This month, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) will hold a series of public hearings on newly proposed regulations that would further restrict growers’ ability to utilize the fumigant 1,3-Dichloropropene (1,3-D). While  these regulations are specific to 1,3-D, they can be assumed to be a template for future regulations impacting other fumigants. Since 1,3-D is currently the fumigant with the highest visibility, I will use facts specific to 1,3-D; however, the facts can also apply to other fumigant products.

Why Are Fumigants Used?

Well, let’s start by stating the obvious: Even though many outside of agriculture don’t want to say it, there are no viable alternatives! Soilborne pests and diseases are systemic throughout the state and, if they are not controlled, will devastate the short-term and long-term health of plants. Registrants, commodity groups, and the state have spent hundreds of millions of dollars researching and trying to develop alternatives to fumigants.

Thus far, alternatives are limited to very small-acreage use and have had limited success in addressing soilborne pest  and disease issues. Considering the negative attention the use of fumigants can draw, if there were viable alternatives, wouldn’t growers already be using them and registrants be registering them for the market?

This doesn’t mean that all these parties have stopped looking for alternatives. Commodity groups, registrants and DPR continue to study potential alternatives. But until they are found, fumigants cannot be eliminated until field-tested, effective alternatives are registered. This is of special concern when the state is looking at fumigants from a policy perspective. DPR has stated there are currently no viable alternatives for 1,3-D. This alone is a weighty fact, as DPR is admitting there are no other options; they should ensure new regulations do  not substantially undermine their availability. But let’s drill down to some more specific reasons for their use.

Agronomic Need

There is a real agronomic need for fumigants. Plant-parasitic nematodes cause significant annual crop losses, estimated at around $157 billion globally. This is a huge economic loss for growers and means considerably less food for people.

California is the leading producer in the U.S. for many crops, and many of these are planted on fumigated ground. Over one-third of the country’s vegetables and  nearly three-fourths of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in the state. Over 60 commodities, from row crops to vines to orchard crops, require fumigation to assure healthy root systems. Collectively, these crops contribute billions of dollars  to the economy, provide hundreds of thousands of jobs and put healthy fruits, vegetables and nuts within reach of California’s citizens.

Social Justice Imperative

We should not understate the importance of providing healthy foods to Californians. Food insecurity is a real problem in the U.S. and California. The number of people affected by hunger globally rose by 828 million in 2021, representing an increase of 46 million people since 2020 and 150 million more since 2019. In California, the fifth-largest economy in the world, 3,571,920 people  are facing hunger, and of them, 1,165,400 are children.

Increased crop productivity has profound impacts on communities grappling with food insecurity. Increased production of healthy food translates into greater food  security by providing more diverse food options at reduced prices. This is an important link in offering a lifeline for populations vulnerable to hunger, malnutrition and food deserts.

Many of our underserved communities face food insecurity and lack access to healthy, fresh food. As a result, these individuals are at an increased risk of developing diet-related health problems, such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Malnutrition can negatively impact children, who need a balanced diet to  grow and develop properly. Food insecurity can also lead to increased stress, anxiety and depression, harming a person’s overall well-being.

Food Safety and Environmental Benefits

Decades of research show soil fumigants like 1,3-D do not leave any residues in the soil, and there are no residues in the crop itself. 1,3-D will never be listed on the activist’s “Dirty Dozen” list, as it simply cannot occur. 1,3-D and other soil fumigants are exempt from requiring residue tolerances, and U.S. EPA  considers all soil fumigants to essentially be “non-food uses.”

Recently, studies have been completed on yield differences resulting from the resource utilization of fumigated versus untreated crops, assuming all resources (water, fuel, etc.) remain the same, whether the crop is fumigated or not. For onions, as an example, due to the yield increase on fumigated ground, the fumigated ground (1,3-D + chloropicrin) produces the same 100 lbs of onions as untreated ground but uses 30% fewer gallons of water, 30% less fertilizer, 30% less in-season pesticides and 30% less farm fuel (diesel and gasoline) than the untreated ground. This demonstrates why, when growers are making crop and soil  health decisions, fumigants are not only a tool for financial and agronomic sustainability but also for a farm’s environmental sustainability.

Concerns Regarding Fumigants

In California, fumigants have become a controversial class of pesticide products. For anti-pesticide and environmental justice activists, nothing short of a  complete ban of fumigants will suffice. Why? There have been incidents involving  fumigants in the past. Fumigants are gaseous and volatile, which means they can

disperse into the atmosphere. If not applied properly, they can linger in the air or drift off-site, posing a risk to workers and bystanders. Exposure can result in nausea, vomiting, or even hospitalization for acute poisoning.

Historic Concerns

Fortunately, actual incidents have been few and far between, and the most quoted fumigant incidents occurred over 20 years ago. While there hasn’t been an actual fumigant drift incident that has impacted workers or communities  in decades, we cannot negate the oral memories of those who were affected or whose family members were impacted by a fumigant drift incident in the past.

Those memories are now part of the collective memory of these agricultural worker communities.

Agriculture should be sensitive to the impact of those shared memories on communities, but we should also be conscious of, and ready to share, the resulting regulatory safety changes that arose from those incidents.

No state in the U.S. has the level of regulation and professional requirements that California  does.

Applicators must be vigilant in their handling of fumigant products to prevent exposure or drift incidents, or they face the consequences of the highest  fines in the country, along with a potential inability to continue operating.

Fumigant applications in California require specialized equipment, specially  licensed PCA professionals on-site, specific respiratory equipment, advance  application review and approval by an Agricultural Commissioner, advance notification to surrounding residences, field posting and state and federal- mandated re-entry periods. All these provisions have contributed to the elimination of fumigant drift incidents.

Current Concerns

While historically, concerns about fumigants were driven by direct exposure drift incidents, today they focus on long-term exposure. This shift is partially due to improved science and monitoring programs that allow for more precise estimations of acute, chronic and sub-chronic exposure levels of fumigants. However, understanding how this data translates into actual risk often requires a  higher level of scientific understanding than most California communities have access to. This lack of understanding has resulted in concerns and fear about risk  within communities.

DPR recently, to the chagrin of many anti-pesticide groups, released its scientifically validated Air Monitoring Program results for 2023. The results found  95% of all pesticides monitored had no or trace pesticide detections. While three fumigants did have detections, none of them reached DPR’s very conservative acute, chronic and sub-chronic health screening levels. This should be good news, but unfortunately, for those who do not have access to objective scientific analysis, it is very difficult to understand. And for some activist groups, evidence that fumigant exposures are not contributing to short or long-term health risks will not satisfy their political agendas, so it will not be reported.

As we started off, in its efforts to address community concerns about the potential long-term health impacts, DPR is promulgating new use regulations for 1,3-D. The proposal is a “joint” recommendation of DPR and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). I use “joint” loosely as virtually all the recommendations are OEHHA’s recommendations for long-term  exposure limits. Even though these are OEHHA’s recommendations, sadly, they will do little to appease those groups who will only be satisfied with a ban. We can already hear those groups ramping up new talking points based on fear and  misinformation.

So where do we go from here? Western Plant Health Association will be at the hearings speaking to our commitment to the health and safety of our workers and communities, and California agriculture’s responsibility to feed our citizens and the world. We hope others will also brave the storm of activist opposition and encourage DPR to consider the need for the product, the current safety protocols and findings, and to ask for the continued use of fumigants until actual, viable alternatives are registered  and available.