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The pesticides we use are highly regulated. First of all, anytime we make an application
on our ranches it has to be recommended by a qualified individual. The application is
then made and is recorded at the county ad commissioner's office.
We abide by - have to abide by all the label information in terms of what time needs to
pass for a worker or anyone can re-enter the field, as well as a pre-harvest interval in
terms of how much time must pass before the field is harvested.
We follow this to a tee and in many cases much more time passes in terms of the pre-harvest
interval before we actually harvest the crop. This is all public knowledge, public records.
Anyone at any time can go and pull the records of a certain field, look at the chemicals
that were applied there. Again, the chemicals are heavily regulated
by both state, local state and even federal agencies.
One other, I think, misunderstanding is that in conventionally-grown produce there's always
multiple chemical applications, pesticide applications. And it's really not the case.
There are some crops - depending on the time of year, and the level of pest pressure that
we have, where we don't apply pesticides at all.
We grow a lot of cauliflower, celery and even some of the lettuces in the early spring,
early summer months with little to zero pesticide applications at all. And these are conventionally-grown
vegetables.