I grew up, and still currently live, right in the middle of strawberry-land (South San Luis Obispo and North Santa Barbara counties). I grew up in Oceano, which

I grew up, and still currently live, right in the middle of strawberry-land (South San Luis Obispo and North Santa Barbara counties). I grew up in Oceano, which has a lot of strawberry fields and migrant farm workers (I went to one of the few bilingual elementary schools at the time). A few observations/anecdotes related to strawberries and pesticides: - The strawberry "season" here is now much longer. It used to be that in early April all the local farms would open their roadside stands within a week of each other. They would all shut down around the same time too. Many of them now open in February or March and sell strawberries into early Fall. - The strawberries now look and taste different than they did when I was a kid (i.e. the 1980s). They used to be smaller, sweeter and red all the way through. The strawberries you get now are often white inside (unripe?), less sweet and much larger. There is one local farm [1] whose strawberries are so big it's freaky. - Some friends of mine lived in a neighborhood surrounded by strawberry and other other produce fields. Frequent dust, migraines and illness forced them to sell their house and move to another part of the county. Purely anecdotal of course but they are convinced pesticides were partly to blame. [1] https://www.facebook.com/pages/Okui-Strawberry-and-Fruit-Stand/151691566787 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Okui-Strawberry-and-Fruit-Sta...