Garden Grove Strawberry Festival stays open for business, four miles away from a leaking toxic chemical tank which has been declared a state of emergency. #BoycottDriscolls always and forever. 🚫🍓✊
California Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency in Orange County on Saturday as officials desperately search for a safe resolution to a leaking toxic chemical tank at an aerospace facility.
"The safety of Orange County residents is the top priority," Newsom said. "We are mobilizing every state resource available to support local responders and make sure the community has what they need to stay safe."
According to Orange County Fire Authority Chief Craig Covey, temperatures inside the tank continue to rise, creating a "significantly dangerous" situation spurring the evacuation of more than 50,000 residents, officials said.
Omar Dieguez shares updates on day 11 of a 30-day hunger strike against pesticides in the Pajaro Valley.
Reporting by Nik Altenberg at Santa Cruz Local
Pajaro Valley for Ethnic Studies and Justice: We are calling on our communities near and far to stand in solidarity with the Pajaro Valley community and the brave hunger strikers led by Omar Dieguez and CORA. Pledge to BOYCOTT DRISCOLL’S BERRIES until they stop spraying harmful and cancer-causing pesticides near our schools and homes!
Watsonville supplies strawberries to the world, but our community suffers from high childhood cancer rates and other disabilities and illnesses due to the unethical use of harmful pesticides in the places where we live, work, and go to school. Driscoll’s is the largest berry corporation in the world and has the capacity to transition its fields to organic.
About 50 people gather in front of Driscoll’s headquarters on Westridge Drive in Watsonville to protest pesticide use in area agricultural fields. (Tarmo Hannula/The Pajaronian)
Watsonville activist Omar Dieguez and a group of community leaders announced a hunger strike and started the movement with a protest outside of Driscoll’s headquarters Tuesday in Watsonville.
About 50 people were protesting the use of toxic pesticides near homes and schools in Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley.
Dieguez announced that he began his fast on Sept. 1 and will continue for 30 days. He is being joined by several community leaders who will fast for various lengths of time.
Dieguez released a public statement to Driscoll’s and California Giant Berry owners, urging them to transition their fields near homes and schools to organic and stopping the use of toxic pesticides.
“Enough is enough,” the statement reads. “For too long, you have poisoned our community with toxic pesticides that harm our farmworkers, our immigrant and Indigenous families, our youth, and all of Pajaro Valley. You are contaminating our water, our land, our oceans, and the very air we breathe. This must stop now.”
Dieguez says in the statement that, as a young boy growing up near the fields, he acquired acute asthma.
“Many of my friends have suffered from cancers and other health problems that many of the same chemicals used in your berry fields are known to cause,” he says.
Dieguez says that the companies have the resources and capabilities to end pesticide use immediately and transition to safer practices.
“Impacts from pesticides go on for decades,” Gabe Medina, Pajaro Valley Unified School District board member, told the crowd. He spoke of family members who were sprayed “directly” while working area fields, and of cancer and strokes that have affected his family.
“This is what pesticides do to us: They impact us physically and mentally,” Medina said. He demanded proper screening of students at schools for added protection and spoke strongly of area leaders coming forward and standing up for what is right “and challenging corporations that see us as disposable units in order for them to make profits.”
Adam Scow of Campaign for Organic and Regenerative Agriculture, a grassroots organization of residents of the Monterey Bay, stated: “Local activists are coming together to put their bodies on the line in support of the movement to stop toxic pesticides. Our region is actually a leader in organic agriculture with nearly 20 percent of the Pajaro Valley being organic. So we need more of it in the right places.”
The specific fields near Pajaro Valley homes and schools are illustrated on a map released by the Campaign for Organic & Regenerative Agriculture, available at the website link here:
The Pajaronian has also reached out to California Giant Berry for a statement.
I'm a consumer who just heard about this, as a new resident in Washington state. It's almost March 2017. What's the most recent update of the boycott? What has Driscoll's said publicly from its leadership in response to its protests? Overall, is the campaign still going on? Many thanks.
