Last spring, we won a great victory for safe strawberries when our pressure helped get the cancer-causing fumigant methyl iodide off the shelf, and out of our strawberry fields.
But instead of looking for non-fumigant alternatives, the pesticide industry is using this as an excuse to bring back the toxic fumigant methyl bromide — which has such negative impacts, it was globally banned over a decade ago.Under pressure from Big Ag, the EPA has been granting exemptions to allow the use of increasing quantities of this ozone-depleting chemical and developmental toxicant.
That needs to stop, so we're standing with our friends at the Pesticide Action Network to oppose methyl bromide.
Fumigants are particularly nasty and difficult-to-control pesticides applied as gasses to fields at rates of hundreds of pounds per acre.1 They are among the most toxic chemicals used in agriculture, and pose serious health risk to nearby communities and farmworkers.
The good news is that farmers all over the world have already stepped up to the plate, and learned how to farm without methyl bromide and methyl iodide. Allowing the use of methyl bromide only undermines the progress that has been made since the global ban, and since the pressure that convinced methyl iodide manufacturer Arysta LifeScience Corp. to pull the product from the U.S. market.
EPA should work alongside farmers who are investing in safer farming practices, not turn back the toxics-clock on a pesticide that the world has already agreed is too dangerous to use.
The EPA needs to stop granting exemptions for the use of methyl bromide as a fumigant on our strawberry fields. Click below to automatically sign the petition:
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?
Thank you for taking a stand against toxic pesticides in our food system.
1. Fumigants," Pesticide Action Network
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