Musings: Finger on the Pulse

It's been a rough week for anti-GMO activists.

First, the World Health Organization came out and said — contrary to a report issued by another WHO agency last year — that glyphosate (Roundup) poses no cancer risk. This Wired article does a great job of explaining the brouhaha.

Then an Oregon judge rejected GMO bans passed by two counties there, using the same pre-emption ruling that knocked out three anti-GMO ordinances in Hawaii. The judge based his decision on an Oregon Supreme Court ruling that found state law pre-empts local law when they are incompatible.

Babes Against Biotech quickly posted this meme, proving the gals — and the rest of their crowd — still fail to understand that the rule of law is the cornerstone of democracy, and laws have to be legal.

They're just worried, because it's not looking so good for the appeal of the overturned Big Island, Kauai and Maui ordinances when other states use the same legal reasoning as Hawaii. But hey, that doesn't stop them from doing what they do best: begging. In this case, it's to raise money to send Lauryn Rego to the Intermediate Court of Appeals hearing in June so she can denigrate participants and create a wild spin, just as she did with the Maui moratorium ruling and Pioneer-Waimea dust lawsuit.

It brought to mind the petition drive to get Sabra Kauka on “Oprah” so she can pitch the anti-GMO propaganda piece “Aina: That Which Feeds.” I never cease to be amazed at the PR machine behind these guys — and they way they blatantly use kanaka, keiki and kupuna to raise kala.

And just yesterday, the National Academy of Sciences issued an evidence-based report that found, among other things:

On the basis of its detailed examination of comparisons between currently commercialized GE and non-GE foods in compositional analysis, acute and chronic animal toxicity tests, long-term data on health of livestock fed GE foods, and epidemiological data, the committee concluded that no differences have been found that implicate a higher risk to human health safety from these GE foods than from their non-GE counterparts.

Before the report was even released, the antis were out in force, claiming all the scientists and the NAS were biotech shills. Sheesh. Talk about sore losers. It reminds me of Vandana Shiva's wild claim that Monsanto controls all the scientific journals in the world. Uh, if they wielded that kind of clout, do you really think they'd be in the middle of this shit storm?

Of course, the antis will never be assuaged, so no need bother with them, other than to poke fun. But the report will be very useful in helping all the reasonable folks in the middle who want to gain a scientifically-based understanding of both the technology and the controversy that surrounds it.

Because in the real American world, folks are happy with modern agriculture. A new survey found that 86 percent of registered voters polled view farmers favorably, while just 3 percent did not. Some 81 percent said that, “a strong and thriving American farm industry is critical to American national security,” with 92 percent supporting federal spending to help farms and farmers.

And in the other real world — the poor, hungry one — folks want and need biotech, even though well-fed Western elitists tell them they shouldn't have it. 

In Bangladesh, for example, Bt brinjal (eggplant) has so greatly reduced the use of insecticides that an entire village raising the crop was declared a pesticide free vegetable growing area. 

As Arif Hossain Romel, an Alliance for Science fellow from Bangladesh, noted in his Facebook post on the topic: “Surely a good development for better future.”

Musings: Sneaky and Cheeky

Every year, the Kauai farming community gets together and hosts students for an Agriculture and Environmental Awareness Day at the UH experimental station in Wailua. Kids and adults alike always seemed to enjoy the opportunity to talk story and learn.

This year, however, things took an ugly twist when Hanalei School fifth graders combatively questioned Syngenta and Pioneer employees — and secretly videotaped the exchanges.

Really? Is this what we're teaching kids these days? That it's OK to violate someone's privacy and record them without their permission? That civil discourse is not valued? That adults don't garner any respect? That an agricultural process they don't understand is something to be feared and reviled? That there's only one acceptable way to grow crops?

Not surprisingly, the adults who love to fill kids' heads with poisonous platitudes and devious deeds were quick to weigh in:

Oh, yeah, it's funny, alright. Funny as a heart attack to brainwash young kids, turn them into mini-demagogues, inspire the next generation of ignorant punks to follow in the footsteps of Dustin Barca.

