

California’s strawberry industry is hooked on dangerous pesticides - r0h1n
https://beta.cironline.org/reports/californias-strawberry-industry-is-hooked-on-dangerous-pesticides

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calbear81
I generally buy organic for fruits and vegetables where I will eat with the
skin on due to surface exposure to pesticide sprays.

Being in the Bay Area, we have access to lots of organic strawberry farms
relatively close by. I would suggest you try a day trip down to Pescadero when
U-Pick is in season to do your own picking at Swanton Berry Farms. They had
some of the best strawberries I have ever had and the price was better than at
Whole Foods ($2.50/lb + freebies you eat while you pick). You can make a whole
day out of it by checking out Harley's Goat Farm or head down to Santa Cruz.

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rhelmer
Certain organic pesticides, which generally take less time to break down in
the environment than synthetic and so tend to need larger doses, are allowed
on certified organic farms. Also there's a chance of things like E. coli from
contact with manure (commonly used as a fertilizer, although it's supposed to
be aged and/or treated as part of the organic certification in the US), or
just from bacteria normally present in soil.

So, make sure you wash fruits and vegetables before eating, whether grown on
organic-certified farms or not!

(EDIT - s/more time/less time/)

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leoh
I personally know the field manager at Swanton Berry Farm and they do not use
pesticides. It's an amazing place.
[http://www.cityonahillpress.com/2009/09/21/a-farm-of-a-
diffe...](http://www.cityonahillpress.com/2009/09/21/a-farm-of-a-different-
breed/)

~~~
bryanlarsen
Do they use manure?

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callmeed
I grew up, and still currently live, right in the middle of strawberry-land
(South San Luis Obispo and North Santa Barbara counties). I grew up in Oceano,
which has a lot of strawberry fields and migrant farm workers (I went to one
of the few bilingual elementary schools at the time).

A few observations/anecdotes related to strawberries and pesticides:

\- The strawberry "season" here is now much longer. It used to be that in
early April all the local farms would open their roadside stands within a week
of each other. They would all shut down around the same time too. Many of them
now open in February or March and sell strawberries into early Fall.

\- The strawberries now look and taste different than they did when I was a
kid (i.e. the 1980s). They used to be smaller, sweeter and red all the way
through. The strawberries you get now are often white inside (unripe?), less
sweet and much larger. There is one local farm [1] whose strawberries are so
big it's freaky.

\- Some friends of mine lived in a neighborhood surrounded by strawberry and
other other produce fields. Frequent dust, migraines and illness forced them
to sell their house and move to another part of the county. Purely anecdotal
of course but they are convinced pesticides were partly to blame.

[1] [https://www.facebook.com/pages/Okui-Strawberry-and-Fruit-
Sta...](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Okui-Strawberry-and-Fruit-
Stand/151691566787)

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protonfish
It's like a battle to see whose science is worse. In the end there are so few
facts on either side it is hard to make any rational conclusions. I suppose
this is true for any political debate. When you should be starting with facts
to form an opinion, politics starts with an opinion and collects supporting
facts while ignoring disproof.

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pessimizer
sitedown:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20141110211538/https://beta.ciron...](http://web.archive.org/web/20141110211538/https://beta.cironline.org/reports/californias-
strawberry-industry-is-hooked-on-dangerous-pesticides/)

