, Greece, Italy and Australia grow strawberries in similar climates, and they have almost successfully eliminated the chemical. New Markets for local farmers Farm Fuel hopes that seed meal will make organic practices accessible to the very groups that believe methyl bromide is the only option. Yet Bourcier stops just short of blaming conventional farmers for their use of the biocide, even though the hype against methyl bromide continues to gain momentum in the media. A television crew from a local news station once interviewed Bourcier at one of her test sites. “The journalist kept trying to get me to say that farmers are poisoning the land, and poisoning the people,” she says, “but the problem is much larger than any single group of farmers.” Instead, Bourcier tries to focus on solutions. If markets for seed meal open up, it may be that mustard farming will become profitable along the Central Coast. Along with broccoli, mustard is sometimes grown in the off-season as a rotation crop, and is viewed as a soil treatment in and of itself. “Many organic farmers plant mustard and broccoli to purify the soil because they release small amounts of glucosinulates into the soil,” says Bourcier. The problem is that rotation crops have to be planted for several seasons in a row in order to make much of a difference. And as they aren’t profitable, there is little incentive. Mustard seed has almost no market value, and farmers say they can’t afford to let their land sit for a few years while non-profitable crops help the soil heal. Contrary to the iconoclastic view of farmers as landowners, many northern Californian growers lease their land in periods of one to three years. “This doesn’t give them enough time to farm with rotation crops and other organic methods,” says Ficenec. “They have to start making money with high value cash crops like strawberries.” Yet if seed meal takes hold, both land owners and renters might be able to profit from their rotation crops. “If seeds can be pressed to make biodiesel, and then the leftover meal sold as a soil treatment, farmers may finally begin to make a profit with mustard,” says Bourcier. The meal also acts in the soil much more quickly than rotation farming, and introduces higher amounts of purifying compounds than mustard plants alone. Alternatives like seed meal might also help resolve costly disputes over fumigation boundaries. Moss Landing residents recently filed a suit against the Monterey County Department of Pesticide Regulation and Springfield Farms for allowing methyl bromide and another chemical fumigant called chloropicrin to be applied near residential areas. Residents protested, saying that surrounding neighborhoods are too close to the farm, and that the health of local residents will be jeopardized. As mustard seed meal is generally considered non-toxic, such concerns might not apply. Farmers would also be able to expand the amount of their property used for growing crops. When fields are located near neighborhoods, growers can only expect to fumigate a small portion of their land, if any at all. With mustard seed meal, Bourcier says farmers would likely be able to treat their entire property. Cohen says that seed meal is a likely candidate for large-scale farms as well as small, organic growing operations. Because strawberries have a shallow root system, it’s easier to treat the soil that comes in contact with the roots. “All you have to do is till it into the soil, and you’ve achieved the correct depth,” says Cohen. In any case, farmers will eventually have to make a break with methyl bromide. Even though the industry has delayed phase-outs, the chemical will be eventually moved off the market. While numerous chemical alternatives are being marketed as a replacement, environmentalists warn many are toxic. Methyl iodide, for example, was approved as a replacement option by the EPA last fall, and is thought to contribute to cancer and neurological problems. It is also blamed for instances of mass poisoning. San Francisco-based groups like the Pesticide Action Network are among the environmental groups challenging its regulatory approval. Equally controversial are Telone and chloropicrin, which are also used in place of methyl bromide. So is 1, 3 dichloropropene, another replacement in the United States, even though it’s being phased out in the European Union. “If we have to choose something else, why not go with something that is nontoxic,” says Bourcier. If seed meal tests go well, Farm Fuel will begin testing on large-scale farms next year, and may also try to develop the product as a weed killer replacement. In the meantime, Bourcier hopes that people in Santa Cruz will continue to eat lots of organic strawberries, and perhaps even slap on some sunscreen. As UV light from the sun is a primary cause of skin cancer, the EPA has said that declines in methyl bromide and other ozone-depleting chemicals could save millions of lives over the next 60 years. Along the Monterey Bay at least, these phase-outs are slow at best.
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
|
