Musings: Conflict and Conciliation

It's so ironic to hear the Hawaii Center for Food Safety talking about getting along when conflict is its raison d'être. Heck, it's the only way this anti-GMO group can amass power and money.

Which is why I nearly gagged while reading today's phony Civil Beat commentary by CFS program director Danya Hakeem, who was endorsing the Joint Fact Finding (JFF) report on Kauai agricultural pesticides. She first wrote:

The debate over genetic engineering and pesticides has become so personal and contentious that as a collective we are losing sight of the real people behind the corporations and organizations that share our home.

And then in the very next sentence espoused:

The agrichemical industry left unchecked could severely impact the health of our keiki and aina, now and for future generations.

This is after Danya asserted that Kauai moms living on Hawaiian homesteads “are fighting to protect their keiki and the aina from toxic pesticide drift” and “small organic farmers on Hawaii Island [are] struggling to earn a living because the system favors large agrichemical companies over local farmers.”

Oh, yeah, pass the olive branch, please. Her piece comes just two days after CFS sent out an email with a petition demanding Gov. Ige take action NOW on the report's recommendations.

I guess Danya had to write it because CFS Director Ashley Lukens was too busy posing and pontificating on subjects about which she knows nothing but lies:

Yes, CFS's call to “merge our differing viewpoints” sounds so sincere.

About as sincere as JFF facilitator Peter Adler, whose cover letter for the report noted, “we want to take a point of privilege and offer three personal thoughts.” As if his own personal thoughts and beliefs aren't already mirrored in the report, and the process that led to its creation. 

Adler then goes on to toot his own horn by proclaiming, “Joint Fact Finding was a wise approach, and remains a wise choice” — yeah, because that's how he makes his living — before writing:

Retrospectively, some who originally thought the JFF panel was reasonable in its composition at the start now argue otherwise when the substantive results don’t favor their opinions.

Once again, Adler failed to grasp what’s really bugging some of us. First, the “substantive results” aren’t substantive at all, though they’re presented as such. Second, he chose anti-GMO consultants, none of whom were initially vetted with the community. And third, the panel lost the only three members who weren’t on the anti-GMO bandwagon, which greatly changed the outcome of the report. That's why some of us who initially supported the effort are now crying foul.

It really is unfortunate that Peter never took any responsibility for those three resignations, characterizing them as “bumps in the road,” and failed to incorporate their concerns into the report.

Adler then wrote:

Absolutists on each end of GMO/Pesticide debate spectrum will continue to be severe critics of any and all proposals that do not suit their goals. That is their self-declared mandate, and they will continue to make the most noise as they attack their opponents’ beliefs while defending their own.

Nice way to end-run legitimate critics by characterizing them as fanatics. That sounds so conciliatory, Peter. And I guess that explains why CFS is loving the report — it's a custom fit to its goals. Almost like it was written to order. Oh, wait, that's right — it was.

Though Adler and the panel received hundreds of comments on the draft JFF, they blew most of them off, including this one from Department of Health Director Virginia Pressler:

But then, it mustn't be allowed into the report because it doesn't fit the activist narrative of the chem companies poisoning school children.

Meanwhile, the Hawaii Democratic Party will be considering a packet of resolutions at its convention this weekend, including one on “responsible legislation regarding pesticide application.” In pressing for the adoption of buffer zones, it advances the totally outrageous claim:

Whereas some large industrial agricultural operations in Hawaii do not use modern best practices that farmers elsewhere use to protect the environment, their neighbors and the land.

WTF? Why, just yesterday state Agriculture Director Scott Enright told those big ag operators: “You folks apply pesticides better than anybody in the state ever has. You are not my concern.”

Despite the JFF — or more likely, because of it — the old misperceptions about agricultural operations remain, hyped by hypocrites like CFS, which call for cooperation even as it dishes out discord and fans the flames of fear.