The brainwashing continues this summer, with Malama Kauai offering paid agricultural internships at places that know a lot about scoring grant money, but zilch about producing a successful commercial crop. Because doncha know that farmers aren't supposed to make money? Perhaps that's why previous internships and woofer jobs have attracted only mainland kids, who are keen to surf and see Kauai.

So this year they're limiting it to Kauai residents. Says Megan Fox, the non-farmer who runs Malama Kauai: 

The purpose behind offering these kinds of internships is to infuse the knowledge and love of agriculture into the next generation of the island’s leaders.

Funny, how that runs so counter to the stunt pulled by the Hanalei School kids. They could have learned a lot if they'd approached the seed company reps without their smug know-it-all attitudes. Because face it, those kids don't know shit about GE agriculture.

Though Malama Kauai is desperately seeking to “localize our ag workforce and increase our own food production,” there's no escaping reality: farming, even when it's the free ride kine practiced by Malama Kauai and Waipa, is hard work with limited economic returns.

Why, just the other day, Punaluu farmer Dave Burlew took to the comment section in Civil Beat to defend the tax credit that slipped through the Lege via the repugnant “gut and replace” process:

This tax credit is for a very few number of farmers who are ( or want to be) "certified" organic by the USDA. Most of us organic farmers in Hawaii are not certified (myself included), so this may be an incentive to follow through with certification. Organic certification (and organic farming) is expensive and certification carries an arduous amount of paperwork and a legal oblication [sic] to follow the rules. Most farmers may have marginal success running a certified organic farm, let alone be profitable at it.

Gee, he makes it sound so appealing. But hey, if the anti-GMO activists and farm idealists have their way, that's the only kind of ag that will be allowed in Hawaii. And when it fails, as it will, houses and hotels will quickly take its place.

Speaking of farm idealists, I see that Surfrider once again was featured in The Garden Island. It seems that reporter Jessica Else has embedded herself with the group and thus feels compelled to report its every move, even when it's a couple of self-proclaimed non-experts telling people how to create ocean-friendly yards.

Curious, how Surfrider isn't taking on the oceanfront resorts, golf courses and TVRs, with their pesticide-intensive landscape practices. But then, those guys are allies now, united in their fight against agriculture.

And while we're on the topic of TGI, could they please stop printing letters from Glenn Mickens extolling the virtue of the county manager concept? Though TGI has yet to cover it, that proposal is dead, and will be duly buried on Wednesday. Time for Mickens to let it go and spare us all his tiresome tirades.

Maui has also been infected by the county manager bug, spread by the same transplants who are convinced Hawaii could be better, if only it became more like someplace else. By which is meant a place where they might gain some power. Hopefully the Maui Council will be similarly apprised of HRS 76-77, which would require the manager to go through the civil service process, thus keeping the appointment out of any Council's power-hungry grasp.

Musings: Sweet and Sour

Just as HC&S is shutting down its Maui plantation, sugar is becoming more profitable.

Ironically, that profitability is linked to the anti-GMO movement, whose members include some of the very same anti-ag activists who worked so hard to kill HC&S with their unceasing complaints and litigation about cane smoke, water diversions and herbicides.

In the bizarre new world of activist-driven agriculture, the twisted chain of events goes like this:

In their quest to destroy agricultural biotech, anti-GMO activists stimulated irrational health fears, particularly in moms, who began clamoring for GMO-free candy.

Big candy-makers like Hershey's, one of the nation's top sugar-users, listened. According to Deborah Arcoleo, director of product transparency at the Hershey Co.:

In 2015 we started reformulating Hershey’s Kisses, Hershey’s milk chocolate, and Hershey’s milk chocolate with almonds, to move from beet sugar to cane sugar, and that’s complete. Now we’re looking to do that across the rest of our portfolio, to the extent that we can.

As a result, NPR reported, the price for beet sugar — much of it produced by genetically engineered Roundup Ready sugar beets — dropped below the price for cane sugar. Buyers are now paying 10 to 15 percent more for cane sugar, an expense that no doubt will be reflected in the price of candy.

So now sugar beet farmers are faced with a choice: go back to conventional beets, or get a lower price — or perhaps no buyers at all — for their GMO product.

