December 03, 2025 | Source: Popular Rationalism | by James Lyons-Weiler, PhD

They’re spraying PFAS on our food, and the public has no idea.

PFAS—per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—are synthetic chemicals engineered to resist heat, oil, and water. Their carbon-fluorine bonds, among the strongest in chemistry, make them incredibly stable and essentially non-degradable in nature. Developed in the 1940s, PFAS found early use in industrial applications, firefighting foams, and consumer products like nonstick cookware, waterproof fabrics, and food packaging. But in recent decades, they’ve entered an entirely new arena: agriculture.

PFAS now reach food crops through four primary routes: as active ingredients in pesticides, as unlabeled co-formulants or impurities in pesticide mixtures, as leachates from fluorinated containers, and via biosolids (processed sewage sludge) applied to soil as fertilizer. Each of these vectors has been confirmed in the scientific literature. And yet, none of them are disclosed to consumers—and few are understood even by farmers themselves.

In California, the state’s comprehensive pesticide reporting system shows that more than 15 million pounds of PFAS-containing pesticides were sprayed between 2018 and 2023. These included dozens of registered active ingredients used on almonds, tomatoes, grapes, pistachios, and alfalfa—commodities that make their way into baby food, school lunches, and livestock feed. These chemicals aren’t legacy contaminants drifting in from past manufacturing; they’re new PFAS chemistries, registered and sprayed intentionally. In 2025, EPA approved two more: cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram, which are now allowed on leafy greens, peas, citrus, cottonseed, and more. Both belong to chemical families that degrade into smaller PFAS over time.