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Time for a Change: Pesticides & Wine Grapes in Sonoma & Napa Counties, CA (1997)
Introduction - Time for a Change
An expanding wine industry and a consequent tourist boom in the vineyards have combined in recent years to make a heady economic mix in northern California's Napa and Sonoma counties. But each day new questions arise about a little-discussed ingredient: pesticides.
Definitive answers often aren't available. Monitoring the trail of pesticides in the environment is difficult and prohibitively expensive for individuals and even community groups. The same is true for monitoring the residues and effects of pesticides in our bodies, even though these chemicals have been designed specifically to wreak havoc with biological functions. Nevertheless less, pesticides have been shown by vast amounts of research and innumerable actual experiences to affect organisms far beyond the target species.
Some pesticides have demonsrated an ability to cause cancer, birth defects, nerve damage or other serious health problems, but still remain on the market and are commonly used. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars of annual expenditures, pesticide regulatory agencies often fail to protect public health and the environment and instead provide a veneer of legitimacy to ever-increasing volumes of pesticide use. There is no better example that the continued high use of the deadly vineyard pesticide, methyl bromide, which continues to be allowed by regulatory agencies -- with approval from elected officials -- in California.
Scientific research is gradually unveiling the secret hazards of pesticides. Although conclusive answers about the effects of exposures are usually going to be found only in extreme poisoning cases, it's clear that pesticides constitute a great hazard to health and the environment and should be used only when all else fails.
Unfortunately, as this report reveals, most wine grape growers in Sonoma and Napa overly rely on pesticides. That such heavy use is unnecessary can be seen in the example of successful growers who have learned to grow equal or better crops with little or no chemical input -- and are spending less money to do so.
Grapes grown in Sonoma and Napa counties are one of the highest value crops in California, and they earn more than those from other premium wine grape regions in the state. Wines make from these grapes command international respect, and the region enjoys economic benefits not only in sale of wines but also in the reflected glory that all the attention brings.
Capitalizing on the beauty of the Sonoma and Napa countryside, industry advertising has fostered a myth that wine grape growing is natural and benign. News stories about "sustainable viticulture" have beguiled the public into thinking that wine grape growing in Sonoma and Napa is environmentally friendly.
With few exception the myth is not true. But it could become so with relative ease IF growers launch an organized effort to replace chemical pest control with viable alternatives. This report was written to show that the world famous California premium wine grape industry is hooked on dangerous -- and largely unnecessary -- pesticides. Our hope is that change will follow knowledge.
