Musings: Practice or Preach?

All the folks who have been crying for land, begging for a chance to farm, clamoring for the seed companies to beat it and free up agricultural acreage have a chance to put their money — and sweat — with their mouths are.

Some 3,000 acres of state land is now sitting idle in Kekaha, while 1,400 acres of Grove Farm land near Lihue will soon be out of production. Surely those who envision a different future for agriculture in Hawaii can do something meaningful with 4,400 acres of irrigated land.

Will they step up to the challenge? Don't bet on it. They'll have a hundred and one excuses why they can't create those organic farms they've long imagined flourishing across the westside if only those nasty, dirty seed companies weren't in the way.

One of those excuses — and Kauai Councilman and anti-GMO activist Gary Hooser is already starting the stink talk, with the help of Civil Beat — will be that the land is too depleted and toxic to farm. Civil Beat even highlighted Gary's totally unsubstantiated conjecture in a bold, red-lettered outtake quote, so as to give his bullshit extra prominence:

The speculation is that the soil is depleted and there’s [sic] been lots of pesticides applied and therefore there’s probably residue. I don’t know that, but I certainly think it deserves some testing.

No, Gary doesn't know that, or a lot of things about seed companies operations, or agriculture in general. But that has never stopped him from making stuff up — or buying a home built on heavily sprayed former pineapple fields. Go figger….

Yet even if you accept the premise that former seed fields are undesirable, or unusable, there's still that 500-acre parcel that Dow never used, and just returned to the state. Certainly 500 acres is a significant start for the agricultural idealists to grow their dreams and start feeding the island good, wholesome, healthy food.

Why not seize this opportunity to prove their creds as true “aloha aina warriors,” assume the challenge of remediating land they imagine is toxic, prove they can successfully “malama the aina” with their mushroom mounds and permaculture arrays and cover crops and kenaf plantations? What better chance to show “industrial agriculture” how farming is supposed to be done?

Gary's HAPA nonprofit, the one he lobbies for on Kauai County's dime, claims its mission is “catalyzing change and empowering communities.” So go for it, Gary. Let's see you, Walter Ritte, Bart Dame, Andrea Brower and the rest of your board members lease some of this land and start actualizing your rhetoric. Maybe put aside your road shows and pick up an o'o, stop crashing Syngenta shareholder meetings, get off Mauna Kea and into the fields?

Meanwhile, over on Maui, the same players who organized the anti-GMO movement there — luxury Realtor Mark Sheehan, “Babe” Courtney Bruch, Superferry protestor Karen Chun, rogue physicist Joe Ritter, etc. — are leveling their sights at another major agricultural interest: HC&S. 

They're using the same self-righteous propaganda techniques — doctored photos, dubious “experts,” unsubstantiated claims of health impacts, wild hyperbole, social media fear-mongering, manufactured facts — to attack cane burning as a way to shut down the last sugar plantation in Hawaii.

Here's an example of how they operate: 

Stop Cane Burning Maui

LOOKING FOR HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL, PARENT or TEACHER to share your cane burning story on Akaku TV tonight, need you from approx 6:30pm to 8pm Please comment below, tagging me if you are interested. Mahalo!

‪Sandi Imberi Ioakimi ‪Kelly Hanson Shimabukuro u like be on TV? 
1 hr · Like











‪Kelly Hanson Shimabukuro Sandi, I wish I was a better public speaker. I am far from eloquent when it comes to words. frown emoticon
1 hr · Like











‪Kelly Hanson Shimabukuro ‪Jessica Brown Qunell are you on the island? You are a much better speaker than myself.
1 hr · Like











‪Deb Mader Creagh It's story telling, just speak from the heart.
58 mins · Like · 1











‪Deb Mader Creagh I'll be there to help carry conversation! I would love one other mama or teacher or doctor to come on show with me.
57 mins · Like · 1

Yes, it's storytelling. As in, you just open your mouth and say whatevahs, like cane smoke mutates your DNA. Only the other guys need be held accountable.

