Midas or methyl iodide is used to kill every living thing in the soil to prepare the ground to grow strawberries and peppers, tomatoes, even roses. “The first commercial applications of MIDAS soil fumigant in California began in Fresno County, in May, 2011. To date since its federal registration as a pesticide, more than 17,000 acres of soil used for growing crops have been treated in the United States without a single reported safety or health incident.” This from Wikipedia. “Soils treated with methyl iodide are completely free of the compound before crops are planted, and to date neither the U.S. EPA nor the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (agencies that routinely conduct pesticide residue testing of fruit and produce) have found any detectable quantity of methyl iodide in the food supply from fruit and produce grown in methyl iodide-treated soils, nor have they detected any other soil fumigant product.”

Under “strict conditions” means workers wearing hazmat suits. Although the soil is covered with plastic tarps, the chemical evaporates in the air and leaches into the soil. Can you see these “strict conditions” being bent a little under the pressure of getting a paying crop in the ground? Can you see a newly hired farmworker being given instructions and ending up confused?  Or a farmer being in a hurry?

Pesticide giant Arysta LifeScience is the largest agrochemical company in the world and manufacturer of methyl iodide. Methyl iodide is hardly one of those benign compounds that a graduate student can cook up in the lab.

There’s big money in it for Arysta LifeScience. There’s profit in it for strawberry farmers who saw the previous chemical, a cousin of methyl iodide, banned because it directly contributed to the hole in the ozone. Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032173_strawberries_pesticides.html#ixzz1VfxG6J7E

Arysta LifeScience Corporation is “focused on helping our customers cultivate business growth through the development, marketing and distribution of innovative, high-quality chemical solutions for today’s dynamic agroscience and health & nutrition science marketplace…. With a focus on emerging countries and niche markets, Arysta LifeScience manages a portfolio of more than 150 products.”

Methyl iodide apparently doesn’t linger on the fruit, they say. It evaporates quickly and remains in the air for 12 days. Who’s most directly affected then?

Farmworkers, of course. And farmers. Anybody living close to the fields. Anybody eating strawberries imported from Mexico and the other countries our produce comes from.  It’s legal there. California’s $2 billion strawberry industry last year produced nearly 90 percent of the nation’s strawberries on over 37,000 acres.  Farmworkers, community advocates,  environmental health organizations are fighting back but now it’s an uphill fight.

And a strawberry farmer can lose a whole field to organisms in the soil. What’s the farmer to do? He has a right to make a living. I pose this question to you: What’s a farmer to do?  Got any ideas? Organic, you say? Takes a long time to go organic, and a lot of expense. Not everybody’s a believer. Not everybody can afford organic.

There’s a group called Pesticide Action Network and a Safe Strawberry campaign. I’m keeping an eye on them because I can’t find any published resources that tells me about what action Governor Brown is taking. If you’re concerned about strawberries, why don’t you help these organizations out?

Despite the 2010 LA Times report of the chemical safety of methyl bromide  “There’s no methyl iodide risk in eating strawberries that were grown in treated fields, according to EPA and DPR assessments. Tests have shown that no residual methyl iodide exists on the fruit.”  Don’t the cancers associated with methyl iodide take a long time to develop?  More than a year?

I’m not comforted knowing that: “According to data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as many as 54 pesticides have been found on American strawberries, although rarely at levels above what the EPA considers safe. The Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group, ranks strawberries as one of the three worst fruits and vegetables with regard to pesticide exposure. (Peaches and apples tied for second, followed by celery.)”

A thorough explanation of methyl bromide’s properties and toxicity may be found at  I invite you to read it. It’s licensed in 47 other states, except WA and NY.

So what are we to believe? Corporate scientists? Government scientists? Environmental groups? Organic grower scientists? There are a bewildering number of views. I always try to find out who’s paying the scientist’s salaries, directly or indirectly.  Indirectly mean receiving grant funds and consulting fees. These income supports are not insignificant.

The EPA approved the chemical in 2007  in the last days of the Bush Administration over the voiced concerns of 54 scientists, most members of the National Academy of Sciences and including six Nobel Laureates in Chemistry. You think they’re a bunch of dummies?

Mary-Ann Warmerdam headed the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.  She was “confident that with the health protective measures that we have put in place, that it can be used safely in California.” Interesting that Warmerdam resigned shortly after leading the charge to approve the chemical. The Federal EPA approved Midas in the last days of the Bush administration.  Same with Schwarzenegger and now Warmerden?  She’s off to work for Clorox. I don’t want to know what Schwarzenegger’s doing. Bush? Take a guess.

Après nous, le déluge, a remark attributed to Louis XIV foreseeing the last days of the French monarchy and the Revolution.

Gov. Jerry Brown has said his administration would take “a fresh look” at methyl iodide. Well, so far it seems he’s still looking.

With the crazy swings of the stock market and bad news everywhere, and this lethal chemical in use probably more than we know, I would be far from the first one to pick and chose carefully about what I eat and drink.

I’m buying organic strawberries that are twice as expensive and, I think, safe to eat from Abundant Harvest Organics.  

Besides the commercially-grown strawberries taste like cardboard anyway.