Opponents urge ending CDFA's moth-control campaign

By WES SANDER
Capital Press

SACRAMENTO -- State Sen. Dean Florez, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said he will likely introduce legislation soon to restrict how the state addresses the light brown apple moth.

Florez, D-Shafter, conducted a March 23 hearing to collect testimony on the California Department Food and Agriculture's environmental impact report on its program for controlling the pest.

Since completing the report, the state has shifted its goal from eradicating the moth to simply controlling it. The state has also given up aerial spraying, which many coast-area residents say has caused serious impacts to human health.

The moth is known to exist in 16 California counties. Researchers say eradication over such a wide area is impossible, and many urge the state end its LBAM program, saying natural controls keep the pest sufficiently in check.

Researchers, organic farmers and coast-region residents filled the room for the nearly four-hour hearing and applauded when Florez mentioned legislation.

Florez said he wants "closure" on the issue, hoping to ensure that CDFA does not return to aerial-spraying techniques before he leaves office. Florez's term in the Senate expires this year.

Organic farmers, several of whom testified, fear the potential loss of organic certifications as a result of their commodities being contaminated with LBAM-fighting chemicals.

Chris Mittelstaedt, founder of The Fruit Guys, a San Francisco-based supplier of small-farm produce, said moth quarantines are also contributing to a trade imbalance.

In response to quarantine restrictions, buyers often import produce from countries, including New Zealand, that have no quarantine rules despite LBAM having long existed there, Mittelstaedt said.

USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service recently denied petitions to remove LBAM from its list of quarantine pests. Critics contend the moth has yet to cause any significant crop damage. CDFA describes only the potential for moth damage.

"CDFA has refused to listen to the science, or at least have a discussion of the validity of the science," said Paul Gutierrez, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley, at the hearing.

In early 2009, APHIS commissioned a review by the National Academy of Sciences, which confirmed in September that LBAM should be treated as an invasive insect that poses major damage potential.