Narrator: If you eat a strawberry, it probably came from California, where it was grown with some pretty toxic stuff called fumigants. Fumigants are pesticides used to grow practically all strawberries we eat. So how did we start using this poisons to help grow our food. The chemical that started it all was chloropicrin, a tear gas used in World War I. Chloropicrin made soldiers vomit. So they tore out their masks only to be gassed with other deadly fumes. When the war ended, the U.S. military was left with millions of pounds of surplus teargas until a pineapple crisis.

Parasites were attacking Hawaii's pineapple crops. Maybe that surplus could come in handy after all. So in 1927, chloropicrin was shift to the islands and scientists did some test. Fungus, worms, chloropicrin obliterated them. Now the soil was ready for planting. The whole process was called fumigation and the pineapples thrived.

Thirty years later, California strawberries were struggling with subterranean foes. The fumigants killed them too. But in 1970s, farmers were hooked. New fumigant cocktails were invented. More new strawberry drinks were introduced. Every season was now strawberry season. Harvest tripled. The new interstate was great percipient truckloads of fruit across America. The only problem was there was too much fruit and not enough demand.

So the California Strawberry Advisory Board got creative, Jello, Bisquick, Cornflakes, Cheerios, and of course, Cool Whip. It gave companies tips on how and when to market foods with strawberries. The goal was simple, promote anything that feature the little red fruit. It worked. Americans now eat four times as many strawberries as they did 40 years ago, with California growing 90% of that fruit.

Each year millions of pounds of different fumigants are pumped into California strawberry fields. The chemicals don't end up on the fruit, so the berries are safe to eat. The danger is when farmers fumigate, gases can drift to communities nearby. They've been linked to cancer, birth defects and even holes in the ozone layer. The problem is many people live where strawberries thrive and workers have to handle these toxins. Local laws and global treaties have tried dealing with these risks. The grower say that they need to use more. And California has sometimes let them despite health warnings from its own scientists.

Without fumigants, farmer say, "Our crops can fail. There's no clear alternative to these chemicals. We need them," they say," to keep consumers happy." It's how you can buy cheap strawberries anytime of the year. And so these toxic pesticides called fumigants continue to be the foundation of our strawberry industry.

DIRECTOR & PRODUCER Ariane Wu

NARRATOR Roman Mars

BASED ON REPORTING BY Kendall Taggart, Bernice Yeung & Andrew Donohue

ILLUSTRATOR & AFTER EFFECTS ARTIST Arthur Jones

STOP-MOTION ANIMATOR & VIDEO EDITOR Ariane Wu

MUSIC COMPOSER Jason Kick

SOUND MIXER Christopher Galipo

CONSULTING PRODUCER Michael Schiller

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Rachel de Leon

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Amanda Pike

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Robert Salladay

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Robert J. Rosenthal

ARCHIVAL IMAGES AND FOOTAGE COURTESTY OF U.S. Army The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration Sam Hodgson Library of Congress The New York Times

© Woman's Day magazine 1975

© Family Circle magazine 1978 California Strawberry Commission

ADDITIONAL MUSIC

"Turntable," written by Jack Trombey Courtesy of De Wolfe Music

SPECIAL THANKS TO Virtual Active Serene Fang

the center for investigative reporting

cironline.org

There may be small errors in this transcript.