Posted on 16 January 2008 by tomatocasual.com
North Carolina Pesticide Board Determining Tomato Grower’s Fate
By Michelle Fabio
In 2005, Ag-Mart Inc., a division of Pronacci Brothers that grows tomatoes in southeastern North Carolina, was fined $184,500 by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture—the largest fine in the state’s history—for 369 violations of pesticide law and exposing employees to harmful pesticides.
Then in October of last year, an administrative law judge recommended that the company be fined only $6,000, finding that the Department of Agriculture failed to prove most of the allegations, which originally included an assertion that exposure to harmful pesticides may have caused birth defects in three children of Ag-Mart employees.
