Musings, etc.

Upon moving to Hawaii in 1987, I recall asking a seasoned journalist and lifelong resident why a state with abundant land, water and sunshine couldn’t feed itself. “It’s the brass ring that Hawaii just can’t seem to grasp,” he replied.

Three decades later, despite ample lip service paid to the dream of food security by legislators and lobbyists, academics and activists, Hawaii still imports more than 80 percent of its food. And with each passing year, the elusive brass ring moves further out of reach.

It wasn’t always that way. Prior to western contact, Hawaii supported an indigenous population estimated at more than 1 million through the intensive monoculture of taro, banana and sweet potato.  Its self-sufficiency continued through the first half of the 20th century, even though its farm sector was dominated by export crops like sugar cane and pineapple.

But with the advent of refrigerated cargo ships, California’s vast agricultural system, cheap labor in developing nations and a consumer palate desirous of delicacies in any season, Hawaii soon found itself unable to economically compete. It’s cheaper to import almost anything than produce it in the Islands.

Now, however, Hawaii’s agriculture is facing an even greater threat than economics: unrelenting attacks by activists. Ironically, they’re the very same ones most apt to crow “buy local,” even as they systematically undermine farmers in a quest to advance their own political ambitions. They’ve found agriculture to be a far weaker target than their old foes — the military and tourism — so their sociopolitical agendas are increasingly framed by narratives that denounce farming as the toxic, greed-driven practice of callous corporations.

Most recently, they’ve added “water-sucking vampires,” “thieves” and “pirates” to their list of disparagements as they gun for agricultural water under the guise of sticking it to Alexander & Baldwin, one of the last “Big 5” landowners from Hawaii’s plantation era. This, too, is part of their formula, since it’s awfully easy to incite the public, or at least a loud enough fringe, when there’s a convenient bogeyman to malign.

But as is true in most wars, though the “big guys” are the target, the “little guys” are the inevitable collateral damage. Smallholder ranchers and farmers who are producing the local food that activists say they want to eat end up paying the price. They’re the ones who suffer the sleepless nights, the economic uncertainty that makes it impossible to plan and unwise to invest in their own operations. They’re the ones who are least able to afford lawyers, regulatory compliance, Environmental Impact Statements, lobbyists or even showing up at the state capitol to make their case.

They’re the ones who are increasingly demoralized by the ugly assaults on their character, their motives, their farming practices, their families. They’re the ones who are left to twist in the shifting political winds. As one weary farm leader noted, “Between the activists and the bureaucrats, it’s just too much. Our morale is so low I can’t even rally the troops anymore.”

And who can blame them? In recent years, activists have waged bloody battles at both the county and state levels over growing genetically modified crops — Hawaii has a large and lucrative GM and hybrid parent seed industry — disclosing pesticide use, banning certain pesticides, imposing buffer zones around farms, burning sugar cane fields and most recently, accessing water for farming.

Though the activists say they’re trying to protect Hawaii’s environment, they somehow fail to note that their relentless destruction of agriculture comes at its own environmental price: the massive carbon emissions associated with transporting food thousands of miles to the most isolated inhabited landmass on Earth.

Unlike the farmers and ranchers who have devoted their lives to agriculture, these activists have nothing at stake, no dog in the fight. Indeed, they stand only to gain, both through the fundraising that accompanies their practice of conflict activism and their desire to obtain political power.

Like politicians everywhere, many of Hawaii’s lawmakers are cowardly, opportunistic and willing to cave the moment the drummed-up outcry grows loud enough, which is why they rejected a bill that would have kept the water flowing. Some, like state Sen. Kai Kahele, even make silly, gratuitous comments in a bid to curry favor with the activists: “This is a generation that is awakened. It’s a generation that is intelligent and knows its history. It sticks to its core values.”

Actually, the activists span several generations, have no recognizable core values other than a shared opposition to modern agriculture, are shockingly ignorant of Hawaii’s history and largely limit their education to the teachings of their social media echo chamber. And rather than “awakened,” they’re sleepwalking through a dream of romanticism, nostalgia and self-interest. But then, Kahele probably didn’t notice, because, like him, they’re prone to grandstanding, with a distinct disregard for reality and the truth.

They can’t yet control Hawaii’s political machine, so they’re trying instead to control Hawaii’s agriculture — even though they don’t understand how easily the local farmers markets can be flooded, the impossibility of processing livestock with a dearth of slaughterhouses, the unrelenting challenges of pests and plant diseases in the tropics, the need to supply both local and export markets, the role that the big growers play in supporting the smaller ones, the value of preserving Hawaii’s irrigation systems. These are the people who demand local food as they fight ranching and dairy operations, who reject any conventional ag practice as “industrial farming,” who rail against corporations even as they pull out their iPhones to wax poetic about the awesome organic offerings at Costco and Whole Foods.

Which is why they can earnestly claim, “of course we support small farmers,” even as they systematically act to destroy their livelihoods and lives.

Well, actions speak far louder than words. Especially when the words are so often clichés and lies. When the water stops flowing and the farms dry up and the cattle are culled, they’ll be left with the consequences of their actions — gentrification, tourism and expensive imported food.

And they still won’t have a seat at the political power table.

As AquaBounty navigated an $80 million, 20-year effort to secure approval for its fast-growing salmon, the company knew it was pioneering a process for other animals developed through biotechnology.

Its persistence paid off earlier this month when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally allowed the company to start farming and marketing AquAdvantage salmon in the US.

Those who believe biotechnology holds promise for improving animal welfare and breeding healthier livestock with a smaller environmental impact take heart that AquaBounty has opened the door.

