In many parts of the country, summer is the perfect time to buy strawberries right from the farm. You can find local growers through the Real Organic Project directory or our Regenerative Farm Map.
But what about the strawberries you find at the grocery store?
Most of them come from Driscoll’s, the largest berry company in the world. Neighboring communities, clean-food activists, and a whistleblower from inside the company say Driscoll’s berries are grown without soil in an excessive amount of plastic, treated with pesticides applied above legal limits, and carrying residues of toxins including PFAS “forever chemicals” and microplastics.
Omar Dieguez and Adam Scow of the Campaign for Organic and Regenerative Agriculture live in Watsonville, California, where Driscoll’s is headquartered. OCA’s Alexis Baden-Mayer spoke with them for Regeneration International’s 2025 People’s Food Summit. Omar had just come off a month-long hunger strike, pressing Driscoll’s to move the fields next to schools to organic. Nearly a year later, the company still hasn’t done it.
The Families who Live Beside the Fields
The families who live and send their children to school beside Driscoll’s fields deserve to raise them in safety. Driscoll’s berries are grown with pesticides that researchers link to cancer and to harm in children’s developing brains.
Ernestina Solorio has worked in the Santa Cruz County berry fields since 1993. “I didn’t know what I was being exposed to while I was pregnant and working,” she told Santa Cruz Local. “If I had known, I never would have done it, because my children are suffering the consequences.” Two of her four children, now teenagers, live with ADHD, learning difficulties, and depression, and are, in her words, “constantly going to medical appointments with counselors and psychologists.” “The truth is that it’s been very hard,” she said.
Researchers have linked pesticide exposure during pregnancy to a range of harms in children, including lower cognition, premature birth, autism spectrum disorder, and ADHD.
Santa Cruz County has one of the highest childhood cancer rates in California. Dr. Valerie Bengal, a physician who has practiced in the region for four decades, points to National Cancer Institute data for 2017 to 2021 showing the county’s rate at 22.5 childhood cancers per 100,000 children, about 38 percent above the state’s overall rate of 16.3, the second-highest of any county. She calls pesticides a likely contributor. The county’s own childhood cancer study urges caution, noting that with a disease this rare, differences can be hard to separate from statistical variation, and no one has traced the county’s rate to a single cause.
One pesticide of particular concern in strawberry country is 1,3-D (1,3-dichloropropene), a chlorinated soil fumigant used widely on strawberries to kill nematodes before planting. It is banned in more than 30 countries, listed as a carcinogen under California’s Proposition 65, and considered “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen” by the U.S. National Toxicology Program. Additionally, in 2024, Inside Climate News reported that “independent researchers have shown [the fumigant] damages DNA in cells and lab animals, and [is] linked to cancer and respiratory problems, including asthma, in humans.”
A Whistleblower and Independent Testing
David Harada, Driscoll’s former Manager of Food Safety and Regulatory Compliance for the United States and Canada, filed a whistleblower lawsuit in June 2026 alleging that for years the company applied pesticides above legal limits and then expected him to help conceal it. According to the lawsuit, Canadian food-safety officials repeatedly flagged excessive pesticide residues on Driscoll’s strawberries, and in April 2025 the FDA sent the company two separate notices about people getting sick from eating its produce. Driscoll’s denies the allegations and says it operates in full compliance with the law.
Independent testing commissioned by the consumer group Mamavation found that Driscoll’s non-organic strawberries contained residues of 12 different pesticides at levels prohibited in the European Union, Taiwan, Chile, Korea, and Russia. Eight of those are fluorinated pesticides that qualify as PFAS “forever chemicals.” They accumulate in our bodies and are associated with cancer, reproductive problems, developmental delays, and immune suppression. Those levels fall within US limits, which is the heart of the problem: the US still allows what other countries have judged unsafe.
Driscoll’s Organic… Not the Answer
Driscoll’s organic berries are not a good alternative either. Federal organic law, the Organic Foods Production Act, is built around soil: an organic plan must “foster soil fertility through the management of the organic content of the soil.” That is why OCA supports the Real Organic Project, whose standard requires crops to grow in living soil, not hydroponics or plastic containers. Driscoll’s grows even its organic berries without soil, in large amounts of plastic. They’ve lobbied the National Organic Standards Board to keep soilless growing eligible for the organic label.
The plastic doesn’t stay in the fields. Research on strawberries grown with plastic mulch has found microplastics on the fruit, and a 2026 study showed the particles can pass directly into strawberry tissue.
Another Argument Against Driscoll’s Organic
Organic certification speaks to the soil, but it says nothing about the people who plant and pick the fruit. In a 2024 article for the Organic Consumers Association, Alexis Baden-Mayer wrote:
“The Mexico Solidarity Project warns against buying Driscoll’s berries, even if they’re certified Fair Trade. In 2015, tens of thousands of Driscoll’s farm workers went on strike for three months. They did win some demands, but conditions quickly reverted to “normal.” Later that year, SINDJA (Sindicato Independiente Nacional Democrática de Jornaleros Agrícolas) was formed. A groundbreaking “Boycott Driscoll” campaign stretched across borders, from San Quintín to Washington state. Farmworkers in Washington state won a historic contract on a farm selling to Driscoll’s — but SINDJA remains without a contract. It was after that strike that Driscoll sought a partnership with Fair Trade U.S.A. to repair its public image and prevent future disruptions to its operations.”
What We Can Do
The good news is that we can all skip the plasticberries. You can find organic strawberries grown by real farmers in healthy, living soil through the Real Organic Project directory and our Regenerative Farm Map.
And Driscoll’s can do better. It has the means to do right by the families beside its fields and by the land itself. It should transition all of its farms to genuinely organic, soil-grown production and certify its berries to Real Organic Project standards.
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