Here's the latest info!
SIGN THE PLEDGE - Boycott Driscoll's berries in solidarity with Watsonville hunger strikers
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2025/09/02/18879507.php
We Clarify and Reiterate the Driscoll’s Boycott is in Full Force
"We Clarify and Reiterate the Driscoll’s Boycott is in Full Force. After more than a year of struggle that began in the San Quintín Valley of Baja California when more than 80,000 farmworkers rose up in protest in order to improve their working and living conditions, we remain in resistance. We are committed to continuing to promote the Driscoll’s Boycott, to expanding to more cities in Mexico and the United States in 2016." Continue reading ...
Slow Food USA respalda el boicot de Driscoll’s Berries
junio, 2016
“Slow Food USA respeta y valora las manos que nos alimentan. Es por esto que nos solidarizamos con Familias Unidas por la Justicia. Apoyar su boicot de las bayas de Driscoll's y otras etiquetas que ignoran su papel en la construcción de un sistema alimentario que es realmente bueno, limpio y justo para todos.”
Apoyar a los trabajadores agrícolas locales que luchan por un extremo al robo sistemático de salarios, sueldos de miseria, condiciones de trabajo hostiles, y los estándares de producción inalcanzables.
Slow Food USA Endorses the Boycott of Driscoll’s Berries
June, 2016
Slow Food USA respects and values the hands that feed us. This is why we stand in solidarity with Familias Unidas por la Justicia. Support their boycott of Driscoll’s Berries and other labels who ignore their role in building a food system that is truly good, clean and fair for all.
🚫🍓 Thank you for spreading the word!! 🚫🍓
Slow Food USA gathers likely and unlikely allies to transform the way we produce, consume, and enjoy food.
Boycott Driscoll’s in solidarity with the farmworkers in Washington state and Baja California leading the international movement to #BoycottDriscolls!!
[ Photo: James Leder, June 2015. Skagit County, WA. ]
Food Empowerment Project stands with Sakuma Bros Berry Farm workers. Respect the people who grow our food. Don’t buy Driscoll’s berries. Contact Sakuma Farms and tell them to negotiate a union contract!
Learn more at: https://boycottsakumaberries.com/
From: Food Empowerment Project (IG: @foodempowermentproject). June 14, 2016.
Food Empowerment Project, a registered non-profit 501(c)(3) founded in 2006, is a vegan food-justice organization that seeks to create a more just world by recognizing the power of one's food choices.
🚫🍓 Thank you for spreading the word!! 🚫🍓
Boycott Driscoll’s in solidarity with the farmworkers in Washington state and Baja California leading the international movement to #BoycottDriscolls!!
Boycott Driscoll's in solidarity with the farmworkers in Washington state and Baja California leading the international movement to #BoycottDriscolls!!
Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op has joined the boycott of all Driscoll's berries grown in the U.S. and Mexico in order to support safe and sustainable working conditions for farm workers. Find out more at http://boycottsakumaberries.com
Thank you for your continued support!
In-cooperation!
I was walking home from @wholefoods by Dolores Park in San Francisco, I saw a boycott against Driscoll berries. I buy Driscoll berries from the grocery store regularly, so when I went home, I looked up what it was about. Turns out, Driscoll berries exploit their workers and house them in awful living conditions. Here’s a link to explain a little more: http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/03/188606/farm-workers-two-countries-boycott-driscoll’s-berries
Boycott Driscoll's in support of farmworkers in Washington state and Baja California fighting for an end to systemic wage theft, poverty wages, hostile working conditions, and unattainable production standards.
There were pickets at two Whole Foods locations in Portland, Oregon on May 14, 2016. Organizers want Whole Foods to stop selling Driscoll's berries because they say Driscoll's doesn't treat its workers fairly. There has also been a longstanding boycott.
From: Mike Bivins (IG: @itsmikebivins)
Boycott Driscoll’s in support of farmworkers in Washington state and Baja California fighting for an end to systemic wage theft, poverty wages, hostile working conditions, and unattainable production standards.
