NAPLES DAILY NEWS

October 14, 2005

Plant City vegetable grower AgMart hit with record fine

By LAURA LAYDEN

A day after being cited for dozens of pesticide violations by the Florida Department of Agriculture, an Immokalee tomato grower said it would appeal.

Ag-Mart Produce Inc., based in Plant City, will challenge most of the alleged violations, which the state says happened at two farms in Immokalee and Jennings.

The agriculture department launched a probe into Ag-Mart in March after three families that worked for the company had children with birth defects. One baby was born without arms and legs. Another baby had a deformed jaw, and a third died a few days after birth and was so disfigured it was difficult to determine the sex.

In its investigation, the agriculture department worked closely with Collier County Health Department officials, who, on Wednesday, said pesticides unlikely were to blame for the abnormalities in the babies.

Still, Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson has filed two administrative complaints against Ag-Mart and four of its employees, alleging 88 counts of pesticide use violations. Bronson is seeking $111,200 in fines — the steepest in Florida for these types of violations.

"We don't believe that the violations as listed by the state, as brought by the state, are factually accurate," said David Sheon, a company spokesman.

He says the grower fully cooperated with the investigation and will continue to cooperate with any subsequent investigations.

Ag-Mart, also known as Santa Sweets Inc., has 21 days after Bronson filed the complaints to request an administrative hearing. If the company contests the alleged violations, a final decision would be made by an administrative law judge after hearing both sides of the case, said Terry McElroy, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture.

"It could take several months to resolve," he said.

Sheon said he's not sure when the appeal will be filed — just that it will be filed. The company is still reviewing the Department of Agriculture's report, he said.

"We've got a lot to do and a lot to read and we will certainly respond in due time," Sheon said.

He said the appeal would "address the re-entry interval issues" but declined to elaborate. The company is accused of harvesting crops anywhere from one day to five days after pesticide applications, despite a seven-day waiting time indicated on the label.

The four Ag-Mart employees cited by the department for violating pesticide laws are not facing punishment from the company, Sheon said. They are Warrick Birdwell, Charles Lambert, Justin Oelmann, and Josh Cantu.

"We don't believe that they did anything wrong," Sheon said.

The agriculture department's investigation also uncovered violations of worker protection standards. In one case, a worker did not wear protective eyewear while mixing a herbicide, the report said.

The department has fined other growers for pesticide violations, but never for as many counts as alleged in Bronson's complaints, McElroy said. In the investigation, the department spent months looking at company records, checking to see who worked when and interviewing the parents of the deformed babies.

Greg Schell, an attorney with the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project in Lake Worth, said if the department had interviewed more Ag-Mart workers, he's convinced it would have found more violations. A survey that his group conducted of about 80 workers at the company's northern Florida operations in Jennings found that 20 percent had been directly sprayed at that location and just under half had been exposed to pesticides through drift.

"Ag-Mart will tell you that it's a flawed survey," Schell said. "I'm not going to say that 20 percent of all workers are sprayed. What it told us is that there are a lot of people that have problems."

Schell said his organization has done similar surveys at other farms and they have not shown the same results. Recently, it completed a survey of workers at Six Ls Packing Co. in Immokalee. It showed very little exposure to pesticides, he said.

McElroy said the department didn't talk to more workers at Ag-Mart during its investigation because it wanted to correct any pesticide violations quickly.

"Believe me we will be back on these farms frequently because of these violations," he said.

Schell said he hopes the state holds firm on its fines.

"This is a precedent-setting move by the state," he said. "No we will probably not be satisfied but compared to their responses in the past it's night and day. If they follow through on this one and subsequent ones this could represent a sea change — a real change in the approach of the department."

Judith M. Hushon, president of Naples-based Chemical Consulting Associates, said she has evaluated some of the pesticides that workers may have been exposed to while working at Ag-Mart.

She was glad to see the company announce last month that it was doing away with five chemicals, including Monitor 4 and Penncozeb, which have tested positive for birth defects when used in high doses. But she's concerned about the pesticides that Ag-Mart still uses in its fields. She said some of the chemicals the company is using have not been adequately tested.

"What you don't know can hurt you," she said.

CropLife America, which represents the nation's pesticides industry, supports the actions the state has taken against Ag-Mart.

Officials with CropLife say there are adequate protections in place for farmworkers if pesticides are properly applied and that they are thoroughly tested to ensure their safety.

"Everyone working in the manufacture, distribution and use of pesticides has a responsibility to comply with regulatory requirements and product label instructions," said Jay Vroom, president and CEO of CropLife America, in a written statement. "Proper stewardship of these products is both a responsibility and a law. Used according to the label, our products are safe and beneficial."