Jensen says the county first detected this particular fruit fly in late July through routine trap monitoring. The pest’s presence has now triggered a quarantine by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. It extends over an area of 123 square miles, covering a swathe of the city of Sacramento and a sliver of Yolo County.
CDFA staff are going street-by-street this week, telling residents with backyard produce not to move it off their property.
That may be a nuisance for some, but it’s a serious problem for farmer Sarah McCamman at Root 64 Farm. She makes her living growing tomatoes, okra and more on a one-acre lot south of the Tahoe Park neighborhood. She and partner Randy Stannard sell what they grow at the Oak Park Farmers Market and to a few local restaurants.
“It’s not like we can just say, ‘Oh, we can’t sell it at market, but let’s sell it to chefs.’ We cannot move it at all, period. Which is pretty depressing to think about,” McCamman said.
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