Musings: Fired Up

In the wee hours of New Year's Eve, North Shore Oahu farmer Derek Agader suffered a “suspicious fire” that destroyed a tractor and two more pieces of farming equipment.

 He blamed the arson on anti-GMO/anti-pesticide activists. According to Hawaii News Now:

“We hate to call it a hate crime, but it just seems that there's no other way to put it," Agader said. "There's no motive for anything else but people who just don't agree with our practices."

“I've been worried about him and his farm since I started seeing him post farm realities and explanations in response to the rabid activists' claims about farming and use of pesticides on the Oahu North Shore Community Facebook page,” a friend emailed.

Anti-GMO groups like the Center for Food Safety (led in Hawaii by Ashley Lukens) and Gary Hooser's HAPA have been trying to rile up folks on North Shore Oahu since their efforts to destroy biotech on Kauai, Maui and the Big Island were overturned by the courts.

“Ashley and the rest of them are convincing people that they are being poisoned and that DOA [Department of Ag] is incompetent and corrupt, so they think they need to take matters into their own hands.,” my friend wrote.

Just a few days before the fire, Hooser had taken to the opinion pages of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser to rail against pesticides. His piece — titled “Good neighbor policy not enough when neighbor uses risky chemicals” in the S-A and “They truly are poisoning paradise” in a Dec. 30 re-post on his blog — starts out:

Our community cannot rely on “good neighbors” to protect our health and environment. Government intervention is needed now.

Hooser's piece, which railed against the pesticide chlorpyrifos, was riddled with his usual misinformation, innuendo, twisted facts and flat-out lies. But Hooser's recurring message was clear: farmers using pesticides are not “good neighbors.”

Is it any surprise, then, that somebody decided to torch Derek's equipment? From the get-go, the Hawaii anti-GMO/anti-ag movement has engaged in property damage, vandalism, threats and bullying attacks against anyone who stands up to them or dares to question their rhetoric. 

Thousands of papaya trees were destroyed on the Big Island and Oahu, a Kauai taro farmer received death threats and had his ditch vandalized by thugs who left anti-GMO stickers behind, public property was defaced with anti-GMO messages on Kauai and Maui. The sugar-haters on Maui also burned two of HC&S's tractors, valued at $500,000 each.

Yet the Hawaii leaders of this anti-ag movement — Center for Food Safety, Babes Against Biotech and Hooser — have never once condemned these tactics. Indeed, from the time that Hooser issued his infamous call for “a million little fists,” it has condoned and even provoked the most despicable tactics.

There's an objective here, and it's called silencing the opposition. The anti-GMO movement has worked very hard to silence scientists through the kind of harassment instigated by the misnamed US Right to Know. 

Now, with farmers finally starting to speak up, they're trying to silence them, too. How many farmers want to risk having their crops vandalized, their equipment burned? So much easier to just stay out of the fray, keep your head down, hope it all blows over.

Meanwhile, these very same groups, led by HAPA, are hosting a so-called “Food Justice Summit” this month. They're bringing in anti-GMO activists from Mexico, Switzerland, Nigeria and Malaysia to supposedly start “restoring a fairer and more sustainable food system.” Not coincidentally, it's timed to culminate with the opening day at the Lege.

Where are the Hawaii farmers — any farmers? you might ask. Why aren't they providing a platform for people who actually know what's happening in agriculture locally? Why aren't they calling upon the expertise of those who have spent their lives understanding how ag does, and doesn't, work in the Islands, rather than import activists who do not even farm?

Good questions.

Here's the answer: This isn't about farming. This isn't about a more fair and sustainable food system.

This is about GMO crops, and the international campaign to abolish them.

And in Hawaii, it's also about destroying agriculture so the land can be developed.

I noticed that Jonathan Scheuer, someone I like and respect, had been tapped to serve as moderator for this "Summit." So I sent him a Facebook message:

Was very sorry to see you affiliated with HAPA. I have detailed so many of Gary Hooser's lies and transgressions on my blog!

To which he replied, in part:

I'm not endorsing everything or any particular thing Gary says, or any of the speakers. But I thought when they asked me to facilitate I could be of service to what I think is an important discussion.

It is an important discussion. But it's being held by the wrong people, who have very specific agendas that have nothing to do with actually producing more food or supporting agriculture in Hawaii or anywhere else. 

Through their actions over the past few years, they've created a political climate where farmers don't want to participate. So they're able to set and control the agenda.

When good people lend their good names to corrupt entities like HAPA and Center for Food Safety, they help these activist groups gain influence and credibility, simply by association. These groups and their leaders need to be called to account for their actions in the Islands, duly discredited and then ostracized socially and politically.

Besides attacking agricultural biotech, HAPA claims, ironically, that one of its goals is “reclaiming democracy.”

How, exactly, do you reclaim democracy while fear-mongering, intentionally spreading lies and simultaneously seeking to silence, through the most extreme and distasteful means, those who disagree?

It may be a new year, but in Hawaii, the same old bullshit is under foot. It's time to give these posers the heave-ho and bring actual local farmers into the discussion about food, land and agriculture in the Islands.