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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 21, 1981
PAGE 14
SILENT EPIDEMIC, to help in the crusade to educate our clients, the
community and the schoolchildren we see at our programs.
G.D. (Columbus, NE)
I really enjoyed the article, "What Your Garbage Reveals About You!"
in your August issue. It was an excellent article. I don't normally
read The PLAIN TRUTH because it's my Dad's magazine. I think everybody
should take their garbage seriously. I'm only nine years old, but I
think they should. This article has made me a new reader of The PLAIN
TRUTH.
M.V. (Kalamazoo, MI)
ON THE WORLD SCENE
PESTS THREATEN U.S. FOOD SUPPLY, FORESTS This past weekend it happened: The
dreaded Mediterranean fruit fly broke out of coastal containment and im
planted itself in the world's single most productive farming region, Cali
fornia's San Joaquin Valley. If it spreads--and no one can say for certain
now whether it will, but it looks bad--it would deliver a calamitous blow to
the state's $14 billion agriculture industry. ·
California alone produces about half of America's fresh fruits and vegeta
bles.
And three states--California, Texas and Florida--produce 69%.
Florida too, is battling an infestation of the same pest (probably imported
from California).
The Medfly, slightly smaller than the common housefly, can destroy 250 dif
ferent types of soft-skinned fruits and vegetables. The female lays its
eggs (300 to 1,000 during a breeding cycle) underneath the skin of the host.
The eggs develop into larvae, which feed on the fruit causing it to rot and
drop off (note Deuteronomy 28:40). Larvae change to pupae in the surround
ing soil, and soon prolific adults take to the air.
The pest spreads like wildfire, though it depends upon help, usually from
humans (carrying infected contraband fruit) to get beyond its limited range.
Officials are convinced that humans transported the pest into the western
edge of the valley from the San Francisco Bay. People have not proved overly
cooperative in the quarantine procedures. Dismayed police at roadblocks on
major highways have reported seeing people skirting around the checkpoints
on frontage roads, taunting the officers by holding fruit outside rolled
down windows!
California has been fighting the latest infestation for 14 months. Governor
Jerry Brown first bowed to largely affluent, more naturalist-oriented urban
dwellers in the Santa Clara Valley by refusing to spray with the pesticide
malathion. He chose instead to try to eradicate the pest by tree-stripping
and releasing erradiated sterile male Medflies in order to break the breed
ing cycle. This procedure had worked twice previously in the Los Angeles
area. But the sterile-fly program is a chancy and drawn out one. The Bay
Region is a more critical region since it lies much closer to the gateway
into th� central valley.
In the Bay Region the "naturalist" approach simply did not work. (Curious
ly, two men were arrested in Santa Cruz County for threatening to shoot down
spraying helicopters. They claimed the spray damaged the ecological system
of the crops they were growing. It turns out the "crops" were marijuana and