So what do they think will happen to those 36,000 acres of Central Maui if sugar cane is shut down? How much choking dust do they suppose will fly if that windy land is laid barren? What ideas do they have for alternative agriculture — or will they just sit back as the subdivisions creep in from Kihei and Kahului?

Is development the goal of this constant attack on agriculture?

If not, will those who are unhappy with farming as it's practiced in Hawaii take this opportunity to lease land and demonstrate some viable alternatives? 

All eyes are on SHAKA and HAPA, Center for Food Safety, da Babes and KKCR, to see if those folks can actually practice what they preach.

PS: I just saw this exchange, which perfectly exemplifies how the anti-ag folks promulgate propaganda:

• Victoria Breeden I was wondering when I read a comment reply earlier on this page the person was defending the burn stating it didn't harm her, there is more important things to do and it provides jobs why she was allowed on this page spouting such bs.

  11 hrs · 
• 

  Darnell Lei McCabe Estrella You're right Victoria... She was trying to express how she felt & how it created jobs so hc&s employees could put food on the table for their families... but what she doesn't know is all the political power in the back of all this poison!!!

  10 hrs · 
• 

  Andrea Kale Marcus Funny how diversion from the real problems seems to be a theme in Maui....... I've seen a microcosm of this behaviour and it isn't pretty...
  Every time a species of plant is used in landscape where it really doesn't belong some unknowing landscaper uses poison to irradiate the pests it makes a home in!! That's why white fly is such an issue in Wailea .... It's a desert !! Treat it that way

  7 hrs · Edited · 
• 

  Karen Chun Victoria - when you see someone posting that stuff could you message me so I can find it and delete it?

  3 hrs · Like · 1

Yes, Karen, delete anything that doesn't fit your world view. Because there is absolutely no room for dissenting opinion in group think. Baaa….

Musings: Beach Blanket Bingo

Police Chief Darryl Perry says it's time to get alcohol out of the public parks, following two harassment incidents at Hanalei pier that involved intoxicated young adults.

“Nothing good has ever come about by having intoxicated adults and juveniles who are unable to control themselves,” Perry wrote me in an email. “I’m not talking about the fishermen who peacefully do their own business fishing and enjoying a beer or two, but those individuals who go down to the parks and beaches blast their radios, get stupid drunk, instigate fights, assault innocent people, then drive off blitz out of their minds. The police can’t be everywhere at once, and usually by the time we get there because of limited staffing, the damage is done."

Perry wrote that he knows his proposal is controversial, but “it’s time we seriously start thinking community safety over tradition; this is not the same Kauai of the 60s and 70s when I grew up.  My personal thoughts.”

Though the two incidents are unrelated, in terms of perpetrators, Perry identified several common themes: the approximate age of the suspects (young adults), intoxication, unprovoked taunting of the victims, disorderly conduct by the suspects and location.

“Let me state unequivocally that the actions of the suspects are an embarrassment to our community because that is not reflective of who we are as a community and culture,” Perry wrote. “With that said, we are doing all that we can to identify and prosecute these individuals. And moving forward, KPD is stepping up our patrol efforts in Hanalei and other park areas where our families gather.”

The Garden Island reported an unidentified Hanalei businessman plans to seek merchant support to hire guards to patrol the pier area, promoting me to ask Perry if KPD has any sort of policy regarding private security guards patrolling public beaches. His response:

No we don’t.  But the State (RICO) regulates Security Guards setting training and certified criteria.  If private security were hired by a gated community for example, the guards would have no law enforcement powers.  Generally they would report suspicious activities and/or crimes in progress to KPD and we would respond. Their role is more on the prevention side.

If there was a confrontation with someone who was disorderly, security guards are not authorized to engage the individual unless they or someone else was physically assaulted.  Then, they would have the right, as any citizen would to defend themselves or others, but they can only use enough/reasonable force to stop the threat; once the threat has been eliminated no further force may be used.  At that point, KPD must be contacted so that we can record the incident and take appropriate action.

