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White crop duster flying low while spraying an alfalfa field near Tracy, California.Bill & Brigitte Clough\/DPA\/ZUMA<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tGet your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n Data reporting by Melissa Lewis<\/p>\n The Wonderful Company is the top sprayer of the herbicide glyphosate in California, according to records analyzed by Mother Jones as part of its searchable database of Top 100 users in the state. The company used 328,000 pounds in 2023, the latest year pesticide records are available\u2014about 68 percent more than anyone else in the state. <\/p>\n How California farmers use the weedkiller matters to the rest of the country, too: The state is the largest producer<\/a> by value of agricultural products in the United States, and produces nearly half of the country\u2019s vegetables<\/a> and more than three-quarters of its fruits and nuts.<\/p>\n Glyphosate is the key ingredient in professional-grade Roundup weedkiller, and the most widely used herbicide in the world. In recent years, it has been the focus of intense public debate following more than $12 billion in lawsuit payments to people who say it made them sick. Many labor and environmental groups oppose its use\u2014research has shown it likely harms most endangered species\u2014and so does a key part of President Donald Trump\u2019s base, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) coalition. (Bayer, which manufactures glyphosate through one of its subsidiary companies, has maintained that the herbicide is safe when used as directed and notes that regulators around the world have approved its use.)\u00a0<\/p>\n The Wonderful Company is owned by Linda and Stewart Resnick, major contributors to state politics<\/a>, including to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Its brands include Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice, Wonderful Halos mandarins, and Wonderful Pistachios. The company has long touted its food brands as health products<\/a>, at one point claiming their pomegranate juice could \u201ctreat, prevent, or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer, and erectile dysfunction.\u201d (In 2015, the FTC told them to stop making those claims<\/a>.)<\/p>\n In a statement, a spokesperson for The Wonderful Company said it \u201cis one of the most environmentally focused agricultural enterprises and prioritizes sustainable business practices across its farming operations. The company, the spokesperson added, \u201ccurrently uses glyphosate only for weed control in our orchards and does so in full compliance with government approved label instructions. It is applied only at ground level to target weeds\u2014never aerially\u2014and shields are used to help ensure the herbicide does not come into contact with trees.\u201d<\/p>\n Wonderful\u2019s new distinction as California\u2019s top sprayer of glyphosate, at least according to the most recently available data, could raise hackles across the political spectrum and with health-conscious and environmentally minded eaters. Two-thirds of Americans favor banning the use of glyphosate, including 70 percent of Republicans and 69 percent of Democrats, according to a new survey released this month by the Annenberg Public Policy Center<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt has a well-established toxicity to the environment,\u201d George Kimbrell, an environmental attorney, previously told me<\/a>. \u201cAnd, for endangered species, Roundup is a significant risk.\u201d <\/p>\n A 2020 report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded glyphosate likely harms 93 percent of endangered species and 96 percent of the critical habitat they rely on. Even when farmers take precautions, the residue often persists in the ecosystem around where it\u2019s used. A survey by state inspectors released this year found glyphosate in 100 percent of the waterways tested<\/a> in the Central Valley, which is the key agricultural region in California.<\/p>\n Kimbrell, who is co-executive director at the Center for Food Safety, helped lead a team of nonprofits that successfully petitioned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the EPA\u2019s 2020 recertification of glyphosate as safe to use. The court ruled that the EPA could not say the herbicide is not likely to cause cancer because most of the studies the agency reviewed had \u201cindicated that human exposure to glyphosate is associated with an at least somewhat increased risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma.\u201d <\/p>\n The court added that the agency had also shirked its duty to properly assess the ecological risks of the herbicide. The EPA is now working on a new assessment. Meanwhile, the country continues to rely on the EPA\u2019s nearly 35-year-old assessment that designated the weedkiller as safe to use in 1993\u2014when glyphosate spraying was only a small fraction of what it is today.<\/p>\n The continued use of glyphosate is \u201ca huge injustice. It\u2019s an injustice to the farm workers,\u201d said Irene De Barraicua, director of policy at Organizaci\u00f3n en California de Lideres Campesinas, whose organization joined Kimbrell in the lawsuit. \u201cOur workers are being exposed to these risky chemicals.\u201d<\/p>\n Farmers and food companies continue to rely heavily on the chemical. Earlier this year, against the wishes of his MAHA supporters, Trump issued an executive order<\/a> to boost domestic production of glyphosate and help shield its manufacturer from lawsuits.<\/p>\n \u201cGlyphosate is a very useful herbicide,\u201d said Brad Hanson, who runs the Hanson Weed Management Lab<\/a> at University of California, Davis, where the Resnick\u2019s donated $50 million in 2022 for agricultural research. Hanson, who testifies on behalf of glyphosate manufacturers in court cases, said it allows farmers to reduce their water use and overall costs while increasing their yields. Hanson said it\u2019s common to find trace amounts of glyphosate in some food products, such as almonds. He said it wasn\u2019t clear if glyphosate was getting into the nuts because they are harvested by shaking them from the tree and collected from atop ground that contained residue of the herbicide, or whether small amounts of the herbicide are absorbed by the tree and circulated into the growing almonds.<\/p>\n Either way, he said he wasn\u2019t personally worried about it, even as someone who applies the chemical.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019d rather have less glyphosate in my system than more\u2014but I think if you dug into other stuff, you\u2019d see bigger actual risks,\u201d he told me. \u201cI mean, is glyphosate my biggest risk factor, or is it more likely that my cheeseburger and IPA habit is a bigger problem?\u201d<\/p>\n Though the science is mixed, several recent studies have suggested that exposure to glyphosate may pose health risks. One study found it resulted in brain inflammation<\/a> in mice at doses equivalent to what regulators say is safe. Another found it may have increased metabolic and liver problems in California children<\/a> living close to where it is sprayed. A study published in July<\/a> found that women exposed to glyphosate mid-pregnancy were more likely to give birth too early. (Bayer says glyphosate safety is \u201csupported by one of the most extensive bodies of research.\u201d)<\/p>\n The second largest sprayer in California was the Sierra Pacific Timber Company, which uses the chemical after logging or wildfires in order to help baby conifers\u2014the trees loggers favor\u2014grow back faster. Our yearlong investigation<\/a>, which Mother Jones published in April, revealed that record amounts of glyphosate were being sprayed in California\u2019s forests.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other notable glyphosate users in California include Caltrans (#5), the state transportation agency, which applies it for aesthetic and safety reasons, including fire prevention and weed reduction along highways to improve drivers\u2019 lines of sight; John Hancock (#12), the financial company that owns almond and pistachio farms; Gallo (#14), the largest family owned winery<\/a> in the United States; Fondomonte (#16), a Saudi-owned company that has been criticized<\/a> for sucking up scarce groundwater to grow hay (which it then exports) in the Arizona and California deserts; and California State Parks (#36), which manages 1.6 million acres of public land.<\/p>\n Each of these users defended their applications of glyphosate as responsible in statements to Mother Jones, except John Hancock, which declined to comment, and Gallo, which did not respond to our questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have a lot of weedy vegetation that is using up the water and soil nutrients, that is water that isn\u2019t getting to the almond tree, or the pistachio tree, or whatever you\u2019re growing,\u201d Hanson said.<\/p>\n