Statement on October 2024 Santa Maria Tour

DPR is participating in meetings on October 18 and 19, 2024, in Santa Maria that it is hosting with the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) for their members, including farmworkers and community-based organizations. This small group meeting was organized by local high school students and will be attended by community members who were invited by CAUSE and agencies invited by DPR.

DPR has received questions and concerns about the meeting and the reference to a ‘Toxic Tour’ in the flyer CAUSE sent to community members to invite them to the meeting with DPR and other agencies. The purpose of the meeting is for community members to provide input to DPR and other agencies on their work and to share concerns about potential pesticide and other exposure.

At DPR, we are responsible for being accessible to the people we represent, and this meeting is an opportunity to connect directly with one of the many communities we serve.

The focus of our participation in the meeting is both to listen and to provide the important information about our regulatory role that we reflect in our public communications:

• that pest management is critical to our healthy and stable food supply and to the protection of public health and our environment.
• that our scientists rigorously evaluate pesticides before and after they are registered to identify and mitigate risks in order to reduce the potential for exposure and allow for safe applications.
• that we strictly enforce pesticide labels, laws and regulations, along with local county agricultural commissioners, to ensure pesticide use compliance.

DPR engages throughout the year with different stakeholder groups -- including agricultural groups, pest control advisors, environmental groups, community-based organizations and others -- to inform policies and action. We seek -- as part of our long-term strategic goals -- to expand regular, transparent, and meaningful access to the department. Over the past few weeks, DPR leadership has met with pest control advisors, agricultural representatives, community members, and community-based organizations to hear from them about the challenges they are facing in their businesses and in their lives and to share information about our work to regulate pesticides and foster sustainable pest management in a way that protects everyone’s health and the environment and supports a healthy and stable food supply.

Stakeholders in each meeting shared different perspectives, including identifying unique and diverse challenges, and we together discussed potential opportunities to address those challenges.

At DPR, we look forward to continuing this engagement with all of our stakeholders.