In response to claims that the harassment was racially motivated, Perry went on to write:

In light of the recent murders that occurred in a Charleston, South Carolina church, and our concerns involving the Hanalei incidents, I conducted  research on “Hate Crimes” under HRS 846-51 to determine whether or not the Hanalei events would qualify based on our definition.  However, my understanding is that the classification of a hate crime is determined by the OPA based on the investigation provided by KPD.  It’s a procedural matter so that there is consistency throughout the State regarding proper classification.  Therefore, I cannot answer that question.

But, even if the Hanalei events were to be classified as hate crimes, “Hawaii law does not provide for enhanced sanctions against perpetrators of misdemeanor-level hate crimes, [but] these offenses must still be reported for statistical purposes” according to the Office of the Attorney General.  In other words, if convicted, say for Harassment, the punishment would be the same regardless of its Hate Crime status; according to HRS, no enhanced sentencing can be attached.

The police still have released no details on what allegedly went down in either incident. We've had only a report from a California teacher to The Garden Island regarding the May 30 incident, and another from an unidentified witness to the June 16 incident. I've made a public records request for police reports in both cases, so we can learn what was actually reported to the police, as opposed to the rumor and hearsay published in TGI.

While it's fine to use unnamed sources, the problem is that TGI reporter Brittany Lyte hasn't been around long enough to judge the credibility of her sources, or determine whether they have a particular ax to grind. In her most recent story, she allowed an unnamed person who allegedly was a witness to the June 16 incident make a number of sweeping pronouncements, proclaiming the situation was “out of control,” a group of young local males on the beach “were making it miserable for everybody” and “we need to have a cop cruise up and down that parking lot.”

That may be the case, but I'd feel a lot better if I knew the wahine making those claims is a credible person, and doesn't work for one of the real estate companies or other entities that is slathering after the profits to be reaped by turning Hanalei into an exclusive community.

Musings: Welcome to Johannesburg

Is the Hanalei Pier turning into the Kauai version of the Bermuda Triangle, where seemingly strange things happen, but there's no actual verification of events?

To wit is a front-page article in today's The Garden Island, which tells of a harassment offense, allegedly committed on Tuesday by two unidentified perpetrators, and condemned by an anonymous businessman who was himself not a witness.

Though TGI had no actual details on the events surrounding the crime itself, it posted this subhead, emphasis added:

Men charged with harassment for reportedly targeting tourists Tuesday

The newspaper then allowed the businessman to expound at length based on reports he'd reportedly obtained from unnamed persons who supposedly did witness the incident.

Despite the lack of solid information, both TGI and the businessman tied Tuesday's event to another incident at the pier May 30, details about which have been equally sparse and sketchy.

The result?

Both murky incidents have been pegged as race-based, haole-hating, tourist-targeting violent crimes, prompting the unidentified businessman to proclaim that “he is so unsettled by these two incidents that he plans to reach out to other Hanalei business owners to help him fund a private security guard to monitor nighttime activity at the pier.”

Private security guard?

As in a repeat of the wealthy Kauapea Road vacation rental owners who hired a security guard to patrol the public beach and harass people for being naked, camping or doing anything that might possibly offend their high-paying guests?

What's next? A lynching tree at Black Pot?

The businessman is also quoted as saying:

We all know there’s this unrest between the local people and tourists, and everyone kind of brushes it under the rug and says, ‘Oh, we’re not going to talk about it.’

So instead of actual talking about it, or addressing the ever-growing numbers of tourists, the absence of affordable housing, the escalating gentrification of the North Shore and the resulting diaspora, the answer is a private security force to protect white people from the natives?

What's next? A security check point at the bridge?

Musings: Food Justice

I've got a new post on my new website, dealing with "food justice", farming and one man's memory of hunger in the aftermath of the Korean War.  You can check it out here, with all the photos, or read it below:

As soon as I got into the cab that was taking me to Incheon airport in Seoul, the driver asked if I was an American.