The anti-GMO activists no doubt consider this a success, having employed fear-driven consumer pressure to bring Hershey's — and the beet farmers who supplied it with sugar — to their knees.

But is it really a win? Consider that beet farmers embraced the GMO variety because it helped them reliably produce a crop with fewer herbicides. Duane Grant, a sugar beet grower in Idaho, described cultivation in the pre-Roundup Ready days:

It was a nightmare. We had failures all the time — fields that would become unharvestable because of our failure to control weeds. We had an army of people applying herbicides around the clock or just at night. We did micro-rates, we did maxi-rates, you name it.

We had one sprayer for every 500 acres, so eight sprayers running around.They would work whenever they could. It might be all night long; it might be 24 hours straight because they had a window.

It was a horrible life.

As weedcontrolfreaks.com notes:

The herbicide regimen used to include 4 to 6 different herbicides applied between 3 to 6 times per year, at 5 to 10 day intervals. Even after this much herbicide spraying, around 40 to 60% of sugarbeet fields had to be hand-weeded because the herbicides rarely provided complete weed control. Compare that to the Roundup Ready (GMO) system, where 2 or 3 applications of glyphosate have replaced the many herbicide sprays that were used previously, while providing better weed control.

By 2009, only two years after widespread adoption of GMO sugar beet, over 50,000 acres of sugar beet fields were converted to some form of reduced or conservation tillage practices in Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming. That number is probably much higher now. Conservation tillage practices improve soil health, reduce soil erosion, and preserve soil moisture. Conservation tillage simply wasn’t possible in sugarbeet before the introduction of Roundup Ready varieties, because intensive tillage was needed to obtain adequate weed control in the crop.

OK, so we're seeing clear environmental and social benefits from GMO sugar beets — gains that will be lost by a return to non-GMO beets.

Meanwhile, the Maui elitists who felt sugar cane production was incompatible with their desired lifestyle are helping to encourage that crop in places like Central America, where the harvesting is done by migrant workers who have a high incidence of chronic kidney disease due, it's thought, to laboring in the hot tropical sun without sufficient rest, shade and water.

This reality is totally lost on anti-GMO activists, who have absolutely no grasp of the consequences of their actions — even as they claim to be motivated by concerns for farm worker health and environmental contamination.

As sugar beet grower Andrew Beyer told NPR:

To me, it’s insane to think that a non-GMO beet is going to be better for the environment, the world, or the consumer.

But Beyer says he’ll do it if he needs to.

Yeah, if the insanity of the anti-GMO movement keeps driving the market, farmers will respond.

But activists should stop pretending that they're doing any of this for benefit of the environment or the farmers. Because clearly, they're not.

Musings: Dead on Arrival

The Kauai county manager proposal is finally dead.

Councilmembers on Wednesday voted to receive a proposed charter amendment that would have stripped power from the mayor and given it to a Council-hired manager, while also broadly expanding their powers and extending their terms.

Why? Not because it's an inherently bad and expensive idea promoted by a few disgruntled nitpickers, and a wild power grab by the Council. No. That makes too much sense. It was nixed only because state law would require a manager be selected under the full civil service selection and hiring process.

Which means the Council couldn't hire/fire the manager and control him/her.

So of course they're not interested, with Councilmembers saying, in effect, if we don't get to do the hiring, what's the point?

Meanwhile, as Councilmembers JoAnn Yukimura and Gary Hooser attempt to legitimize unpermitted homestay operators who have already been told to pack it up, some of those folks are now facing criminal charges.

The Office of Prosecuting Attorney yesterday filed cases against homestay/B&B owners Bill and Cathy Cowern, Darcy Summer, Patricia Enderlin and John and Lorna Hoff, charging them with zoning violations and unsworn falsification, both misdemeanors.

Over on Oahu, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell has appointed mediator/facilitator Peter Adler to that city's ethics commission, pending approval by the city council. I mention it only because Peter is the guy who is running the Joint Fact Finding Group on Kauai pesticides, a process fraught with questionable ethics, bias and the resignations of a third of its members.

