Southern San Joaquin Valley, CA
Climate and environment | 2026
Mapping cumulative patterns in pesticide application where people live, work, learn, and play to support oversight and development decisions.
The southern San Joaquin Valley, including Kern, Fresno, and Tulare counties, is ranked among the highest pesticide-use regions in California with large-scale agricultural operations that regularly use restricted and other high-concern pesticides. Residents in the valley have some of the highest rates of asthma and respiratory illnesses in the country, a cumulative burden shaped by decades of agricultural chemical use, diesel emissions, and geographic conditions that trap pollution in the valley floor. The region’s poor air quality puts farmworker families at risk, yet pesticide use and its effects are not well documented. County-level confirmed-use records are complex, fragmented, and difficult for communities to access and use. Without access to timely and complete data on the use of pesticides, community members and local decision-makers lack a clear, shared picture of pesticide use and what it means for their health and wellbeing.
To make local pesticide-use data accessible and understandable, Clearya, an AI-powered chemical data analytics platform, will partner with Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR), whose member organizations include Central California Environmental Justice Network and Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, to build an interactive data tool mapping confirmed pesticide-use data. Clearya will develop an automated data retrieval and processing pipeline to obtain and analyze confirmed pesticide-use data from the three counties. This pesticide-use data will be mapped to show cumulative application patterns near where people live, work, learn, and play. The project team will write plain-language health summaries in English and Spanish about the pesticides appearing most frequently in the county data to inform residents. CPR will review the summaries for clarity and relevance to community concerns.
CPR members will share findings with the Kern, Fresno, and Tulare counties’ Agricultural Commissioners to support their permitting and oversight work and to inform the AB-617 air pollution reduction processes. CPR and its member organizations can use the data in testimony before county commissions and city council to inform development and use decisions related to land near agriculture. Community members can use the project’s bilingual findings to submit comments, attend hearings, and engage directly with county officials, regulatory agencies, and municipal decision-makers on decisions that affect community health and wellbeing. Because pesticide policy in California is set at the state level, findings from local work in the three counties can also inform statewide discussions with agencies such as the Department of Pesticide Regulation and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.