I said yes, a tad tentatively, not sure what sort of reaction I’d receive.

“I love Americans,” he enthused, his face breaking into a big smile. “My father was in the [Korean] war, and he told me, ‘son, never forget what the Americans did for us.’ Even now, when I think of how many Americans died to liberate us…”

His voice cracked and trailed off, and he dabbed at his eyes.

A few minutes later, he told me that he was 60 years old — old enough to remember the desperate, hard scrabble years that followed the war.

“I was hungry, so hungry,” he said. “Americans brought us food. I remember they brought food to my school, and the cookies, they were the best cookies I’d ever had, because I was so hungry. I can remember what it’s like to be hungry. But the young people today, they never knew that hunger. They have forgotten what America did for us.”

I looked out at the skyscrapers that towered beside us, the cars whizzing by on an eight-lane freeway, the modern apartment buildings, the bridges spanning the Han River — all of it constructed in the post-war years, creating the only life that the under-30 folks had ever known.

The driver, whose name was Dan Kim, tuned in a Joan Baez recording on his I-pod before continuing, telling me that he’d driven a Frenchman to the airport one time, and their conversation had turned to America. The Frenchman had said he didn’t much care for America, because it was the world’s policeman.

“But the world needs a policeman,” Kim said. “Small countries like ours, we cannot stand up for ourselves with big countries like China and Russia hovering over us, looking to take us over. And I told the Frenchman, have you forgotten how many Americans died to liberate France from the Germans, how much money they spent to rebuild your country after the war? He had no answer. He had forgotten, because he was not old enough to remember. He was not old enough to have been hungry.”

I said nothing myself, having had my own reservations about America’s role as the world’s policeman, having never suffered the calamity of war, having never been hungry.

But when I got out of the cab, I thanked him for sharing his experiences with me, because it had made me think.

And he thanked me, just for being an American.

Later, back in Honolulu, checking my phone, I saw an email forwarded by a friend. It was from an organization in Oakland, Calif., advertising an expensive tour to “Join Food First to explore food justice in [sic] O’ahu.” Clicking on the link, I saw this:

Explore O’ahu’s beautiful landscapes & vibrant culinary traditions while meeting with the actors cultivating food justice in paradise.

Yeah, they’re actors all right. Because while they’ve been busy fighting biotech crops on social media, they’ve forgotten to actually produce food or feed the hungry. Though some 20 percent of the people in Hawaii depend on the food banks to eat, the anti-GMO movement has done nothing to supply the food banks, set up feeding programs, open loi or do the hard physical work of producing any significant quantity of food, much less justice.

The promo then went on to link post-WWII military expansion to the decline of “traditional food systems” and the rise of biotech with its “massive open-air chemical trials” before claiming:

Hawaiians are increasingly turning to local food and native food traditions, ecologically-based farming systems, and a re-valuing of traditional ways grounded in Aloha ‘Aina.

Really? Where, exactly? On top of Mauna Kea?

I scanned down to find the price: $2,875, not including airfare, for eight days of traipsing through “paradise” and dabbling in the very same cultural appropriation and tourism that the food tour advertisement condemned.

What if the participants instead donated that money to food banks that feed the hungry? Created an urban community garden? Cleared a ditch? Bought tractors for a farming co-op? Got their hands dirty opening a loi?

Wouldn’t that do more to achieve “food justice” than listening to anti-GMO activists spout fiction about the “vibrant movement growing across Hawaii?”

And isn’t there any food justice to be achieved in the ghettoes of Oakland, the migrant farm labor camps of Salinas? Why come to the Islands and ignore their own backyard?

I thought of the thousands of acres of irrigated farm land that at this very minute is wide open for cultivation on the westside, land never leased by the seed companies. I thought of the abandoned loi in Hanapepe, Waimea and Hanalei valleys, the hundreds of acres fertile land on the North Shore tucked away into luxury estates, all of it just waiting to be cultivated by farmers, not actors.