But hey, it was awfully smart to release the JFFG's bloated “draft report,” with its many references to activist-funded unpublished studies and unsubstantiated health claims. Even though the final report, due out later this month, is supposed to be revised to reflect the many concerns raised by the public and seed companies it targets, it will be hard to dial back the misperceptions perpetuated by the draft. It's gotten tons of publicity — most recently in the Hawaii Business magazine article on pesticides, which gives much ink to the proposed recommendations and says the report “suggests a way forward on the issue.”

Oh, yes. A way crafted by the very same people who pushed the anti-GMO legislation through in the first place. Because even though the discussion is now framed as “concerns about pesticides,” let's not forget it's all based in an attempt to destroy GMO agriculture in the Islands.

I thought about the Hawaii anti-GMO movement as I cruised around the fertile Willamette Valley in Oregon yesterday, enroute to a string of waterfalls that rival those in the Islands. We passed fields full of Christmas trees, nursery plants, grass being grown for seed. But nobody in Oregon is bitching about using farmland to grow non-food products.

It's only in Hawaii that you hear that sort of nonsense, thanks to non-farmers like Councilman Hooser who try to claim that growing seeds somehow isn't really farming. Oregonians are smart enough to recognize that non-food crops are valuable agricultural exports, and a desirable alternative to urbanization.

Musings: Here and There

It's ironic that I'm here in Portland, land of big rivers,

near vertical tumbling streams,

windswept beaches,

wildflowers,

and clear-cut hillsides,

at the same time that Portland activist Paul Cienfuegos is on Kauai, touting an admittedly illegal ordinance that would allow the county to “expel any corporation that threatens the health and safety of the community.”

By which is meant any industry they don't like — anti-ag activists Bridget Hammerquist and Gary Hooser joined Cienguegos — but not those providing conveniences they do like, such as gasoline, electricity and airport trips from Portland.

Cienguegos is a member of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which uses a strategy similar to the one employed by the anti-GMO movement: target small, easily manipulated, rural communities and dufus politicians and enlist them as pawns in a national political strategy:

We are not a typical environmental organization. We assist communities to develop first-in-the-nation, groundbreaking laws to protect rights – including worker, environmental, and democratic rights, and rights of nature. CELDF provides free and low cost legal services, grassroots organizing, and education, to communities, states, and countries facing injustice.

It's exactly what Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice did with the anti-GMO bills. While these strategies benefit the "nonprofit" groups that push them, both in legal fees and fundraising tools, they also cost taxpayers big money and create significant community polarization.

We see Hawaii Center for Food Safety director Ashley Lukens trot out that same “injustice” claim in an article on pesticides published in this month's Hawaii Business magazine.

The story ends with Ashley saying Malia Chun's undocumented claim that seed crop pesticides gave her asthma “illustrates the class issue raised by pesticide exposure in Hawaii. It's significant, Lukens notes, that it's been places like rural Kauai where the debate has been focused, and where pesticides continue to be prevalent even after apparent exposure at local schools.”

Uh, the debate has been focused on Kauai because that's where CFS and Earthjustice found a chump politicians (Hooser and Bynum) willing to carry their flag and an anti-GMO group willing to stir up fears in the populace and a bunch of newbies willing to jump on the bandwagon so they could feel like they belong on the island.

Meanwhile, state tests found the highest level of pesticides in streams on urban Oahu, in upscale Manoa, not rural farm communities.

But hey, since when have the facts, or logic, ever had anything to do with what is at heart a blatant attempt by non-Hawaii folks to wrest political control of the Islands — at any cost? 

Musings: Power Mad

In what reads as a blatant power grab, the Kauai County Council is proposing sweeping changes to the County Charter that would extend their terms, install a county manager and strip the mayor of all administrative authority.

Uh, why? Because the Council is doing such a great job that it should be given even more control over county government?

The Council will take up the proposed changes in the form of a resolution at Wednesday's committee meeting, where it will also consider two bills regulating homestays/B&Bs. One measure would prohibit them outside of the Visitor Destination Area.

Council Chair Mel Rapozo introduced the charter resolution, which was opposed only by Councilmen Ross Kagawa and Arryl Kaneshiro. The others justified it as a way to take the politics out of county government. Mmm, like the Council — and this very proposal — isn't uber political?

If the resolution is approved, the proposed charter changes would go before the voters in the November election.

