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Sun-Maid Growers of California

(PESP Partner since September 1996)

Sun-Maid is a cooperative owned by 1,200 raisin growers from Kern County north to Livingston.  The cooperative, formed in 1921, processes, packages, stores, and markets raisins for its members.  The goal of Sun-Maid's IPM program is to improve chemical selectivity, reduce pesticide usage, eliminate the use of harsher pesticides, improve worker safety, improve raisin yields per acre, and ultimately improve grower profit margins.  Sun-Maid has pledged $100,000 to the University of California Cooperative Extension to help research new varieties and clones, dried-on-the-vine training and trellsing systems, improved nitrogen management, cover cropping, nematode resistant varieties, and other projects.  Two hundred grower-members participate in Sun-Maid's IPM project, up from 70 only two years ago.   It has received a grant from the Pew Charitable Trust, in part to look at the role cooperatives can play in effecting fundamental changes in agricultural production.

Member Contacts

Joseph Kretsch, IPM Coordinator
Sun-Maid Growers of California
13525 S Bethel Ave
Kingsburg, CA  93631-9232
559-896-8000
559-897-2362 (fax)

Barry F. Kriebel, President
Sun-Maid Growers of California
13525 S Bethel Ave
Kingsburg, CA  93631-9232
559-896-8000
559-897-2362 (fax)

EPA Liaison to this Member

Barbara Madden
U.S. EPA/OPP/RD
1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW (7505P)
Washington, DC 20460-0001
703-305-6463
madden.barbara@epa.gov

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PESP Sector Designation

Non-Tree Fruits

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