Perhaps, when people get hungry enough, they’ll start supporting agriculture — all agriculture — and stop attacking farms and farmers who aren’t growing food the way non-farmers think they should.

But until then, this world of cheap, abundant food is all they know, allowing folks who have never known hunger the luxury of dabbling in “food justice tours in paradise.”

Musings: Naughty and Naught

Sunrise at Kapaa Beach Park, women and older couples walking the path, derelicts rousing themselves from the naupaka, the boys already — or perhaps still — dealing drugs in the parking lot, a hen and her tiny brood devouring rice from a Styrofoam plate lunch carton flapping in the breeze.

As tourists slumber behind the mostly closed and curtained sliding glass doors of their oceanfront Kapaa hotel rooms, another world unfolds.

Speaking of other worlds, I've been exercising my reportorial due diligence on the westside, accepting a long-offered tour of PMRF, where I watched Capt. Bruce Hay, the base commander, deftly maneuver a pulled pork sandwich without spilling a drop of barbecue sauce on his dress whites and stood upon Nohili dune for the first time since the rocket launch protests 18 years ago. More on that later.

I also spent a long day visiting all four of the westside seed companies, where I saw Pioneer's poison container, a demonstration of Dow's sprayer, Syngenta's fields nearest Waimea Canyon Middle School and BASF's rice paddies on the Mana plain.

I left convinced that purt near everything Gary Hooser, Tim Bynum and the anti-GMO contingent have said about the companies and their operations here is complete and utter bullshit, and so egregiously incorrect as to surpass mere ignorance and move into the realm of deliberate distortion and fear-mongering lies. More on all that later.

While we're on the topic of lies, let's delve into another one. After I reported that Gary had been busted trespassing on Pioneer (G&R) land, Anonymous left this comment:

Joan I just asked Gary directly and he said you were full of it. No citation. No notice. No trespassing. Apparently he was standing next to the road or sitting in a parked car next to the road while a camera guy took pictures of the fields. Why feed the trolls Joan? It does no one any good and only further divide.

Well, I saw photos of Gary — his paunch, jowls and garish blue shirt unmistakeable — standing in Pioneer's fields, well behind the yellow gate on the old haul cane road, next to a man who has been identified as French reporter Martin Boudot. The shots were taken last Friday.

Boudot and a companion, driving a car registered to anti-GMO activist Fern Rosenstiel, had been stopped two days prior while trespassing onto Syngenta's fields.

How ironically inappropriate that Gary, chair of the County Council's public safety committee, is engaged in trespassing onto private property, and aiding and abetting a foreign journalist in trespassing.

Doesn't this rise above the offense of throwing a pencil, which resulted in Council Chair Mel Rapozo seeking sanctions against former Councilman Tim Bynum?

Coupled with Gary's other transgressions in the past six months — lobbying for his HAPA group at the Lege, his “bite me” comment to Rep. Jimmy Tokioka in open session, rudely cutting off testimony during the fireplace smoke bill, his personal letters to the Lege written on Council stationery with Council staff listed as contacts, and missing a Council meeting to fly to Basel, Switzerland to propagandize Syngenta shareholders while identifying himself as a Council member and lawmaker — surely there's cause for his Council colleagues to take some sort of disciplinary action.

Meanwhile, the anti-GMO initiative on Maui appears doomed, with U.S. District Court Judge Susan Mollway sharply questioning SHAKA attorney Michael Carroll, whose specialty is real estate and construction law, in a hearing this week on the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment.

Yet he, like the Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety attorneys who saw their anti-GMO legislation overturned on Kauai and Hawaii Island, is confident he can win on appeal, even if he loses the first round. Translate that to: keep sending money, while I milk this for all it's worth.

Civil Beat helpfully posted a link to the legal arguments that almost, but not quite, made up for Anita Hofschneider's piss poor reporting on the issue, which included an “it sucks” crybaby quote from SKAKA founder Mark Sheehan, who also happens to be a high-end Maui Realtor.

