California targets farm pollution

California, the most populous U. S. state, is planning strict and costly rules on pesticide use on farms, it was reported on Friday.

The state will crack down on use of fumigants in farm fields to comply with a court-ordered deadline to combat smog, the Los Angeles Times said.

The rules will be the most costly pesticide regulation in the state history, said the paper.

Under the proposed regulation, California will be the first state in the nation to target the widely used chemicals, imposing statewide restrictions on how fumigants are applied as well as limits on use in three farming regions, according to the paper.

Growers of strawberries, carrots, tomatoes and peppers will bear the brunt of "extremely high cost estimated at 10 million to 40 million dollars a year," said the paper.

The regulation will force some farmers to pull thousands of acres out of production to meet the smog targets, said the paper.

"We are very concerned about the cost of the regulation," Rick Tomlinson, director of public policy for the California Strawberry Commission, was quoted as saying. The group represents the state's strawberry growers, who produce almost 90 percent of the nation's crop.

Mary Ann Warmerdam, director of the state Department of Pesticide Regulation, said her agency "will do everything we can to keep California farms producing while we take these necessary steps to clean up our air."

Fumigants are poisonous gases that are injected into fields before planting to sterilize the soil, killing insects, weeds and diseases. When they evaporate from the soil, smog-causing gases waft into the air.

The proposed rules, expected to go into effect by the end of the year, will "fundamentally change the way agriculture uses this class of materials," Warmerdam said.

"This gives us a fighting chance to meet our obligations under a federal court order. At the end of the day, that's what we're looking for, to meet our obligation to improve air quality in California," she said.

Source: Xinhua