Oh good, the US gets a license to use methyl bromide on strawberries.

WATSONVILLE, California (AP) -- Farmer Vanessa Bogenholm won't go near the pesticide methyl bromide even though it could boost her strawberry harvest. But just down the coast in Salinas, grower Tom Jones says his berry farm can't survive without the powerful toxin.

The two farmers both help California supply more than 85 percent of the nation's strawberries, but they part ways when it comes to methyl bromide, a soil fumigant that an international treaty has banned as of this year for all but the most critical uses.

Methyl bromide continues in wide use because the Bush administration has convinced other treaty signatories that U.S. farmers can't do without it -- whether for California berries, Florida tomatoes, North Carolina Christmas trees or Michigan melons.

The treaty, called the Montreal Protocol, has targeted methyl bromide because it is among chemicals that deplete the earth's protective ozone layer.

It also can cause neurological damage, but methyl bromide's tenacity demonstrates the difficulty of banishing a substance that is wildly successful at delivering what both farmers and consumers want: abundant, pest-free and affordable produce...