We’ve pitched a long battle here in California to keep the cancer-causing pesticide methyl iodide out of strawberry fields because getting it banned here will make a national ban all the more likely.Some 90% of the nation’s strawberries are grown here. So without a CA market, methyl iodide just isn’t viable.

Back in 2010, growers argued that without methyl iodide, California’s billion-dollar agriculture industry would hemorrhage jobs and profits. Guess what? The cancer-causing pesticide has been approved for use in California’s strawberry fields for a year now. But farmers aren’t using it. Records show only six applications in the entire state, all on very small farms – by now there should have been hundreds.

Why only six? Because consumers like you have helped the UFW and our partners keep up the pressure. By writing e-mails, calling decision makers, passing local resolutions and more, you have helped us hold the line to stop growers using methyl iodide.

According to a Dec 14 article in the Huffington Post , "some growers say methyl iodide is too politically risky to use. ‘The people who oppose this particular chemical are really loud and effective,’ said Liz Elwood Ponce, co-owner of Lassen Canyon Nursery in Redding. ‘If no one said anything, I think the chemical would be used more widely. ’"

And according to our partner Pesticide Action Network, PR people at methyl iodide’s manufacturer, Arysta, have told reporters that they “don’t call it methyl iodide anymore because the public thinks methyl iodide means poison.”

Help us keep up the pressure. Last March, Brown said he’d “take a fresh look” at the methyl iodide decision. Since this time, memos have gone public showing that the decision to allow the use of this toxin was based on political calculations, not science.

We’re told that the new head of the state’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) will be appointed around the new year. This person will have the power to reverse the prior administration’s decision and ban this toxin once and for all.

Please send an e-mail today, by clicking the green “participate” button in the upper right hand corner of this page. Tell Governor Brown that whomever he appoints to head DPR should take swift action to reverse this bad decision and protect farm workers and local residents who live in agricultural areas. Keeping this carcinogenic chemical out of California must be a priority for the new year.