The plaintiffs argued the initiative is invalid because it's pre-empted by state and federal law, and violates multiple provisions of the Maui County Charter, thus rendering it unenforceable. The Kauai and Hawaii county laws were already overturned by a federal judge who found they were pre-empted by state law, a legal tenet that presumably will also apply in this case.

SHAKA claimed the moratorium is needed because seed companies “use the land in a more destructive way than commercial agriculture, which results in higher risks for pollution and health problems” and no laws protect Maui County from the harms. Except, of course, all those state and federal laws regulating pesticide use and other environmental issues.

The brief does acknowledge that none of its claims of harmful health effects on residents or farm workers have been “scientifically evaluated” before citing Hector Valenzuela, who is a UH crop specialist, not a physician, as saying there's “urgent need” to study these “potentially harmful” impacts.

Carroll, in arguing for Maui County's right to regulate GMOs, cites its regulation of “smoke, soot, poisonous gases, dirt, dust and debris into the open air.” Gosh, that's the very same ordinance upon which Gary modeled his own unsuccessful nuisance bill, under the guise of controlling fireplace smoke.

In the end, SHAKA's brief contended that even if the moratorium part of the measure is found to be invalid, it could be severed from the ordinance and all the rest would remain valid. Uh, sorry, but it doesn't work quite that way.

Mollway promised a decision in a week or two, at which time it will likely be made clear that all the anti-GMO legislation in Hawaii was a giant flop, save for clarifying that the state does, indeed, have pre-emptive powers, and all the associated angst and drama was for naught, save for lining the pockets of a few activists and attorneys.

Is anybody feeling a bit used?

Musings: Contrasts

After the steel and glass of Seoul, Kauai seems impossibly green and lush, the guinea grass growing before my eyes.

Heading up to the North Shore, past the affordable housing going up at Princeville, I can't help but think of how Princeville has so much land, yet all it can kick down is a crappy piece right on that busy stretch of highway, sandwiched between the shopping center and cop shop, next to its poison mixing station and those radio towers.

But instead of expressing environmental justice outrage, folks are grateful, because after all those years of not fulfilling its affordable housing requirement, Princeville finally is.

Talking to Hanalei and North Shore folks, something struck me as very, very odd: nobody knew nuttin' about the supposed melee at the pier, which in a letter to the editor today is characterized as an “increase in under-age drinking and race-based violence at Black Pot,” thus justifying a call for a police substation in town.

And who, I thought, really benefits from promoting the perception that the dangerous locals need controlling in Hanalei, except for the folks who want to keep selling the town and its beaches to tourists and the elite few buying into the exclusive new development planned for Princeville?

Because from what I could see, locals are in damn short supply on the North Shore, especially Hanalei.

But dead cats along the road remain relatively plentiful, which makes me wonder why Basil Scott, president of the no-kill Kauai Community Cat Project, is still trashing Humane Society Director Penny Cistaro for the “especially troubling” act of supposedly “unnecessarily euthanizing” two kittens from Salt Pond, thus saving them from a fate experienced by far too many feral cats: getting smashed beneath car tires and ground into the pavement.

Meanwhile, Kauai police Sgt. Colin Nesbitt, who reportedly was an otherwise outstanding officer, was arrested on May 23 for driving under the influence of alcohol after crashing his truck into a ditch. He was booked and charged, and is currently on leave, with his police powers suspended, pending an internal/administrative investigation. The criminal case is being handled by the state Attorney General's office.

And Kauai County Councilman Gary Hooser was busted for trespassing on Gay & Robinson land over the weekend. He reportedly was with a French — update, they are Swiss — couple, and they claimed to be producing a documentary, no doubt about the seed companies.

Which of course exempts them from honoring any private property rights, because when it comes to anti-GMO activities, the ends always justify the means. And Gary, in his self-serving arrogance, considers himself a lawmaker above the law.

