Musings: Little and Late

In an apparent attempt to pre-empt a pending pesticide/GMO disclosure bill, the state Department of Agriculture has crafted a “Kauai agricultural good neighbor program” that calls for voluntary buffer zones and restricted use pesticide (RUP) disclosure.

The announcement came on the eve of today's County Council vote on whether to override Mayor Bernard Carvalho's veto of Bill 2491. The hotly contested measure would require Dow Agrosciences, Syngenta, BASF, Dupont/Pioneer and Kauai Coffee to implement buffer zones and disclose pesticide use and cultivation of genetically modified crops.

The good neighbor program also would apply only to those five entities, though it is not as strict as Bill 2491. It establishes a 100-foot buffer zone where RUPs cannot be used between fields and homes, schools and medical facilities, whereas Bill 2491 sets a 500-foot buffer. The bill also creates buffer zones for streams, roads and parks, which are not covered in the program. Both exempt mature orchards.

The “good neighbor” program for disclosure is significantly weaker than Bill 2491, in that it excludes homeowners and general health care providers from notification prior to pesticide applications. It specifies:

Under this program, farm operators on Kaua‘i will notify schools, hospitals, and medical clinics that register with a participating farm operator on Kaua‘i (“registered entities”).

Pre-application notification will be made to those registered entities only in cases when the application of an RUP will be made along the entity’s property line abutting a 1000 foot notification zone as measured from the outside of the proposed treated area.

The “good neighbor” program for public disclosure of RUPs would take effect much more quickly than Bill 2491, whose disclosure provisions wouldn't be triggered for another year. However, the program doesn't include any disclosure of general use pesticides, as the bill does, nor would it specify where the pesticides were used.

Instead, the program calls for disclosing only the total volume of each RUP used and total acreage affected. The data would be posted monthly on the state's open data portal, while Bill 2491 requires annual disclosure of pesticides used the prior year.

The program also proposes more outreach:

Farm operators on Kaua‘i would establish a farm by farm practice to continue and improve good neighbor relations and understanding of farming. Neighbors that are geographically located nearest the above mentioned operations would be the primary focus of the good neighbor program which may involve a farm operator working with individual neighbors to address their concerns about RUP applications.

Farm operators on Kaua‘i and their nearby neighbors would discuss their respective questions, such as the science behind pesticide formulation, registration, and use, and the actual conditions on and around farms.

The program does not address the disclosure of what genetically modified organisms are being grown on Kauai, as is required under Bill 2491.

The voluntary program will take effect Dec. 1, and will remain in effect for one year, when it will be evaluated for effectiveness.  If the Council overrides the veto today, Bill 2491 is due to take effect in nine months, though a threatened legal challenge could delay its implementation.

HDOA also plans to ask the state Legislature to fund 10 additional inspector and pesticide education positions statewide in this upcoming legislative session, according to a press release posted on the HDOA website.