The proposed charter changes would eliminate the current checks and balances in the county system by giving the Council authority to hire and oversee a County Manager, who would handle all the administrative duties now allocated to the Mayor. The Mayor would become a voting member of the Council, preside over meetings “and perform other duties specified by the Council.”

The changes would give the Council power to “appoint a county manager for an indefinite term and fix the manager’s compensation.”

The county manager would have broad powers, including to appoint and remove the police chief and planning director — authority now held by the police and planning commissions, respectively.

The county manager also would be authorized to propose salaries for all elected officials and non-civil service employees — a duty now held by the salary commission.

Furthermore, “all rules and regulations having the effect of law adopted by any board, commission, or administrative head of a department, must first be approved by the county manager prior to going into effect.”

The resolution also proposes:

At the 2018 general election, six Councilmembers shall be elected at large: the three (3) candidates receiving the greatest number of votes shall serve for four-year terms, and the three (3) candidates receiving the next greatest number of votes shall serve for two-year terms. Commencing at the 2020 general election and at all subsequent general elections, all Councilmembers shall be elected for four-year terms. No person shall be elected to the Council for more than two consecutive four-year terms.

This would allow Rapozo and Councilman JoAnn Yukimura, who are ready to term-out, to serve another eight years.

The mayor also would be elected to a four-year term, with the Council picking “a deputy mayor who shall act as mayor and chairperson during the absence or disability of the mayor and, if a vacancy occurs, shall become mayor for the remainder of the unexpired term. No person shall be elected to the office of mayor for more than two consecutive four-year terms.”

The changes also state:

The Council shall be the judge of the qualifications of its members and for that purpose shall have power to subpoena witnesses, take testimony, and require the production of records.

Though Council members and the mayor would have to be residents of Kauai for two years before seeking office, the county manager wouldn't even have to live in the state at the time of appointment so long as he/she established residency within 90 days of being hired.

Meanwhile, the Council will return to the contentious issue of homestays. Bill 2916 would set up a permitting process for the uses and restrict them to the VDA.

Bill 2609 also sets up a permitting process. It allows homestays outside of the VDA, but prohibits them in the open and agricultural zones. The 10-per-year cap proposed by the planning department has been removed. Yukimura is expected to introduce further amendments that would allow those who have been operating without a permit to get one.

Musings: Time Will Tell

(This post has been updated to reflect the smarmy process by which this bill came into being.)

It's too bad the state Legislature has been suckered into subsidizing organic farming. Especially when it was achieved through the despicable and totally non-transparent "gut and replace" method.

I'm talking about HB 1689, which authorizes some $2 million in state tax credits for farmers pursuing organic certification and production, whether they're growing for local or export markets.

More fair would have been tax credits to help all growers comply with the Food Safety Modernization Act, which is expected to drive many small farmers in the Islands out of business.

Or if the goal is to spur local production, then support any farmer who is selling in-state.

Why should an incentive be offered only to those who have embraced a certain philosophy of agriculture?

But legislators are, after all, politicians. And it's an election year. Which means they're susceptible to the heavy pressures exerted by organic lobbying groups like Center for Food Safety (CFS). 

That's how a bill that began life as a ethanol tax credit morphed in conference committee into an organic producers' subsidy. With no public debate, no opportunity for public testimony.

Here we have yet another example of the hypocrisy expressed by the anti-GMO groups, which claim they're devoted to transparency and restoration of the democratic process while making a mockery of both. It used to be the progressive groups denounced "gut and replace." But apparently now the ends justify dirty means.

And they're totally shameless about their actions, too. Hawaii CFS director and registered lobbyist Ashley Lukens quickly issued a press release hailing the tax credits:

“Organic agriculture has a huge role to play in addressing some of the most pressing issues of our time — economic revitalization, climate change, public health and environmental protection.”

Actually, Ashley is (once again) wrong. As I noted in my report on a study by Purdue University agricultural economists:

Eliminating GMO crops in America would significantly boost greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions and have other environmental and economic impacts.

The Purdue researchers found that yields of soy, corn, and cotton would decrease, requiring some 252,047 acres of U.S. forest and pasture lands to be converted to crop production to offset the shortfall. A reduction in the export of U.S. commodity crops would also increase demand for cropland in other nations.