No word yet on whether G&R plans to press charges, though hope springs eternal.

Finally, failed mayoral candidate, and anti-GMO activist Dustin Barca, continues to express his delusions of grandeur:

Look out, Mark Zuckerberg. Dustin's on your trail.

Musings: On Muckraking

My time in Seoul is winding down, with a flight out tonight. But I was up early, as usual, and watched the sun rise over the Han River, belly still full of true Korean barbecue, grilled with whole cloves of garlic over hot coals at the table and served with spicy kimchee, green salad and sweet peppers to dip in miso sauce.

The food has been heavy on the veggies, which perhaps at least partly explains why I haven't seen any fat Koreans, even in the very affluent Gangnam district where I'm staying. Is morbid obesity primarily an American phenomenon?

Attending the World Conference of Science Journalists has fed my deepening despair about the future of journalism, left me wondering if it even has one. Nearly all of the science journalism, I learned, is done by freelance writers, and as one noted, it's not feasible to dig into investigative work when you're getting paid by the word.

I heard stories of veteran newspaper journalists losing their jobs as the science sections folded, while others lamented the difficulty of selling science stories, and editors who wanted quick hits, press release rewrites and sensationalism over solid stories.

Connie St. Louis, director of the MA Science Journalism program at City University in London, offered a sobering statistic from a study by the Financial Times: In the U.S., PR people outnumber journalists by a factor of 4.6.

And as news organizations face increasing financial constraints, PR people hold greater away than ever.

She also spoke about the shady side of science, with the recent disclosures that some journals will accept articles for pay, and others require no peer review at all. And even with peer review, she said, there are questions, since prestigious journals like Nature won't share the details of their peer review process with journalists.

Scientists, too, had their complaints, with some telling me of how journalists had taken their studies out of context, misrepresented their work, even completely fabricated interviews, leading to irrevocable fallouts among researchers.

It's a bit of a mess out there in the world of scientific information, and no one, it seems, — not the scientists, not the journalists, not the citizens, not the governments, not the NGOs — is pure.

I spoke about that yesterday as a panelist in a discussion on the role of journalists in promoting tech choice for farmers, sharing how the anti-GMO movement and its deliberate misinformation campaign had washed virtually unchecked over Hawaii, leaving farmers burned and wary and the public confused. It seems decisions about technology are increasingly driven not by science, but politics, resulting in the suppression of certain technology in various countries.

As I noted, it's not for journalists to promote any particular technology, but the concept of choice, while giving farmers a voice to express what they really want.

After the panel discussion I chatted with African journalists about their success in building trust with farmers and scientific researchers, which allowed them to bring the two together. It's a role that journalists haven't traditionally played, but with agricultural extension services often underfunded, or totally absent, in developing nations, information about technology somehow needs to move from research facilities into the fields. And increasingly, journalists are doing that, through radio and television programs that share agricultural news.

As they and other African journalists told me, farmers there are eager for anything that will help boost production, because they aren't food secure, they're hungry, with the crops they grow consumed in just three to six months, leaving them scrambling for the rest of the year.

Their work left me heartened, as did the two-hour online debate I moderated for SciDev.Net on why farmers aren't using ag tech. The page got some 1,500 hits and 482 thoughtful comments from folks around the world who were eager to engage on a thoughtful topic.

I've been critical of the anti-GMO movement not because I believe biotech is the end-all and be-all, but because I'm concerned about the very real ramifications of ideological extremism. Just this week there was another report of a Greenpeace defector — Stephen Tindale, who led the group at the height of its opposition to biotechnology. The Independent reportedhim as saying:

Environmental groups that campaign against genetically modified food are taking a “morally unacceptable” position that puts “ideology” ahead of the needs of the poor. [Tindale] said he had “decided to speak out” because he believed the technology was safe and could help alleviate hunger in the developing world.

