California gets a taste of irradiation; To get rid of fruit fly, state's farmers zap produce for 1st time The San Francisco Chronicle MARCH 12, 2003 by Carol Ness Today, for the first time, California-grown fruit that's been irradiated is up for sale. The irradiated grapefruit and mandarin oranges were harvested in a lush valley in San Diego County where an infestation of crop-destroying Mexican fruit flies has taken hold. To keep the flies from spreading, federal and state agricultural authorities imposed a 130-square-mile quarantine and authorized the first irradiation of produce grown in the continental United States. No produce can be moved out of the quarantine zone unless treated to kill any flies and larvae -- and according to state agricultural officials, irradiation is the only option. Inside the quarantine zone, Bob Polito and other growers face a choice: Irradiate, or lose the crop as months of spraying and baiting are done to wipe out any fruit flies. "These fruits were ready to go," said Polito of Polito Family Farms, a gourmet fruit grower in Valley Center. "We've got a lot of very short-seasoned fruits that are becoming ripe at this time of year." Other larger growers who can't wait out eradication efforts are considering following suit, according to a spokesman for SureBeam Corp., an irradiation company whose new plant in Los Angeles County started zapping Polito's fruit on Monday. Polito sells entirely at farmers' markets in Southern California. If other growers start irradiating, their produce could wind up in markets anywhere in the country. TEST IN SANTA MONICA How the fruit fares in the marketplace will get its first test todays, when the Polito family sets up its weekly stall at the prestigious, highly organic Santa Monica Farmers' Market, one of the country's largest. As required, they were posting signs saying the citrus had been irradiated. Irradiation is a controversial method of using electron beams or X-rays to kill bacteria and insects in food. Its use is on the rise in the United States, mostly on ground beef. Irradiation doesn't cause food to become radioactive, and the U.S. government has long deemed the process healthy. But it does cause chemical changes that many people worry will prove unhealthy in the long run. Lethal outbreaks of food-caused sickness have started to wear down consumer resistance to irradiated food, and federal authorities are moving fast to approve more foods for irradiation. In October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture added fruits and vegetables to the list of foods approved for irradiation, for the purpose of controlling pests. Other approved treatments for produce use heat, cold storage or chemicals. Irradiation is more expensive but works better on some kinds of crops. The new USDA regulation was expected to apply mostly to produce entering the United States from infested countries. But San Diego's fruit fly infestation has brought irradiation to California produce. An unusually large colony of the flies was discovered in northern San Diego County in the fall in a prime avocado-growing area. The quarantine was imposed in early December. About $75 million worth of avocados and other fruit are grown in the quarantine area, according to Eric Larson of the San Diego Farm Bureau. "We hope we can get most of that to market," he said. Avocados, an oily fruit, haven't fared well in irradiation testing so far, according to SureBeam spokesman Mark Stephenson. But avocado growers can leave their fruit on trees for months without suffering damage, so they can afford to wait out months-long spraying and baiting campaigns. Citrus fruits tolerate X-ray irradiation well -- and some of the specialty citrus crops can't wait for baiting and spraying. The Politos decided irradiation was their best bet. SAME TASTE Before going ahead, Bob Polito and his wife, Rose, made the 2 1/2-hour drive up to SureBeam's plant in Vernon. "We ran test loads through and tasted it, and the fruit was not altered in any way. We were very happy with the way it went through," he said. The quarantine area is home to hundreds of small growers, many of them organic. Irradiation means the produce can't be sold as organic, but it allows sustainable and organic farmers to save their crop while they carry out months of bait applications to kill stray flies, as required before harvesting. An alternative would be to use heavy-duty pesticides, which would linger on the land and nullify their organic certification. To be irradiated, produce from the quarantined area must be moved to Vernon. Polito and SureBeam won approval for a plan to transport the fruit in special boxes designed to keep any flies from escaping along the way. More growers with perishable crops may make the same choice. Stephenson said growers who need to move hundreds of tons of citrus are in the process of getting approval to irradiate. If enough of the fruit enters the market, some could wind up in Northern California stores -- and presumably would carry the mandated signs. BIG MOMENT FOR IRRADIATION The irradiation of domestic produce is another milestone for irradiation advocates and companies like SureBeam, which built its Vernon plant in anticipation of a growing market for irradiated foods. At its Illinois plant, the company irradiates ground beef sold in 5,000 supermarkets in the East, Midwest and South. Ground beef has been a targeted commodity for SureBeam because of extensive recalls prompted by the discovery of meat tainted with potentially lethal E. coli bacteria. Produce is another growing market, with more foreign fruits and vegetables entering the United States all the time. Much of the foreign produce must be treated -- either by heat, cold, chemicals or irradiation -- so that it doesn't introduce agricultural pests. Irradiated Hawaiian papayas have been sold in the continental United States, including Southern California, since 2000 under a special federal rule. The new USDA regulation issued in October allowed all produce to be irradiated to exterminate agricultural pests. That opened the market further for SureBeam, which sees produce irradiation growing as world use of the common fumigant methyl bromide is phased out by 2005. The San Diego pest infestation is one of about 50 that have hit California over the past few decades, "and we've been able to eradicate every one," said Jay Van Rein, spokesman for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. "We're confident we will be able to in this case, too," he said. The earliest a victory could come is late summer, he said. In the meantime, growers in all but the most infested core area will be able to go ahead with their harvests after baiting or spraying -- as long as no new flies show up in their orchards.