CCST Project

Fumigant Use in California and an Assessment of Available Alternatives

Process

CCST studies follow a process modeled after the National Academies study process with checks and balances at each stage. The report is a collaborative effort by a large number of experts serving in various capacities. See the report appendices for detailed information.

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Study Team

Responding to a request from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), CCST will conduct a review of current fumigant use in California and a comprehensive assessment of available alternatives to these fumigants.

Steering Committee

Gerald Holmes, PhD
Committee Chair
Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo
Alan Kolok, PhD
Committee Co-Chair
University of Idaho
Christine Carroll, PhD
CSU Chico
Julie Guthman, PhD
UC Santa Cruz, Emerita
Sandipa Gautam, PhD*
UC Agricultural and Natural Resources
Vernard Lewis, PhD*
UC Berkeley, Emeritus

Authors

Christopher Simmons, PhD**
UC Davis
Jenny Broome, PhD
Plant Health Consulting
Michael Rust, PhD*
UC Riverside
Kimberly Parra, MPH, PhD*
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

*Joined for Phase II
**Declared conflict of interest, described in bio.

See Steering Committee member and Author bios below.

Steering Committee Members

CCST study steering committees oversee the report authors, reach conclusions based on the findings of the authors and draft an executive summary.

Committee Selection and Approval

Selection of appropriate committee members, individually and collectively, is essential for the success of a study. All committee members serve as individual experts, not as representatives of organizations or interest groups. Each member is expected to contribute to the project on the basis of his or her own expertise and good judgment. A committee is not finally approved until a thorough balance and conflict-of-interest discussion is held, and any issues raised in that discussion are investigated and addressed. Members of a committee are anonymous until this process is completed.

Careful steps are taken to convene committees that meet the following criteria:

Expertise

The committee must include experts with the speciﬁc expertise and experience needed to address the study's statement of task. A major strength of CCST is the ability to bring together recognized experts from diverse disciplines and backgrounds who might not otherwise collaborate. These diverse groups are encouraged to conceive new ways of thinking about a problem.

Perspectives

Having content expertise is not sufﬁcient for success. It is also essential to evaluate the overall composition of the SC in terms of different experiences and perspectives. The goal is to ensure that the relevant points of view are, in CCST’s and the Program Committee’s judgment, reasonably balanced so that the SC can carry out its charge objectively and credibly.

Screening

All provisional SC members are screened in writing and in a conﬁdential group discussion about possible conﬂicts of interest. For this purpose, a "conﬂict of interest" means any ﬁnancial or other interest which conﬂicts with the individual’s service because it could signiﬁcantly impair the individual's objectivity or could create an unfair competitive advantage for any person or organization. The term "conﬂict of interest" is beyond individual bias. There must be an interest, ordinarily ﬁnancial, that could influence the work of the SC or that could be directly affected by the work of the SC, for an individual to be disqualified from serving. Except for a rare situation in which CCST and the Program Committee determine that a conﬂict of interest is unavoidable and promptly and publicly disclose the conﬂict of interest, no individual will be appointed to serve (or continue to serve) on a SC used in the development of studies while having a conﬂict of interest relevant to the required functions.

SC members and authors continue to be screened for conﬂict of interest at regular intervals throughout the life of the committee. (In addition to the SC and Authors, co-authors, peer reviewers and CCST staff working on each project are also screened for COI).

Point of View

A point of view or bias is not necessarily a conﬂict of interest. SC members are expected to have points of view, and CCST attempts to balance these points of view in a way deemed appropriate for the task. SC members are asked to consider respectfully the viewpoints of other members, to reﬂect their own views rather than be a representative of any organization, and to base their scientiﬁc ﬁndings and conclusions on the evidence. Each SC member has the right to issue a dissenting opinion to the study if he or she disagrees with the consensus of the other members. COIs are updated throughout the study process to capture any new or updated information and to ensure a continued lack of conflicts.

Considerations

Membership in CCST is taken into account in SC selection. The inclusion of women, minorities, and young professionals are additional considerations.

Committee Selection

Specific steps in the committee selection and approval process are as follows:

Step 1: Nominees

Staff solicit an extensive number of suggestions for potential committee members from a wide range of sources, then recommend a slate of nominees. Nominees are reviewed and approved at several levels within CCST.

Step 2: Provisional Committee

A provisional slate is then approved by the Program Committee of CCST's Board. The provisional committee members complete background information and conflict-of-interest disclosure forms. The committee balance and conflict-of-interest discussion is held at the first committee meeting. Any conflicts of interest or issues of committee balance and expertise are investigated; changes to the committee are proposed and finalized.

