California News
Asha Sharma

Asha Sharma

California Updates: November 2022

As California is one of the states in which PAN does on-the-ground campaign work, we send out regular updates on PAN and partners’ work in California and beyond — from pesticide-related science to opportunities to take action. If you’d like to receive these updates via email, sign up here.

Dear California supporters,

Happy fall! I hope this season is bringing you warmth and connection with family and friends. We’re excited to announce that we’ve been hard at work on, and will soon release a report titled “Pesticides and Climate Change: A Vicious Cycle.” We just published the Executive Summary in advance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference happening this week, please take a look!

Pesticides and Climate Change: A Vicious Cycle

The report details the bidirectional relationship of how pesticide use worsens climate change and how climate change impacts are projected to cause increased pesticide use. This creates a vicious cycle of pesticide dependency and worsening climate impacts that will persist unless we transition to safer, sustainable agricultural systems like agroecology. We anticipate releasing the full report in January – keep an eye out for an invite to a launch webinar where we’ll share findings of the report with supporters, partner organizations and policymakers.

ViciousCycle

Pesticide notification

Another priority for our California team is preparing for this week’s set of pesticide notification workshops hosted by the Department of Pesticide Regulation. DPR will be collecting feedback on the pesticide notification pilots that were launched in four different counties in order to inform the development of a statewide pesticide notification system. We’ve seen serious shortcomings in the pilot systems, such as insufficient location information on where pesticide sprays occur. We encourage you to take action to tell DPR that serious changes need to be made to the pilots for the statewide notification system to be effective and inclusive.

Take Action

Thank you for your support as always!

Best,

Asha Sharma
Organizing Co-Director, California

Asha Sharma

Asha Sharma

Asha has a decade of experience as an environmental and agricultural justice campaigner, organizer and researcher. She is passionate about agroecology and supporting food-growing communities in building power. Her previous work at the Union of Concerned Scientists and Mighty Earth resulted in dozens of agricultural and food companies improving their conservation and human rights standards and practices. She received her M.S. in International Agricultural Development from the University of California, Davis and her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Texas at Arlington. Asha is from Dallas, Texas and currently lives in Berkeley, California. In her free time, she loves to cook, garden and hike with her dog Frankie.

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