“Some of the same groups that oppose GMOs want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the potential for global warming," said Dr. Wallace E. Tyner, one of the study authors. "The result we get is that you can't have it both ways. If you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture, an important tool to do that is with GMO traits."

But hey, since when have facts mattered to the anti-GMO crowd? Which is why The Garden Island's coverage of any stories of this sort must include a comment from the chief charlatan, Councilman Gary Hooser:

“Kudos to the legislature for recognizing the importance of supporting local organic farmers. More and more people in Hawaii, and around the world, are choosing organically grown foods over processed factory food as a healthier alternative for both the people, and the planet.”

Gosh, he sounds an awful lot like a pitch man for the organics industry, which is a major funder of the anti-GMO movement.

Of course, there's no proof that organic food actually is any healthier for people, and the Purdue researchers proved it's not healthier for the planet. The inflated claims are all marketing hype to help folks feel better about paying a hefty premium, and to guilt moms into buying stuff they can't afford.

And please, let's not pretend that organic ingredients aren't also turned into processed food in factories. How else would you get organic Cheetos and all the rest of the highly-processed stuff that fills the “health food” stores?

Speaking of pretending, even though the organic tax credit was stuck in during the conference committee, Rep. Dee Morikawa is quoted in TGI as saying she supported the bill through the entire legislative process. How is that possible?

Shibai aside, it comes down to this: Will the promise of up to $50,000 in tax credits and cost shares actually motivate folks to take up organic farming?

Rep. Chris Lee, who caved into the CFS lobbying arm, was quick to promise all that and more:

More local jobs? Like when the organic guys run short on woofers?

Only time will tell whether all this wishful thinking turns into reality. 

In the meantime, these political shenanigans offer yet more evidence that the anti-GMO movement in Hawaii is not pono.

Musings: Friday Fringe

Since it's Friday, it seemed a good time to share a few of the things that entered my inbox, and consciousness, while attending a science writing workshop this week.

I was chatting with a woman whose daughter is a veterinarian in Idaho, and it seems people are now trying to scam vets to obtain animal medications that also get humans high. And when a pet owner shows up visibly packing a pistol, as is allowed under that state's concealed carry law, their requests come with a certain element of intimidation.

Junkies desperate for a fix, and others trying to ease the pain of an opioid withdrawal, have begun using the diarrhea drug Imodium — with sometimes deadly consequences. Yikes. What will it take for this nation to adopt a sane drug policy?

In his correspondence with friends, Charles Darwin predicted that the superstitious nonsense of his age would soon be a thing of the past. Yet here we are, 200 years later, and people are still eschewing science in favor of beliefs.

Speaking of Darwin, did you know there's a science rapper? His name is Baba Brinkman, and he raps about evolution, genes, climate change and much more.

While we're on the topic of climate change, here's a link to a Hawaii-specific video on the topic that I helped produce for the Cornell Alliance for Science.

Shifting gears, there has never been a reputable study showing a link between vaccines and autism. In fact, there's a tiny bit more autism in the non-vaccinated population, but it's statistically insignificant. 

If everybody in the U.S. took an aspirin right now, 500 people would die today from the effects. But aspirin are widely available and regularly consumed. Meanwhile, though there has never been a study that demonstrated harm from GMOs in 35 years of consumption, people are demanding labeling and outright bans.

Thirty percent of the compounds in breast milk can't even be digested by a baby, but instead go to feed the microbiome — the microorganisisms that live in our guts, mouths, skin and help us resist pathogens, build immunity, digest food and synthesize vitamins and minerals. These microbiome-building compounds are so important that they're now being added to infant formula.

Researchers are trying to figure out the cause of a chronic kidney disease that has sickened primarily poor farm workers in the tropics, including South Asia, Mexico and Central American. Construction workers have also been affected. Misuse of alcohol and over-the-counter pain relievers, pesticide exposure and high levels of silica in drinking water have all been named as possible culprits. Most recently, there's some thought it may be due to working in prolonged heat without sufficient hydration. This causes kidney-damaging uric acid crystals to form in the urine. In El Salvador sugar fields, they're offering workers more frequent rest and water breaks to see if that helps, as some laborers experience significant kidney function decline over the course of the harvest.

