SALINAS — The use of pesticides in the Pajaro Valley has drawn further scrutiny in recent months, especially with various demonstrations and the efforts of a 30-day hunger strike by local activists.
A study by the UC Berkeley Center for Environmental Research and Environmental Health published in the peer-reviewed online journal BMC Public Health Tuesday delivered a new statistic. It found that while the overall amount of organophosphate pesticide use in California decreased between 2016 and 2021, the amount of pregnant people living within 1 kilometer of fields that use organophosphate pesticides was at 7.5%.
Monterey County had the highest percentage of births in 2021 from those who lived within that 1-kilometer radius at 50%, but Santa Cruz County was not far behind at 29%, making it the county with the fourth largest proportion of people who gave birth that year, despite close proximity to fields that used organophosphate materials.
Californians for Pesticide Reform hosted a press conference outside the Monterey County Government Center in Salinas Tuesday, which went over the results of the study and called upon the state to discontinue use of all organophosphates.
The study calculated the absolute change in the use of agricultural organophosphate pesticides in California between 2016 and 2021, taking into account the state’s 2020 ban on chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate insecticide that was commonly used in California until it was banned due to its link to children’s developmental disabilities.
Santa Cruz County was ranked fourth behind the other Central Coast counties of Monterey, Santa Barbara and San Benito. Between 2021 and 2023, 38,287 pounds of organophosphates were recorded, the largest of which was malathion at 26,528 pounds. The study found large disparities in race and ethnicity, age and region with Latino and younger residents as well as those living along the predominantly agricultural Central Coast more likely to live near fields that apply organophosphates. The report’s authors argued that this close proximity could result in adverse epidemiological impacts among children, including higher rates of developmental disabilities and lower intelligence quotients.
Victor Torres, co-founder of Future Leaders Of Change and a member of Safe Ag Safe Schools, served as emcee for Tuesday’s rally. He said organophosphates have been a serious health concern for generations, citing their origins in Germany during World War II where the initial chemicals were created for use in the Nazis’ gas chambers.
Several local health care workers spoke, including Kathleen Kilpatrick, a retired nurse with the Pajaro Valley Unified School District. She said she witnessed different kinds of health issues among students, including asthma and cancer, but also developmental disabilities.
“The kids I heard most about from teachers were those who struggled to learn, couldn’t sit still or control their impulses who made learning hard for the other students,” she said. “We wanted those kids to get help, which often meant a referral for special education.”
Kilpatrick said California should phase out all organophosphates.
“Alternative methods are already available and in use,” she said. “Monterey and Santa Cruz County have a rich heritage with successful organic farming, small to large, at school to highly innovative. We can grow better food without (organophosphates).”
Watsonville activist Omar Dieguez, speaking on the last day of his 30-day hunger strike to urge agricultural businesses in the Pajaro Valley to go fully organic, said he was inspired by labor activist Cesar Chavez’s 36-day hunger strike in 1988 to protest pesticides. Dieguez quoted Chavez’s equation of farmers with canaries in coal mines: “Farmworkers are society’s canaries.”
“Farmworkers and their children demonstrate the effects of pesticide poisoning before anyone else,” said Dieguez. “This report released today reminds us of the significance and the truth of Cesar’s words more than 35 years after he said them.”
Former state Sen. Bill Monning, who represented Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, said the study reinforced his longtime feelings on organophosphates.
“We don’t need any more studies to confirm that organophosphates are dangerous, and they’re particularly dangerous to pregnant women, women of child-bearing age, schoolchildren and rural residents,” he said. “That’s been proven.”
Monning said community efforts can often lead to big changes, citing Monterey County’s enactment of posting signs outside fields that use pesticides back in 1981.
“No change ever comes without struggle,” he said. “This force that you’ve organized is a powerful force. Don’t ever forget it.”
Juan Hidalgo, Monterey County agricultural commissioner, responded to the study in a statement emphasizing that his office will continue to ensure that growers follow all statewide pesticide requirements including additional regulatory requirements from scientific data by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation to ensure pesticides are used safely and effectively. He also noted the department’s air monitoring station in Pajaro found no detections of certain organophosphates — namely acephate and bensulide — and only trace detections of malathion in 2023.
“Ensuring that growers follow all pesticide use laws and regulations including pesticide label restrictions and application methods for safe and effective use is a role my office takes seriously,” he wrote. “California continues to be a leader in finding alternative solutions to some of the more toxic products used to control detrimental pests in agriculture and in the past two decades our growers have made significant changes through the continual adoption of least toxic chemistries but work in this area continues.”
Hidalgo also cited Assembly Bill 2113, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2024, as legislation that could expedite registration of pesticide alternatives but wrote that this work “takes time.”