Excessive use of pesticides in the production of floricultural crops has been an issue for decades. While certainly not true when focusing on most individual growing operations, the industry as a whole is defined by its bad actors and the result is that the entire industry has a negative association with pesticide use. This seems to come to the fore and makes good press around Valentine’s Day.[1] Much of the focus on excess use of pesticides in cut flowers has been in South America (Stewart, 2007) and this has led to some harsh criticism of the industry (Donohue, 2008). However, there has been concern in California[2] as well, where approximately 80% of the cut flowers in the United States are produced. The negative aspects usually focus on the health and safety of farm workers, and historically the floriculture industry does not have a good track record. For example, data from 2003[3] indicate that almost 30% of all the incidents involving farm workers and pesticide residue exposure in California occurred in ornamental crops, and this ranked second among all agricultural crops produced in the state. Of course this information is close to 10 years old, so what is the situation today? In order to address this question accurately, pesticide use in greenhouse cut flowers needs to be examined in comparison to overall pesticide use in California agriculture. In addition, the changing size of floriculture industry over the past decade also needs to be considered.
Trends in Pesticide Use In California
In 1990, California became the first state to require full reporting of agricultural pesticide use. Growers were required to turn in monthly Pesticide Use Reporting forms to their County Agricultural Commissioner. The result has been a massive database (compiled and maintained by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation [CA DPR]). This allowed a comprehensive look/analysis of overall pesticide use in the state and these data can be examined by commodity, by pesticide, by county, etc. Of course there have been changes over the more than 20 years that these data have been collected. During the early years of data collection, ornamental production was not broken down into subcategories, so it was not possible to separate pesticide use in greenhouse cut flowers, for example, from pesticide use in field-grown nursery stock. This made an analysis of pesticide use in ornamental production more difficult. However, this has changed and by 2001 the categories were more clearly defined. Therefore a comprehensive look at pesticide use in greenhouse cut flower production really has to start in 2001.
From 2006 to 2009, overall pesticide use in California dropped and the state was very proud of this decline. However from 2009 to 2010, pesticide use increased by 9.5 % (15 million pounds active ingredient), [4] and in 2010, California used more than 173 million pounds of pesticide active ingredient. How did the cut flower industry contribute to these pesticide figures? Despite an increase in pesticide use across all of California crops in 2010, pesticide use in greenhouse cut flowers continued to decline (fig. 1). For some, this decline in pesticide use was not fast enough, but it is still positive and the cut flower industry needs to be recognized for this. In 2001, cut flowers ranked 49th among all agricultural commodities in terms of total pesticide use. By 2010, this rank had dropped to 82nd. (The farther down on this list you are as a commodity, the better.)
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