In lots of elements of the nation, summer time is the right time to purchase strawberries proper from the farm. You will discover native growers by way of the Actual Natural Mission listing or our Regenerative Farm Map.
However what in regards to the strawberries you discover on the grocery retailer?
Most of them come from Driscoll’s, the biggest berry firm on the earth. Neighboring communities, clean-food activists, and a whistleblower from inside the corporate say Driscoll’s berries are grown with out soil in an extreme quantity of plastic, handled with pesticides utilized above authorized limits, and carrying residues of poisons together with PFAS “ceaselessly chemical substances” and microplastics.
Omar Dieguez and Adam Scow of the Marketing campaign for Natural and Regenerative Agriculture dwell in Watsonville, California, the place Driscoll’s is headquartered. OCA’s Alexis Baden-Mayer spoke with them for Regeneration Worldwide’s 2025 Folks’s Meals Summit. Omar had simply come off a month-long starvation strike, urgent Driscoll’s to maneuver the fields subsequent to colleges to natural. Almost a yr later, the corporate nonetheless hasn’t accomplished it.
The Households who Reside Beside the Fields
The households who dwell and ship their youngsters to highschool beside Driscoll’s fields deserve to lift them in security. Driscoll’s berries are grown with pesticides that researchers hyperlink to most cancers and to hurt in youngsters’s creating brains.
Ernestina Solorio has labored within the Santa Cruz County berry fields since 1993. “I didn’t know what I used to be being uncovered to whereas I used to be pregnant and dealing,” she instructed Santa Cruz Native. “If I had recognized, I by no means would have accomplished it, as a result of my youngsters are struggling the implications.” Two of her 4 youngsters, now youngsters, dwell with ADHD, studying difficulties, and melancholy, and are, in her phrases, “always going to medical appointments with counselors and psychologists.” “The reality is that it’s been very onerous,” she mentioned.
Researchers have linked pesticide publicity throughout being pregnant to a spread of harms in youngsters, together with decrease cognition, untimely delivery, autism spectrum dysfunction, and ADHD.
Santa Cruz County has one of many highest childhood most cancers charges in California. Dr. Valerie Bengal, a doctor who has practiced within the area for 4 a long time, factors to Nationwide Most cancers Institute information for 2017 to 2021 exhibiting the county’s fee at 22.5 childhood cancers per 100,000 youngsters, about 38 p.c above the state’s general fee of 16.3, the second-highest of any county. She calls pesticides a possible contributor. The county’s personal childhood most cancers research urges warning, noting that with a illness this uncommon, variations will be onerous to separate from statistical variation, and nobody has traced the county’s fee to a single trigger.
One pesticide of explicit concern in strawberry nation is 1,3-D (1,3-dichloropropene), a chlorinated soil fumigant used extensively on strawberries to kill nematodes earlier than planting. It’s banned in additional than 30 international locations, listed as a carcinogen beneath California’s Proposition 65, and thought of “moderately anticipated to be a human carcinogen” by the U.S. Nationwide Toxicology Program. Moreover, in 2024, Inside Local weather Information reported that “impartial researchers have proven [the fumigant] damages DNA in cells and lab animals, and [is] linked to most cancers and respiratory issues, together with bronchial asthma, in people.”
A Whistleblower and Unbiased Testing
David Harada, Driscoll’s former Supervisor of Meals Security and Regulatory Compliance for the USA and Canada, filed a whistleblower lawsuit in June 2026 alleging that for years the corporate utilized pesticides above authorized limits after which anticipated him to assist conceal it. Based on the lawsuit, Canadian food-safety officers repeatedly flagged extreme pesticide residues on Driscoll’s strawberries, and in April 2025 the FDA despatched the corporate two separate notices about folks getting sick from consuming its produce. Driscoll’s denies the allegations and says it operates in full compliance with the regulation.
Unbiased testing commissioned by the patron group Mamavation discovered that Driscoll’s non-organic strawberries contained residues of 12 completely different pesticides at ranges prohibited within the European Union, Taiwan, Chile, Korea, and Russia. Eight of these are fluorinated pesticides that qualify as PFAS “ceaselessly chemical substances.” They accumulate in our our bodies and are related to most cancers, reproductive issues, developmental delays, and immune suppression. These ranges fall inside US limits, which is the center of the issue: the US nonetheless permits what different international locations have judged unsafe.
Driscoll’s Natural… Not the Reply
Driscoll’s natural berries are usually not an excellent different both. Federal natural regulation, the Natural Meals Manufacturing Act, is constructed round soil: an natural plan should “foster soil fertility by way of the administration of the natural content material of the soil.” That’s the reason OCA helps the Actual Natural Mission, whose customary requires crops to develop in residing soil, not hydroponics or plastic containers. Driscoll’s grows even its natural berries with out soil, in giant quantities of plastic. They’ve lobbied the Nationwide Natural Requirements Board to maintain soilless rising eligible for the natural label.
The plastic doesn’t keep within the fields. Analysis on strawberries grown with plastic mulch has discovered microplastics on the fruit, and a 2026 research confirmed the particles can cross immediately into strawberry tissue.
One other Argument In opposition to Driscoll’s Natural
Natural certification speaks to the soil, however it says nothing in regards to the individuals who plant and decide the fruit. In a 2024 article for the Natural Shoppers Affiliation, Alexis Baden-Mayer wrote:
“The Mexico Solidarity Mission warns towards shopping for Driscoll’s berries, even when they’re licensed Honest Commerce. In 2015, tens of 1000’s of Driscoll’s farm staff went on strike for 3 months. They did win some calls for, however situations rapidly reverted to “regular.” Later that yr, SINDJA (Sindicato Independiente Nacional Democrática de Jornaleros Agrícolas) was fashioned. A groundbreaking “Boycott Driscoll” marketing campaign stretched throughout borders, from San Quintín to Washington state. Farmworkers in Washington state received a historic contract on a farm promoting to Driscoll’s — however SINDJA stays with no contract. It was after that strike that Driscoll sought a partnership with Honest Commerce U.S.A. to restore its public picture and stop future disruptions to its operations.”
What We Can Do
The excellent news is that we are able to all skip the plasticberries. You will discover natural strawberries grown by actual farmers in wholesome, residing soil by way of the Actual Natural Mission listing and our Regenerative Farm Map.
And Driscoll’s can do higher. It has the means to do proper by the households beside its fields and by the land itself. It ought to transition all of its farms to genuinely natural, soil-grown manufacturing and certify its berries to Actual Natural Mission requirements.
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