Please Listen to Tish Hinojosa’s song, “Something in the Rain”
Today, a new generation of teachers has awakened to the pesticide issue, and the embers of Farm without Harm have caught fire again. The new group, which meets once a month in Salinas and once a month in Watsonville, has named itself Safe Ag Safe Schools – SASS. And this growing group does have plenty of Sass, energy, and intelligence to move our cause forward.
A bit of history: In 1988 when I started teaching at Amesti Elementary in the Pajaro River Valley of South Santa Cruz County, California, my colleagues and I were only vaguely aware of the fact that pesticides were being used on the vast agricultural lands of the valley. The beauty of the valley and the excitement of having a good teaching job made it easy for me to repress my uneasiness about pesticides exposure.
But by the mid nineties, I could no longer hide from myself the fact that something was wrong at my school. Cancer, asthma, rashes, dizziness, miscarriages . . . I came to understand that two highly volatile toxic gases – methyl bromide and chloropicrin – were being injected into the soil of the strawberry fields just on the other side of the chain link fence from our school.
With growing concern, I participated in a forum on environmental health at the Louden Nelson Community Center in Santa Cruz where I met Gary Karnes, a pesticide activist from Monterey. Soon, I was attending meetings at the UFW offices in Watsonville with a group of teachers, parents, scientists, and concerned citizens. We formed a group, which we named “Farm without Harm”, to educate about pesticides and advocate for reform. Someone in the group reached out to Pesticide Action Network, an international organization based in San Francisco. PAN sent a full-time activist to the Monterey Bay to work with us. It was around this time that Californians for Pesticide Reform was also created.
By 2000, the struggle over pesticide use near the schools had become so fierce and vicious that I, and many of the other teachers who were engaged in the struggle, left our jobs in the school district. In retrospect, I realize that our early work did help kick the door open for acceptance of organic agriculture in the Pajaro Valley. Today, the most successful organic vegetable grower in the valley is the uncle of one of my former third grade students from that era. Dick Peixoto of Lakeside Farms has personally acknowledged to me that it was we teachers who first got him thinking about going organic.
In 2010, under pressure to comply with the Montreal Protocol’s mandated phase-out of methyl bromide, the pesticide industry tried to roll out a chemical substitute that was even worse than the banned ozone-depleting chemical methyl bromide: methyl iodide. Activists from the “early days” came out of the woodwork and helped to soundly quash the roll-out of the carcinogenic methyl iodide .
Farm without Harm no longer exists, but over the years since the founding of Farm without Harm, coalition building has been quietly moving forward. The Californians for Pesticide Reform is now a statewide coalition of more than 185 organizations.
Founded in 1996 to fundamentally shift the way pesticides are used in California, CPR’s mission is to protect public health, improve environmental quality and expand a sustainable and just agriculture system by building a diverse movement across California to change statewide and local pesticide policies and practices. CPR has built a diverse, multi-interest coalition to challenge the powerful political and economic forces opposing change. Member organizations include public health, children’s health, educational and environmental advocates, clean air and water organizations, health practitioners, environmental justice groups, labor, organizations, farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates. Members are actively engaged through a unifying four point platform: 1) eliminate use of the most dangerous pesticides 2) reduce use of and reliance on all pesticides 3) support safer, ecologically sound and more socially just forms of pest management 4) expand and protect the public’s right to know about pesticide use, exposure, and impacts.
The coalition is governed by a Steering Committee, currently comprised of:
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
Center for Environmental Health
Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment
El Quinto Sol de America
Monterey Bay Central Labor Council
Pesticide Action Network
Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles
Going forward in 2016, I’m proud to be affiliated with our new SASS-y generation of Pajaro Valley teachers, many of whom participated in a rally this summer in our state capitol. You can find out more about SASS on their Facebook page < https://www.facebook.com/safeagsafeschools/ >and website < http://dev-safe-ag.pantheonsite.io/ >, designed by students at California State University Monterey Bay.
On July 12, 2016, the Californians for Pesticide Reform 20th Anniversary “Day of Action” Rally for pesticide reform took place in Sacramento. Farmworkers, teachers, citizens, doctors, legislators, scientists, seniors, and children made their way to the California Environmental Protection Agency building in the state capitol, with boxes to present to the Department of Pesticide Regulation full of thousands of signatures on petitions and letters signed by over 200 organizations. Many people got up at 3 am and traveled hours on buses to attend the rally.
During the rally, I had the opportunity to make some meaningful and hopefully lasting connections with some very inspiring people, including a young doctor, and a group of amazing young women and future leaders who will start college in the fall.
The goal of the rally was to demand that the people who work for the California Department of Pesticide Regulation do the job they are paid for: to protect the people, and our children, from harmful pesticide exposure. We want the DPR to draft new regulations requiring a one mile pesticide-free buffer zone around all ag fields that are near schools. Please send them your comments!
Following are some scenes and video clips from the rally and the luncheon at St. John Lutheran Church.
Dear Mary,
You have done another great job of summarizing the history of local pesticide reform efforts and a re-cap of the Sacramento rally on 12 July. Your photos enhance your words.
I think your 4-point platform is a model for all of us citizen-activists to follow. The emotional power of almost 200 marchers with their strong, clear signs and their chants in Spanish and English delivered a very clear message of dissatisfaction over the lengthy delays by EPA/DPR despite the 16+ years of independent scientific studies showing serious harm from pesticide exposure to anyone of any age within a mile of the application of fumigants. The disregard for the lives and suffering of such a large portion of the population that supports the huge industrial agriculture business and the blithe disregard for the water, soil, air and natural habitats poisoned by toxic tons of pesticides amounts to environmental racism, as Ana Barrera and Ann Lopez made so clear in their comments: Basta! Stop it! Enough! Do your job for which you collect salaries paid by us taxpayers! Stop catering to the chemical manufacturers and shippers who profit enormously while farm families, school children/teachers/staff and nearby residents are poisoned and suffering!
With great admiration and respect,
Carole
P.S.
–methyl iodide is a highly hazardous neuro-toxic chemical from the first whiff; cancer develops later from exposure to the gas, It’s so dangerous that laboratories won’t handle it except in full HazMat gear under fume hoods and even then, only in very tiny amounts! How it ever got approval was only by lying and stopping clinical tests when major problems were developing. But US-EPA/CalEPA/DPR took Midas’ word for its safety….
Thank you so much, Mary, for your report, your powerful work, your eloquent voice.
Con carino,
Surrey
While attending a SV City Council Kick Off Party for Jack Dilles this afternoon at Malone’s Grille, I spoke with Sheryl McEwan, organizer of the annual SV Garden Faire at Skypark about environmental issues. She said that SV is still spraying parks and streets with herbicides and pesticides. I was shocked to hear this, because I thought this had stopped years ago, when Cal Trans stopped spraying Highway 17.
I read your blog about pesticides after midnight, after seeing the film: “PurePlant Nation”
It amazes me that people think they are saving money by spraying, yet they do not factor in the costs of illness & future hospitalization! I would rather look at weeds.
Thanks for all you do to make the world a better place.
Karen Kaplan
Excellent article. Scary issue.
Good article, Mary. It speaks right to the heart of your book. This is such an important issue.
I eat organic as much as possible–especially strawberries!
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