In the “gee, where's their sense of humor?” category, Farm News fired Iowa cattle farmer and freelance cartoonist Rick Friday after it got blow back for publishing his cartoon:

In the “gee, how original” category, Kauai House District candidate Fern Rosenstiel has unveiled her campaign slogan and tee-shirt:

But even though she invites you, on the front of her shirt, to “feel the Fern,” you'd best not try it. She's a tita and just might slap you upside the head.

And finally, here's a little parody of the “feel the Bern” generation:

Musings: Shattering Illusions

I'm attending a science writing workshop in Santa Fe, where spring is in full force, giving rise to such marvels as bushes choke with fragrant purple lilac:

One of the participants mentioned he'd bypassed the workshop hotel to stay in lodgings he'd found on Airbnb.  He'd taken to using Airbnb whenever he traveled, saying he preferred such accommodations as a way to meet locals.

Is it a legal rental? asked I, ever the kill-joy. He replied that Airbnb has all its own insurance. No, I said, is it a rental that's permitted by the city? It must be, he said, noting that were over 100 listed in Santa Fe, and surely, if they were illegal, the community would be up in arms.

I then offered a brief update of how communities like San Francisco, Aspen, Kauai — in short, pretty much everywhere that tourists like go — were up in arms over Airbnb and its promotion of illegal short-term rentals, but enforcement was tough, and often slow in coming. Meanwhile, the illegal short-term rentals were destroying the long-term rental market and skewing real estate prices.

He didn't look happy. But then, people never are when their illusions are shattered.

Speaking of illusions, I see that Mayor Bernard Carvalho has proclaimed May “Surfrider month.” It's great that they pick up nets and trash from the beaches and reefs. But they go off the rails with their political activities, which are consistently anti-ag: the honey-glyphosate junk science, joining the appeal of the court order overturning 2491/960, opposing the dairy before the EIS is even out, making all sorts of false accusations about how the dairy's grading had polluted Waiopili ditch.

And now they're joining their pals at Earthjustice and Pesticide Action Network in harassing the Agribusiness Development Corp. over its westside water permits. Instead of renewing its National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, ADC is working with the state Department of Health to establish a memorandum of understanding on water quality monitoring. Meanwhile, ADC is continuing to do the same monitoring it did under the NPDES.

But the groups, using their usual inflammatory, half-cocked rhetoric, sent out a press release claiming that ADC had was refusing to sample water in its ditch system, which they characterized as “an open sewer, with no treatment or monitoring, carrying chemicals and other pollution through the towns and into the ocean along the west side.”

Could they possibly get any more over the top? Why is the mayor recognizing and heralding groups that engage in this sort of outright deception and fear-mongering?

Meanwhile, Big Island Democrats used their convention to pass a resolution that calls for a ban on spraying the herbicide glyphosate in public places. Unfortunately, they did not also adopt a resolution requiring all those who voted “yay” to get out there and weed-whack, mow and hand weed. The video of the meeting offers a clear example of Hawaii's changing demographics.

So the alleged monk seal beater is crying now that his bizarre tantrum/outburst has him looking at serious federal charges. I'm hearing that he wants to use a “Hawaiian defense,” as in he's not subject to American laws and protected by traditaional practices. Good luck on that. I don't know of any traditional practices that include beating a monk seal, and we've already seen repeatedly that the courts aren't buying the claim that kanaka aren't subject to American laws.

Say, what ever happened to the “taking” investigation that the feds launched after Dustin Barca was videotaped disturbing a seal at Kee when he launched his canoe and mayoral race? And let's not forget the bad behavior modeled by Terry Lilley:

Musings: Gimme, Gimme

A friend sent me this Facebook thread with the comment, "bet you lunch you can't read it without laughing out loud."

Good thing I didn't take the bet:

Careful, Dustin. Once you move beyond a shovel and an o'o, you're officially an "industrial farm."

But hey, bring in Keone — the blind leading the blind. Though no doubt he would happily grasp any opportunity to grow his own tiny, grant-funded empire.