Step 3: Board Approval

The Program Committee of CCST's Board formally approves the committee. Committee members continue to be screened for conflict of interest throughout the life of the committee.

Committee Members' Bios

Gerald Holmes Chair

Director

Cal Poly Strawberry Center

Gerald Holmes is the Director of the Strawberry Center at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, California. The Center is a partnership between Cal Poly and the California Strawberry Commission. Gerald received his Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from UC Riverside in 1994 then worked as a University of California Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor in Imperial County for three years. For the subsequent 12 years he was an Extension Vegetable Pathologist and Associate Professor at NC State University. He then worked six years as Product Development Manager for Valent USA Corporation before becoming Director of the Strawberry Center in 2014.

Alan Kolok Co-Chair

Professor Emeritus, Ecotoxicology

University of Idaho

Alan Kolok is an ecotoxicologist at the University of Idaho whose research focuses on the fate, transport, and biological impacts of anthropogenic chemicals, including pesticides. His academic background features a doctorate in environmental, population, and organismic biology from the University of Colorado, Boulder and a master’s degree in Fisheries and Aquatic Science from the University of Washington. He has published over 90 scientific, peer-reviewed papers on a variety of topics, including comparative physiology, environmental toxicology, environmental epidemiology, and the crowdsourced data revolution. He is also an editor for the journal, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, and recently authored, “Modern Poisons: A Brief Introduction to Contemporary Toxicology.”

Christine Carroll PhD

Associate Professor, College of Agriculture

CSU Chico

Christine Carroll is a Seattle-area native who earned her bachelor’s degree in economics at Arizona State University and a PhD in agricultural economics at UC Davis. Her doctoral dissertation looked for economically viable control options for Verticillium wilt in lettuce crops in Monterey and the Salinas Valley. That research project, and the collaboration with growers, plant pathologists, and other disciplines, got her hooked on agricultural economics. She joined the College of Agriculture in part because of the interdisciplinary structure of the college, which she sees as an opportunity build cross-disciplinary collaborations.

Julie Guthman PhD

Distinguished Professor Emerita of Sociology

UC Santa Cruz

Julie Guthman has conducted multiple research projects on regulatory and civil society efforts to reduce the use of toxic substances in food production. This includes National Science Foundation- and USDA-funded projects that investigated the political economic and sociological challenges that California strawberry growers face for farming without fumigants or adopting more disease resistant varieties. Her book, Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry (2019) was awarded the highest book award in her home discipline of geography, the Meridian Prize of the American Association of Geographers. Most recently, she has been the principal investigator of the UC-AFTeR Project, a multi-campus collaboration that investigated Silicon Valley’s recent forays into food and agriculture and culminated in her newest book. Guthman’s other publications include two other multi-award winning monographs, an edited collection and over sixty articles in peer-reviewed journals. She has received an Excellence in Research Award from the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society, the Martin M. Chemers Award for Outstanding Research from the Social Sciences Division at UC Santa Cruz, and the Distinguished Career Award from the Cultural and Political Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers.

Sandipa Gautam PhD

Assistant Cooperative Extension Area Citrus IPM Advisor

University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources

Sandipa Gautam, Ph. D., is an Assistant Cooperative Extension Area Citrus IPM Advisor with the University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources (UCANR). Gautam’s current program studies strategies for integrated pest management of arthropod pests of citrus. Before her current position, she worked as an Assistant Research Entomologist with UCR for 5 years and developed postharvest treatments, fumigants, and alternatives for citrus pests of export concern. Dr. Gautam earned a Ph.D. in Entomology from Oklahoma State University. Her Ph.D. dissertation research focused on circumventing ovicidal deficiencies of fumigants during postharvest fumigation.

Vernard Lewis PhD

Professor Emeritus, Cooperative Extension

UC Berkeley

Dr. Vernard Lewis earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees at the University of California, Berkeley in Entomology. He is an Emeritus Professor of Cooperative Extension in the Rausser College of Natural Resources. He is professionally known for his research on termites and other structural and household insect pests. Dr. Lewis was also a member of the United Nations Global Termite Expert Group and is a recent inductee into the Pest Management Hall of Fame. Dr. Lewis has travelled to over thirty-five countries as a researcher, consultant, and insect pest troubleshooter. He continues to stay involved in activities that promote the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities and women in science.

