A seed crop industry that uses an inordinate amount of pesticides on its genetically engineered field test sites is putting Hawaii’s environment and people at risk, concludes a new report that drew swift rebuke.
"Pesticides in Paradise: Hawai‘i’s Health & Environment at Risk" — which comes from the same outfit that helped propel the Maui GMO moratorium to ballot victory and lobbied unsuccessfully for pesticide buffer zones and public disclosure of pesticide use in the state Legislature — takes aim at Hawaii’s seed crop industry and establishes what the center describes as a link between pesticide use, genetically engineered field test sites and public health risks in Hawaii.
Asked to respond, an industry spokeswoman fired back, saying the Hawaii Center for Food Safety’s report uses "emotional subterfuge and misinformation" to attack the state’s seed companies in an effort to raise money for the center’s political activities.
"CFS’s continuing exclusive focus on seed companies is no surprise," Bennette Misalucha, Hawaii Crop Improvement Association executive director, said in a statement. "With this report, the organization is advancing its true mission — using fear and pseudoscience to raise money and perpetuate misinformation."
The report offers what the center describes as a snapshot of the seed industry’s activities in Hawaii. Here are some of the findings:
» The seed industry occupies up 24,700 acres, representing 72 percent of the state’s total area devoted to food crops other than sugar cane or pineapple, which together takes up 34,400 acres.
» Since 1987 Hawaii has hosted more cumulative field trials — 3,243 — than any other state.
» In 2014 alone 178 different GMO field tests were conducted on more than 1,381 sites in Hawaii versus 175 sites in California.
Herbicide resistance was the most frequently tested trait in GMO crop field tests in Hawaii over the past five years, according to the report, and this means that plants genetically engineered in Hawaii are engineered to resist greater and greater application of herbicides.
Ashley Lukens, director of the Hawaii Center for Food Safety, said in a news release, "We frequently hear that genetic engineering has nothing to do with pesticides, and that pesticides do not have an impact on our environmental and public health, but this comprehensive review tells a very different story."
The report reviews the published scientific and medical research about the threats pesticides used in Hawaii pose to public health, especially to pregnant women and young children. The report also considers the impacts of pesticides on Hawaii’s ecosystems and the challenges the seed industry poses to local food self-sufficiency.
According to the report, one company applied 90 different pesticide formulations containing 63 different active ingredients on Kauai from 2007 to 2012 and sprayed on two-thirds of the days of the year.
The state’s Kauai Good Neighbor Program says that seed companies are applying restricted-use pesticides that include atrazine, chlorpyrifos and paraquat, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has identified these and other pesticides being used here as detrimental to healthy brain development in young children. In general, farmworkers, pregnant women and children are at greatest risk, the report said.
The report also describes a flawed level of regulatory oversight that allows for pesticide use near homes, schools and hospitals and keeps information on pesticide use hidden from public view. Because of this lack of disclosure, the report said, impacts on public health from long-term intensive commercial agriculture and associated pesticide use have not been properly evaluated.
Lukens, one of the report’s authors, said she hopes the publication will help to build support for legislative measures to protect Hawaii’s citizens from pesticide exposure.
Misalucha disputed the industry’s pesticide threat level, saying state Department of Agriculture figures indicate that Hawaii’s entire agricultural sector is a minority user of pesticides, accounting for only one-third of all restricted-use pesticides sold in the state. The seed companies collectively account for only about 5 percent — "hardly the monster users that CFS attempts to portray us as," she said.
"Hawaii’s seed companies have a sterling track record of compliance with pesticide regulations, and are committed to the continued health and safety of the community," Misalucha said.
Hawaii’s seed crop industry is the state’s top agricultural product by value at $159 million. Five companies — BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto, Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Syngenta — conduct seed research in Hawaii, operating 10 farms on Oahu, Maui, Molokai and Kauai.