So he has no money or time. Welcome to the wonderful world of farming! But hey, surely somebody will just step in and make it all happen for him. Unless, of course, they're selfishly writing grants for their own purposes:

Yeah, that's the ticket! A kick-starter, go-fund-me approach to failed farming. Because you can't possibly make it if you aren't begging for handouts.

No, Shantee, what Kauai needs are realistic, hard-working farmers who do their homework and prepare carefully before sticking some animals on the land that somebody gave you and calling yourself a farmer. Smart and successful farmers start with a business plan, one that identifies equipment needs, anticipated income and expenses — before they start.

I don't know if it's  the entitlement mindset of so many millennials, or part and parcel of the dreamy view of farming that infects so many in the anti-GMO, gimme-gimme movement, but why do they think their ill-informed, unplanned, dubious actions should be grant-funded?

And how they gonna make it when the grants run out?

Meanwhile, real farmers are seeking greater understanding of what they do, and why, from the folks who populate these ill-conceived food and agricultural movements. As Modern Farmer reports:

Brian Ogletree

I think organic is great. We use chicken litter as one of our main fertilizers and all of our crop residue goes back into the ground. We are a no-till farm, which means we use a grain drill to plant the seed with the previous crop residue still standing. We use a rotation of soybeans in summer, wheat in winter, a non-soybean crop the following summer, such as browntop millet, cover crops the next winter, such as crimson clover, and then soybeans again the following summer. That every-other-year rotation keeps the disease and insect pressure down and makes the farm much more profitable.

With GMO soybeans we spray just one dose of glyphosate after planting. Then they form a canopy over the ground that outcompetes the weeds and we’re done with weed pressure from that point on. With the traditional [non-GM] soybeans, different types of chemicals that are based on chemistry from 30 years ago have to be used, which are less effective on weeds. So instead of applying just one application of an herbicide for everything, you have different chemicals for different types of weeds. And since they are less effective; you have to go out and reapply.

You also have to rely on more mechanical cultivation with non-GMO soybeans. That leaves the soil loose and exposed. With nothing holding it together, you get wind erosion and water erosion. To me, that is more damaging than using glyphosate. You’re losing your topsoil, and the chemicals are more likely to get into the watershed—when soil runs off it takes the chemicals downstream with it. Not to mention the fuel costs of doing all that cultivation.

A few years ago we tried some non-GMO soybeans, but easily used twice the amount of chemicals than with the GMO beans. A lot of people don’t understand the amount of chemicals and fuel that it takes to grow a non-GMO [soybean] crop. The whole reason these crops were developed is to be more efficient—to save money and fuel.

There are so many myths out there about GMOs, and what gets me is how many very well-educated people I’ve met who believe them.

Peter Stocks

I am a young farmer who recently returned to my family’s industrial corn and soybean farm in Illinois. I have a severely deformed right hand that is possibly related to my father’s exposure to pesticides. Glyphosate has never been linked to the type of deformity I have, but many past generations of chemicals have been. I would prefer not to have any exposure to these compounds, but we are paid an extra $1.10/per bushel premium for non-GMO soybeans. Not being able to utilize glyphosate forces my father, who still has a cavalier attitude towards pesticide exposure, to revert back to older, more dangerous herbicides, such as Paraquat.

Because glyphosate residue would damage the non-GMO beans, I am required to thoroughly rinse our sprayer tank multiple times per year when switching between chemical regimens. Many studies have indicated that cleaning tasks like this represent an acute source of chemical exposure. It is an unfortunate example of the perverse incentives created by an otherwise well-meaning group of consumers.

I suspect that many of the non-GMO commenters would accuse me of being a coward for complying with a production model I know to be detrimental. Often people speak of changing our farming methods like it is as easy as making a choice and waiting for the economics to settle themselves out. When I try to tell them about our farm’s conservation tillage practices or cover crop regimens they glaze over. When I speak about the enormous potential of decentralized biomass energy or recirculating aquaculture for fighting climate change they generally aren’t very engaged. When the subject turns to GMOs, however, they have a wealth of opinions.

The entire article is well-worth reading, in terms of helping people understand why farmers do what they do.