Word: fruit
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...Jose, Calif., an imported-car dealer offers a cash bounty of $100 to any customer who brings in a Mediterranean fruit fly, dead or alive. The hot novelty item in San Francisco gift shops is a Medfly encased in a clear plastic apple. From Silicon Valley's computer whizzes comes a new video game called Medfly Mania: to stem a tide of electronic insects, the players must choose among competing insect-killing strategies while dealing with such all too real obstacles as bad weather, helicopter failures and the accidental release of fertile male flies...
That sort of gallows humor was just about the only relief Californians had last week from their worst agricultural crisis in years. Despite stepped-up chemical warfare, the epidemic of Mediterranean fruit flies showed no signs of waning. The creatures spread beyond the populated suburbs south of San Francisco and approached the very heartland of California's $14 billion-a-year agricultural industry, the fertile 12,000-sq.-mi. San Joaquin Valley. Repercussions were quick and far-reaching. Even as helicopters doused the lush fields and orchards with pesticide, word came from Japan, California's largest overseas agricultural...
...pest management program," as it was called, seemed to work in Los Angeles. But the speckled little bugs continued to show up in the north. By July, officials found Medflies at more than 100 sites and worriedly placed three counties under quarantine. Roadblocks were set up and officials confiscated fruit from vehicles leaving the area. Still, Brown stubbornly refused to permit aerial spraying-until the Reagan Administration finally threatened to embargo all California produce. By then, it may have been too late. Two weeks ago, on what San Joaquin farmers now call Black Friday, a fertile female Medfly was discovered...
...California's farmers. It has been more than a year since Medflies were discovered almost simultaneously in Los Angeles and in Santa Clara County, just south of San Francisco. No one knows where they came from-perhaps in contaminated fruit from Hawaii. But farmers, recalling the devastating losses from past outbreaks, immediately clamored for aerial spraying with malathion, a mild garden-variety pesticide that kills off Mediterranean fruit flies while causing no apparent harm to humans. Nonetheless, California's Governor, who plans to run for the U.S. Senate next year, refused to allow what he called a rain...
...unless the Medflies are contained, they could spread to other states as well. Some have already appeared in Florida. Each new outbreak will require more spraying, at considerable cost. Much produce would be lost, and consumers would have to pay more for fruit and vegetables, spoiling the Reagan Administration's anti-inflation efforts. Everyone would be a loser...