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As we head into the holidays, I wanted to step back from the daily news cycle and share a more personal reflection — one rooted in the reporting I worked on this year and what it revealed about why the work that thousands of people do across the organic industry truly matters.
Over the past few months, I reported on two deeply troubling stories out of Watsonville, California: first, protests urging Driscoll’s — which sells products under conventional and organic labels — to stop spraying toxic pesticides on fields next to schools in Watsonville and convert these farms to organic; second, a subsequent hunger strike by community members to call even further attention to this matter.
While researching those stories, I learned about a California government pesticide notification website called SprayDays, where the public can get email and text alerts when spraying occurs.
Out of curiosity, I entered the address of 90 Hillcrest Road in Watsonville into SprayDays on September 17, and for four weeks, I received email alerts warning of pesticide applications near that location. (The service stopped sending me alerts on October 16 — either because the website was no longer functioning or the spraying season was over.)
What I received over that month was deeply unsettling.
Approximately six days per week — and quite often, multiple times per day — I was notified that extremely toxic pesticides were being sprayed nearby. The same three chemicals appeared again and again:
— 1,3 Dichloroproprene (banned in 34 countries, probable human carcinogen, tiny exposure over time can cause nose damage, respiratory issues and increased cancer risk)
— Chloropicrin (has been used as a warfare agent, can cause significant respiratory tract injuries)
— Methomyl (categorized as highly to moderately toxic and can cause nausea, confusion, dizziness, and, at very high exposures, respiratory paralysis and death)
Even though I was not physically at 90 Hillcrest Road, reading those emails was infuriating and impossible to ignore. I kept thinking about the innocent people who were subjected to this daily barrage of extremely toxic chemicals, drifting through the air near homes, schools and playgrounds, and the grave health problems that may very well await them.
This experience gave me a visceral understanding of what many of the residents in Watsonville — and so many other agricultural communities — must contend with on a daily basis. It also reframed, in the starkest possible way, the endless online debates where organic is dismissed as a “marketing scheme” or a lifestyle affectation by influencers who have never stood downwind of a fumigated field.
For people who don’t live near these farms, pesticide exposure is an abstraction. For those who do, it’s a tangible and bodily reality.
Organic, at its core, is not about virtue signaling or premium branding.
It’s about protecting children who go to school next to sprayed fields. It’s about farmworkers and families who breathe this air year after year. It’s about choosing a food system that doesn’t normalize collateral damage.
Receiving those SprayDays alerts changed how I understand this work. It reaffirmed why organic matters — and why telling these stories matters.
As we step into the holidays, I hope this reflection gives pause. Because organic isn’t just about what’s on our plates. It’s about the kind of world we’re willing to accept — and the one we’re still fighting to build.
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With gratitude, 
Max Goldberg, Founder |
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