Friday, March 21, 2008

Ag Council Leadership

At our recent annual meeting at the Silverado Resort, Don McKinney, a farmer and current chairman of Central California Almond Growers Association was elected as the Council’s new chairman of the board for 2008-2009.

The other officers include:

• Mike Emigh, Valley Fig Growers – Vice Chairman
• Jon Marthedal, Sun-Maid Growers of California – Vice Chairman
• Rich Hudgins, California Canning Peach Association- Vice Chairman
• Mike Wootton, Sunkist Growers – Immediate Past Chairman

The other newly elected board members include:

• Chris Ambuul, Calavo Growers
• Carl Hoff, Butte County Rice Growers
• Susan Brauner, Blue Diamond Growers
• Jeana Hultquist U.S. AgBank
• Nat DiBuduo, Allied Grape Growers
• Bill Knox, Fruit Growers Supply
• Chris Doherty, Cal/West Seeds
• Steven Krikava, Land O’Lakes
• Bill Ferriera, Apricot Producers of California
• Mark Nonnenmacher, CoBank
• Brendon Flynn, Sunsweet Growers
• Ross Siragusa, Ca. Tomato Growers
• Steve Freeman, Pacific Coast Producers
• Bert Steir, Cal-Pure Pistachios
• Glen Goto, Raisin Bargaining Association
  

New Sunkist CEO Named

The Board of Directors of Sunkist Growers unanimously elected Russell L. Hanlin, executive vice president, to assume the office of president and chief executive officer on November 1, 2008, when current President and CEO Timothy J. Lindgren retires. In making the announcement Sunkist Board Chairman, Nick Bozick, stated:

“After two years of exceptional service, President Tim Lindgren has announced his plan to retire this October. We are fortunate that Tim was available to lead at Sunkist at a challenging time in our business. During his tenure, we not only weathered a freeze, we also realigned our operations to drive greater returns to our growers at lower costs.

We are also fortunate to have in place the right individual to assume the presidency when President Lindgren retires. Russ Hanlin, a 30-year veteran of Sunkist, is currently the Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing. Russ knows Sunkist. He has experience in every aspect of our sales and marketing operations. He also knows citrus. His expertise has made him a valued participant in industry groups.”

The LBAM Saga Continues

This week was the Legislature’s Spring Recess, so it’s been relatively quiet in the capitol. When lawmakers return Monday, the “floodgates” will definitely be open! In the meantime the controversy over the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) eradication project continues to mount. One of the “Achilles’ heels” of the project is the lack of credible human health studies examining the aerial application of pheromones over a widespread and densely populated urban region. Unless good data is provided fairly soon, the Department of Food & Agriculture could be severely hamstrung in carrying out a full scale eradication project. The following concerns were excerpted from a lengthy, but very thoughtful email to the Grower Shipper Association of the Central Coast in response to a news article. It was sent by a Harvard educated resident of Pacific Grove, who along with his wife, got sick immediately following the aerial spraying of the Monterey Peninsula last fall. He makes several points that underscore the basis for the opposition:

First, the complex chemicals being sprayed on California cities are classified as pesticides and have not been tested for their short- or long-term health effects on human beings, making this an experiment on people without their informed consent, violating internationally accepted standards of conduct such as the Nuremberg Code

Second, last fall, prior to aerial spraying the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas, state officials promised citizens the spraying would be safe. However, more than 600 people complained of getting sick, sometimes severally sick and requiring emergency room intervention. One 11-month old boy almost died of respiratory failure after his neighborhood was sprayed. He now has asthma. There were hundreds of other heartbreaking stories, too, as you can read in the attached PDF of first-person health complaints. Symptoms included muscle aches, chest pains, dizziness, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, body rashes and eye irritation, among other symptoms.

Third, the USDA, CDFA and pesticide manufacturer only reluctantly disclosed the ingredients in just one of the two spray solutions used last fall, and once the ingredients were disclosed, citizens learned that they included several known toxins that could have caused symptoms like those people suffered - even though California officials said the spray was applied at low concentrations and should not have caused harm.

Fourth, public interest groups in Santa Cruz and Monterey believe the 643 complaints received so far are just the tip of the iceberg because CDFA representatives repeatedly told citizens the pesticides would be harmless; therefore people did not link their adverse symptoms to the aerial sprayings. Also, there was no single, well publicized system for collecting complaints; instead, citizen groups had to fill the gap in a grassroots, word-of-mouth manner. And local doctors said they had not been notified or trained to recognize pesticide-related illnesses potentially caused by the aerial spraying.

The aerial spraying is now set to resume in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas and expand to the San Francisco Bay area, where it will impact millions of lives. That is the fifth reason citizens are concerned: many more people could be harmed if they are sprayed with similar chemicals (cities to be sprayed include San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Sausalito and other parts of Marin).

Sixth, citizens are concerned because this experiment on people's health could go on for the next three years, and maybe longer, with aerial spraying occurring every 30-90 days, according to USDA and CDFA estimates.

Finally, citizens are concerned because respected scientists at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, US Santa Cruz and other schools have cast doubt on whether the USDA-CDFA eradication program is even necessary, and whether it can ever be effective. They say the apple moth has likely been in California for decades without causing any damage because it is already being held in check by natural predators, and the moth is so dispersed and established that the eradication campaign is futile. People are possibly being put at risk for no good reason.

There you have it! Are these points valid? Maybe…maybe not. Nonetheless, I bet they’re very reflective of the deeply felt concerns and fears of a significant number of people living in the eradication zones. So, we better quickly address each point with credible information, or the LBAM project will soon be in serious jeopardy.