Agricultural News
GMOs and Pesticides Under Attack by Activists on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai
Wed, 02 Oct 2013 20:18:20 CDT
When you mention Hawaii, you think of many things- paradise, surfing, pineapples, Pearl Harbor, volcanoes, hula girls and the list can go on and on. But, few people consider Hawaii as an agricultural battleground state. But, over the last couple of years, Hawaii has become just that as those who fear modern production agriculture have focused their wrath on the seed production industry that is the largest agricultural enterprise in the Hawaiian islands. GMO Seed Corn production is the largest part of that industry- and is found on Kauai, Oahu, Molokai and Maui. Kirby Kester, Applied Genetics Manager with BASF in Koloa on Kauai tells us that the US corn farmer on the mainland has a lot at stake since "over 90 percent of those traits or the hybrids they are buying are coming through Hawaii" at some point in the development of those traits.
BASF, DuPont Pioneer, Syngenta and Dow Chemical are among the agricultural companies on the west side of Kauai that have taken over a significant part of an old sugarcane plantation- keeping in operation a hundred year old irrigation system that brings water from one of the wettest places on earth- Mount Waialeale- down to the arid west side of the island. Kester is the farm manager for the BASF operations that raises several crops under stringent controls that regulate any drift of pollen, drift of chemicals as well as any plant materials contaminating any other farm operations. Corn, soybeans, canola, sunflowers and rice are among the crops that BASF grows in cooperation with partners from not just the US but from several other countries as well.
Kester says the seed industry has been a part of the Hawaiian islands for over forty years- and the prime reason why is the climate. He says that raising corn seed this close to the equator means "we can get three and sometimes four corn crops a year" while having no issues of moving product produced in Hawaii back to the mainland. Since Hawaii is a part of the United States, you deal with the US regulators of pesticides and GMOs- primarily the EPA and the USDA.
The battleground status has come into play as the local county governments of Kauai and Hawaii (the big island) have been considering local regulations that could cause a lot of heartburn for the modern agricultural practices these companies utilize. The focus on the Big Island of Hawaii has been on GMO papayas since no major seed company has a presence on that island while the focus on Kauai has been to tighten regulations and make it hard for the companies to continue to operate- zeroing in on GMOs and pesticide use. A county of Kauai proposal, Bill 2491, has become the focal point of the opposition to agricultural production on the island- and passed in a modified version this past Friday at the Committee level. The full Board of County Commissioners will consider the measure, but no date has been set on that consideration.
According to the Kauai newspaper website, the Garden Island, "If passed in its current form, the bill would still require Kauai's largest agricultural companies DuPont Pioneer, Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, BASF and Kauai Coffee to disclose the presence of genetically modified crops and what pesticides they are using on the island, as well as how much, when and where. It would also establish pesticide-free buffer zones around schools, hospitals, homes and other areas, and require the county to conduct a study on the health and environmental impacts of the industry.
"Provisions deleted from the bill Friday include those that would have prohibited open-air testing of experimental pesticides and genetically modified organisms, established a permitting process and placed a temporary moratorium on the expansion of GMO fields." Click here for the full article about bill 2491.
In talking with Kester, who is involved with the Hawaii Crop Improvment Association- a trade group that has been using radio and print ads to try to educate residents on Kauai about the safety and need for modern production ag practices, the regulations being proposed would likely be challenged in the courts if adopted. One additional factor has entered into the battle over 2491- Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombe has announced plans to consider more oversight over the use of pesticides and the growing of GMOs within the state as a whole- and some are saying that could eliminate the need for a measure like 2491 from going forward.
A few weeks ago, while on the island of Kauai, Farm Director Ron Hays talked with Kirby Kester and toured the BASF farming operation. You can hear our conversation with Kirby by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
The Hawaii Crop Improvement Association has several excellent resources that they are using to educate folks- especially on Kauai. Click here to read up on one of the campaigns they have organized to push back against opponents of modern production agriculture.
There is a lot of money pouring into Kauai in support of Bill 2491- and the organization pushing the measure is well organized- the main website we have found can be seen by clicking here.
If you are a Twitter fan, one of the best sources of information on the battle over 2491 on Kauai is the wife of Kirby Kester- her handle is HawaiiAgWife. Click here to jump over to Twitter and check out her recent Tweets.
Finally, we took some pictures of agriculture while on Kauai- about the only thing that the BASF farm has growing while we were there was rice- it was the fallow season for corn. We have placed the pictures we have of Kauai agriculture up on our FLICKR page- click here to check out that set.
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