“I worry for Greenpeace and the other green groups because they could, by taking such a hard line … be seen to be putting ideology before the need for humanitarian action.”

His remarks were included in the BBC program “Panorama,” which “also uncovered further evidence that some public campaigns being waged by Western NGOs against GM in the Third World are using 'scare tactics' to mobilise opposition to the technology,” according to The Independent, which first broke news of such tactics in Uganda earlier this year.

We certainly saw that same scenario play out in Hawaii, with Center for Food Safety assuming the role that Greenpeace, which claims it's not an ideological organization, has played elsewhere in the world. Sadly, CFS continues to get far too much unquestioning coverage from Hawaii media, whose scrutiny of the GMO debate has been superficial at best.

As Connie St. Louis noted:

I want to think about calling back the muckrakers in our society. As journalists, if we can break stories and show what's really going on, people will respond.

And therein lies the ray of hope that gets me up and at my computer at daybreak, so many mornings.

Musings: Regurgitation

Like the albatross who are regurgitating partially digested squid — and, unwittingly, unhealthy plastic — into the gaping mouths of their hungry chicks on Kauai right now, Star-Advertiser writer Nina Wu shared a hearty dose of Center for Food Safety propaganda with her readers today.

Without apparent question, and nothing more than a cursory rebuttal from the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association buried at the end of her piece, Wu let Ashley Lukens, a registered lobbyist for Center for Food Safety, make all sorts of unfounded claims about the seed industry's pesticide use in Hawaii.

Because of course Lukens, the former owner of a baby boutique, is qualified to present herself as a bonafide pesticide and GE seed expert. Just ask the Center for Food Safety, which recruited her for the job.

Lukens was in her usual fine form, making claims that Wu, had she conducted even the barest research, would have discovered have been discounted. Like how a Waimea, Kauai school was “evacuated three times due to pesticide drift.”

As I've reported several times now, and as was presented in a state Legislative hearing, no school in Hawaii has been evacuated due to pesticide drift from the seed companies. A state Dept. of Agriculture breakdown of school evacuations over the past nine years shows students were evacuated due to pesticide misuse by nearby residents, a school custodian and a landscaper — none of whom Lukens wishes to regulate.

Though Lukens tells a gullible Wu that her primary interest is in pesticide use, she was unable to tell me why CFS chose to launch its Hawaii campaign with anti-GMO legislation, rather than pesticide regulatory bills.

Nor did Wu apparently ever ask why Lukens is deeply concerned only about pesticides applied by seed companies, and not at with pesticides used by the termite treatment companies, which actually apply more restricted use pesticides than agriculture, and right in residential areas, with zero notification or buffer zones at all.

Lukens also makes the totally unsubstantiated claim that children, pregnant women and farmworkers in Hawaii run a greater risk of pesticide exposure than those in other states. But as I previously reported — and as Wu also could have learned, had she bothered to ask:

Hawaii farm workers are regularly tested for pesticide poisoning, including organophosphates and heavy metals like mercury, arsenic and lead, [state toxicologist Barbara Brooks] said. But DOH isn't seeing evidence of poisoning even among workers with direct exposure. The overwhelming majority of pesticide exposure calls originated from residential use.

It was interesting to see Wu's piece, since I just wrote yesterday that activist groups like CFS rely on fear and outrage to raise money. And sure enough, Wu dutifully leads off with;

For … Lukens … the most frightening part of the debate over genetically engineered crops in the state...

It makes me think of the language in the last CFS fundraising email, sent out on June 2:

It turns out that we are a real thorn in the industry’s side.

Yes, propagandists typically are. And so, sadly, are the journalists who give them a platform.

Meanwhile, Kauai Community College is eliminating its journalism classes, saying not enough students “in the local population” are interested in writing, or have confidence in their work. Perhaps it's because they have so few good role models, and little opportunity for employment, since TGI primarily hires from the mainland.

But then, who needs journalism when so many journalists regurgitate, rather than report, and you can learn everything you need to know anyway from social media memes?