Earth Day Barrage Set to Begin: Beware the Wine Institute's Message of "Sustainability"

The California Wine Institute's getting gussied up for Earth Day - all ready to tell you why they and their sustainability campaigns are great (they are - it's true) and to avoid the subject of pesticide use in wine grape growing in California. They've been holding webinars with vintners to help all of them communicate the message - aided by their professional marketing consultant.

And launching their Earth Day video on Youtube.


Sustainability, as defined by the industry group, consists mainly of limiting the inputs they use - water, energy (they get big rebates for going solar - rebates that taxpayers pay for), and other resources that cost them money. This is the win-win zone for the bottom line - and it gets them within the guidelines of retail giant Walmart's sustainability requirements. All good - but not the end of the story.

If only the Wine Institute would take equal interest in ridding us of the pesticides they are using - 411,000 pounds of Roundup annually. Is that sustainability? Maybe for the grapes but not for the humans.

You can see what a typical Napa vineyard shopping list at the local farm supply store is in this  2012 U.C. Davis report on wine grape growing in Napa which describes local vineyards practices:

• Twice a year, vineyard-wide application of Roundup (that's 30,000 pounds annually in Napa County) a systemic herbicide now so widespread that a 2012 German study found it in city dwellers' urine at concentrations higher than allowed in drinking water

• Fighting vine mealy bug with neonicotinoids (the chemicals most widely credited with bee colony collapse) [this week a group of British MPs added their voices to others in the EU calling for a ban]

• Spreading Rally (myclobutanil), a known reproductive toxin, annually [the insecticide was recently cited by the California Dept. of Pesticide Regulation as in need of a toxicity exposure update]

All this - in spite of the fact that between 10 and 30 percent of Napa vineyards are either certified (9%) or practicing (estimated to be another 20%) organic and don't use or need any of these inputs in order to make a tidy profit on their most-expensive-in-the-nation agricultural land.

If only the organic vintners and their professional marketing consultant were organized and speaking up - with the help of professional marketers - on Earth Day. (They don't have a YouTube video).

Two years ago when I first started asking wineries if their wines were organically grown, any that were not never said, "No." They always said, "we're sustainable."

If you ask again, why they're not organic, they'll usually say being organic costs too much, and takes too much paperwork.

I recently interviewed a prominent winery president (at a winery with more than 300 acres of certified organic vineyards) about this issue. The reply was that after all was said and done, it cost the winery about 4 percent more - in the overall cost of the winery - to grow grapes organically and be certified. Other consultants say the cost is 10% higher; others who are organic say it costs less than chemical methods.

Yes, there is paperwork, but wineries already have a lot of paperwork. Filing pesticide reports with the state is paperwork, too, and strangely nobody every mentions that. Shopping for pesticides and hiring pesticide control advisors is work and money, too - at least $100 an acre.

So beware the Earthy Day messaging barrage. Hurrah for sustainability - it's just not the end of the eco-trail. Keep asking for organic grapes in your wine.

Does Argentina Have Better Pesticide Regulations Than We Do?

On Monday night environmentalists gathered from around the world to honor winners of the Goldman Awards, one of the world's highest environmental prizes. Among them was Argentinian Sofia Gatica who won the prize for the continent of South America for her work in documenting the devastating effects of Roundup (which contains glyphosate) in her local community.

This is, of course, the same toxic herbicide California wine grape growers spray 400-450,000 pounds of annually on state vineyards.

Gatica herself lost a daughter, who lived only 3 days, before asking other mothers in the area about health problems in their families. When the group of mothers found that their area had more than 41 times the number of birth defects as was normal in Argentina, 16 of the mothers formed the Mothers of Ituzaingó to organize against the indiscriminate use of the pesticide in Argentina where 50 million gallons are used annually, mostly in soybeans.


In the U.S., $5 billion is spent on the Monsanto-produced herbicide, more than a quarter of global sales by  price. In 2007, the EPA estimated that 180-185 million pounds of it were used in the U.S. It can be applied by hand-sprayer or in aerial spraying.





Argentinian scientist and researcher Carrasco (featured in the video above) has documented the harmful effects of glysophate in Argentina, including birth defects.

Gatica and allies worked to pass legislation outlawing the aerial fumigation of glyphosate and other dangerous agricultural pesticides and herbicides. Legislation also does not allow spraying within 2,500 meters of residents.


That would appear to be better than we have it in here in California. In a recent interview I conducted with Paul Towers of the Pesticide Action Network, Towers said the Wine Institute has opposed Californians' attempts to pass legislation creating buffer zones and to restrict aerial application of pesticides.


You can, of course, help grow California's organic viticulture movement (where no Roundup can be used) by buying wines made with organic grapes.

Watch Gatica's story here (below in the video) or read more on the Goldman Prize site here:

Gatica with mothers, studying chart of diseases and birth defects in their neighborhood

Photo of tumor caused by glysophate in Argentina, from Dr. Graciela Gomez

I've contacted a pesticide expert to find out more specific information on dosage comparisons and will followup with a post later.


The Ecology Center has a good, succinct fact sheet on Roundup.
• Factsheet

The GLS Bank of Germany has a good review of the scientific literature on Roundup.
• GLS Report

Roundup's Hidden History of Birth Defects Highlighted by New Report; California Wine Grape Growers' Use Up 40% Over 18 Years

One more reason to buy organic: an international panel of scientists says regulators in Europe and the U.S. have regularly overlooked scientific research on the toxic effects of the commonly used herbicide Roundup for decades in affecting frog and chicken embryos.

(While Roundup may not be present at detectable levels in wine made from wine grapes sprayed with Roundup, the pesticides' effects on the environment are measurable.)

See coverage of the story on Huffington Post here.

The report, published online by a group called Earth Open Source, says "Scientific research published in 2010 showed that Roundup and the chemical on which it is based, glyphosate, cause birth defects in frog and chicken embryos at dilutions much lower than those used in agriculture and garden spraying."

To see where Roundup is sprayed in California on wine grapes, visit the Agricultural Pesticide Mapping Tool from the California State Dept. of Health here. To use the tool, select "Service Options" and then select "wine grapes" and "glysophate." The tool allows you to select the region you want to see. Click on any point on the resulting map and you can view data by year or by bar charts. All data is from the California Dept. of Pesticide Regulation.

Average increase of Roundup in pounds per acre (for wine grapes only) from 1991 to 2009 in selected counties:

Lake County - up 100%
Mendocino County - up 61%
Napa County - up 5%
Sonoma County - up 76%

Statewide, during the same period, glysophate use increased 40%.

The report cites data and studies from numerous peer-reviewed journals and urges regulators to reconsider permissible levels of Roundup use.

In 2009, more than 341,000 acres of California wine grapes were sprayed with more than 367,000 pounds of Roundup. The average rate of application was one pound per acre.

It's likely that the increased use of Roundup is in response to the decreased use of more toxic synthetic chemicals - i.e. growers are replacing older, more toxic pesticides with the "less" toxic Roundup.

Of course, organic wine grape growers are not permitted to use Roundup. Alas, organic growers represent less than 3% of all wine grapes grown statewide.

Update: The Pesticide Action Network has now published its story on the new report. Read it here.

Results from the California Dept. of Health's map of Roundup in California on wine grapes.