We're right in the middle of our strawberry harvest at Terra Firma, picking boxes and boxes of ripe berries from our organic field. Less than a mile away, there is a specialized machine and a crew of workers in space suits applying the fumigant Methyl Bromide to a future strawberry field. No, it's not some corporate agribusiness obliberating the life of the soil with this substance, one of the most toxic known to humanity. It's the University of California, Davis. Our farm is located right next to their research ranch that is home to, among other things, the strawberry variety breeding program.
You might think that UC would be working hard on breeding strawberry varieties that don't require the use of methyl bromide, right? After all, it is an ozone destroying gas that is scheduled for prohibition by the EPA and which becoming less and less available for farmers to use. Shouldn't UC be leading the charge to find ways for growers to farm without it?
Nope. Instead, UC and USDA are breeding strawberry varieties whose performance and yield is actually dependent on the use of this chemical, which kills pathogens as well as beneficial microbes. Meanwhile, dozens of promising varieties for a future without methyl bromide are likely discarded every year. As an organic grower, I resent that my tax dollars as well as the licensing fees I pay to use UC varieties every year, are going to breed only plants that rely on a chemical that I cannot (and would never) use and which I think should be banned completely. Meanwhile, one of the best tasting berry varieties that we grow, Chandler, is highly susceptible to root diseases when grown in soil like ours that has not been fumigated.
Meanwhile, the world's biggest grower of both organic and conventional stawberrries grower, Driscoll, has full-time plant breeders busy creating proprietary varieties with built in disease resistance. They're not only doing this to improve their organic berry production, but because they know that MB is going to be banned sooner or later. When it does, they will be in an even better position to dominate the world's strawberry production. I don't expect them to do us any favors -- their varieties are only available to farms that sell exclusively to Driscolls. But I do expect the University of California to be providing me with a better alternative for me and for the planet.