Author Bios

Christopher Simmons PhD

Professor and Chair of Food Science and Technology

UC Davis

Dr. Christopher Simmons' research focuses on food system sustainability, with emphasis on circular economy approaches for recycling residual organic matter to benefit soil and crop health. In particular, his team uses multidisciplinary approaches to understand and advance biosolarization - a technology that harnesses microbial fermentation of organic matter in agricultural soils - as strategy to control soil pests and pathogens, improve soil fertility and water retention, and maintain robust soil microbial communities. By examining the microbial ecology, nutrient cycling, biopesticides, and other pest suppression mechanisms associated with biosolarization, Dr. Simmons' team has adapted diverse food processing residues, such as tomato pomace, grape pomace, almond hulls, date residues, and onion peels, as biosolarization soil amendments to inactivate phytoparasitic nematodes, fungal pathogens, and weed propagules. Additionally, his team has worked closely with commercial growers to test and demonstrate biosolarization as a fumigation alternative that can deliver benefits to crop health and yield.

Disclosure of Conflict of Interest

As a key part of CCST’s formal study process, CCST screens all provisional authors and Steering Committee members to ensure that no individual appointed to serve on a committee has a conflict of interest — any ﬁnancial or other interest which conﬂicts with the individual’s service because it could signiﬁcantly impair the individual's objectivity or could create an unfair competitive advantage for any person or organization. An objective determination is made whether a conflict of interest exists given the facts of the individual's financial and other interests, and the task being undertaken by the committee. A determination of a conflict of interest for an individual is not an assessment of that individual's behavior, character, or ability to act objectively despite the conflicting interest. For situations where CCST and the Program Committee determine that a conﬂict of interest is unavoidable, CCST will promptly and publicly disclose the conﬂict of interest.

Through this assessment we have concluded that proposed author Dr. Christopher Simmons has a conflict of interest.

We have also concluded that for this study to accomplish the tasks for which it was established, its members must include individuals with research and expertise in alternatives to fumigation.

After an extensive search, we have been unable to find another individual with the equivalent expertise of Dr. Christopher Simmons in evaluating alternatives to fumigation, and the Steering Committee has concluded that this conflict of interest will not inappropriately influence the outcome of the study.

Jenny Broome PhD

Independent Consultant

Plant Health Consulting

Janet C. “Jenny” Broome, PhD, Independent Consultant, Plant Health Consulting. Dr. Broome received her PhD and MS degrees in plant pathology from UC Davis and a BA degree in biology from Swarthmore College. Dr. Broome was previously a Senior Research Manager and Scientist at Driscoll’s Inc. leading the Global Plant Health Department. Her team worked on berry pathogen diagnostics and developing and extending best management practices for nursery plant propagation and for independent growers. Her research at Driscoll’s focused on pre-plant soil plant health treatments such as anaerobic soil disinfestation, organic amendments, soil solarization, mobile soil steam pasteurization treatments, crop rotations relevant to organic berry crop production, as well as chemical fumigant alternatives to methyl bromide. In addition, she created the host plant resistance team to work with breeding and molecular biology teams to increase breeding efficiency through marker assisted selection. Before her 12 plus years at Driscoll’s, she worked at UC ANR’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program for 13 years, and as a Senior Environmental Research Scientist for the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. She is currently an Independent Consultant seeking to establish a UC Santa Cruz adjunct research professor position and engaged in plant health research projects in grapes and berries. She has numerous publications and over the years has served on scientific advisory committees for state and federal agencies as well as for industry and academic programs.

Michael Rust PhD

Distinguished Professor of Entomology and the Graduate Division

University of California, Riverside

Michael Rust earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Entomology at the University of Kansas. He joined the Department of Entomology at the University of California Riverside in 1975 and retired in 2013. Since retirement, he has maintained an active research program. His area of research specialization is urban entomology with an emphasis on pests of structures. The research includes basic and applied studies on the control of ants, cockroaches, fleas, termites and yellowjackets. Some current research activities include the control of pestiferous yellowjackets in recreational areas and the potential of a new class of insecticide isoxazolines against urban pests.

Kimberly Parra MPH, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Kimberly Parra, MPH, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research focuses on maternal exposures to endocrine disruptors during the perinatal period. Previously, Kimberly contributed to the CHAMACOS study at UC Berkeley, which examines agricultural pesticide exposures on families in the Salinas Valley, CA. She earned her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Arizona, where she led a population-based study that examined ambient pesticide exposure and neighborhood deprivation in the birthing population in Arizona. Dedicated to advancing maternal and child health, Kimberly is committed to translating scientific research into evidence-based policies and interventions to address the needs of vulnerable populations.

Peer Review

The process of peer review is the cornerstone of the research evaluation process in the physical sciences, life sciences and engineering.

All CCST reports are peer reviewed using guidelines and processes established by CCST to assure the highest scientific and technical standards. Guidelines are similar to those of the National Academy of Sciences, adapted to be appropriate for California.