More than a year after cancer-causing methyl iodide was taken off the market, another health-harming fumigant pesticide - chloropicrin - is still widely used in strawberry fields across California.

Like all fumigants, chloropicrin can easily drift from fields and onto neighboring communities where kids live, learn and play. We can do better.

Chloropicrin is linked to cancer and other serious health problems like severe respiratory and eye irritation. Because soil fumigants are applied as gasses at rates of up to 400 pounds per acre, this class of pesticides is nearly impossible to control. Even under the best of circumstances, they drift onto neighboring homes and schools.

Chloropicrin drift has already caused many poisoning incidents in California. Records show that more than 700 people have been affected in the past 10 years - but since many poisonings go unreported, this number is likely the tip of the iceberg.