Calif. groups protest use of any pesticides

Environmental groups and a few fringe public health organizations in California are protesting the state’s newly announced plans for dealing with crop pests using comprehensive pesticide application planning.

Looking in from the outside, it appears that the state, through its own regulations and regulatory agencies, is strongly in charge of deciding what farmers can do to control insects attacking their crops, but the protestors want complete control with pesticides basically taken off the table to protect crops.

A Los Angeles Times article, tries to explain the situation while giving protestors the main voice. The California Department of Food and Agriculture reportedly is abandoning the “traditional practice of assessing the environmental effects of attacking pests one by one.” Instead, $3 million is being invested in a “comprehensive impact report on eradicating all flies, worms, moths and other insects at once,” according to the Times article.

The protestors suggest any pesticide application poisons the environment, doesn’t work in eradicating problem pests because pests return each year and is contrary to integrated pest management planning without pesticides.

The protestors are aiming their attack at having Gov. Jerry Brown to “abandon the state’s new plan.”