Still, a daunting regulatory process stands in their way.

It’s been more than two decades since Dr. Matt Wheeler of the University of Illinois and other American researchers developed the first transgenic food animal — a female pig genetically engineered to produce more milk, thus reducing piglet mortality caused by starvation.  Wheeler estimates it could save some 2.68 million piglets that die annually from failure to thrive.

But his work and other important animal research has failed to advance due to regulatory uncertainty. Meanwhile, he struggles to find the funding to keep his animals alive.

“It’s hard to go into the barn because I’m depressed for two or three days afterward,” Wheeler told an international audience of scientists, students and food industry representatives a few years back. “There’s an economic and also a personal cost to this.”

In the years since Wheeler developed his “mini-Holstein” pig, the technology and research have continued to advance, breeding animals with traits that confer disease-resistance without veterinary drugs, reduce the environmental impacts of livestock production, benefit human health and improve animal welfare.

As Pacific Standard recently reported, Randall Prather, animal science professor at the University of Missouri and director of National Swine Resource and Research Center, developed a pig resistant to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), a serious disease that costs North American and European farmers some $6 million per day.

Other researchers are working to breed pigs that produce less phosphorous pollution, pigs that develop more and leaner muscle, pigs resistant to African swine fever, cattle that cannot get or transmit mad-cow disease, cattle resistant to sleeping sickness, heat-tolerant cattle and poultry resistant to avian flu.

Still others are pursuing research intended to benefit human health, such as pigs that can grow organs for human transplant, goats that produce milk containing an enzyme that could prevent deadly diarrhea in more than a million children annually in developing countries and pigs that generate their own heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

A number of animal welfare projects also are under way. Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam, a cooperative extension specialist in animal genomics and biotechnology at the University of California-Davis, successfully silenced the gene that produces unwanted horns in Holstein dairy cows, which would thus spare cows the ordeal of dehorning and protect farm workers from the threat of being gored.

While some of these improved animals are still in the research stage, others have been ready to go for a decade or more. It’s largely agreed that the regulatory process is the primary hang up. In response, the National Pork Producers Council has already begun pushing to have the US Department of Agriculture, which regulates genetically engineered crops, assume authority over biotech livestock, too.

That approach would likely bolster the commercialization of gene-edited animals, as the USDA has taken the stance that gene-edited crops should be regulated in the same manner as those bred through traditional methods.

The FDA, however, is lumping all biotech tools together and subjecting gene-edited animals to the same regulatory process that’s used to approve veterinary drugs. Van Eenennaam is ardently opposed to that regulatory stance, and has spearheaded a petition calling for the US to harmonize its gene editing regulations.

Robbie Barbero, who led efforts to modernize biotech regulations in the Obama White House, agrees that it’s time for some clarity, according to a report in Wired. “In the absence of a regulatory path that’s rational and easy to understand, it will be almost impossible for any animals to make it to market,” he said.

And that worries researchers like James Murray and Jenny Graves, who argue that animal biotechnology is crucial to producing more climate-resilient food with fewer environmental impacts. In other words, it’s a tool that a warming planet with a growing population likely can’t afford to ignore.

In a recent Star-Advertiser article, Hawaii Democratic Party member Bart Dame makes an odd observation about the so-called “progressive” movement in the Islands:

Dame noted that progressives have traditionally been a minority in Hawaii politics, but said their influence appears to be growing. He noted the penchant for mainstream Hawaii politicians to now try to identify with the label.

“They are explicitly embracing that word progressive and trying to sell themselves as progressives,” said Dame. “So that is a kind of proof that there is some success with the branding of progressive.”

Uh, what value is a movement when it’s all brand and no substance? A brand that Dame openly acknowledges has been co-opted by those who do not necessarily share the underlying values? A brand that in Hawaii is used by folks who engage in the most regressive types of behavior, including lying, fear-mongering, deception, cronyism, stifling dissent, personal attacks, bullying, mob rule and money-grubbing — in short, the same old dirty politics as usual?

Before I get into some specifics of the above, let’s look at a similar branding example that Dame and his ilk will understand — the organic movement. Oh, there was an outraged hue and cry when the mega dairies adopted the coveted organic brand. Sure, these companies met the organic certification standards. But in the eyes of the purists they weren’t truly organic because they didn’t have six cows grazing behind a big red barn. Instead, they were businessmen who saw economic value in the organic brand, which rakes in $43 billion annually in the US alone, and co-opted it.

The same is pretty much true for “progressive” politics in Hawaii. Whatever nascent progressive movement was stirring a decade or two ago in Hawaii has been snuffed out by power-hungry politicians and activists who smelled votes — and money — in the progressive label.

A perfect example is Gary Hooser, who with Dame formed the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action. The Star-Advertiser article describes him (and Dame) as “local progressive leaders,” but the voters of Kauai feel differently. Though Hooser spent more on his 2016 campaign than any politician in Kauai history, voters chose not to re-elect him to the Kauai County Council because they saw that his self-serving grandstanding around the anti-GMO issue cost the county serious bucks and polarized the community. Despite his resounding defeat, Hooser still embraces the despicable tactics of lying, fear-mongering and deception to push his political agenda. That’s not progressive by any definition I can find.

HAPA, too, is progressive in name only. The group refuses to disclose its funding sources or expenditures — even as it demands full transparency from others — and engages in political activities that most certainly can be defined as lobbying, without the required legal disclosures.

And just look at the politicians HAPA has endorsed! People like Maui Councilman Alika Atay, who is being investigated for awarding a $100,000 country grant to his executive assistant Brian Bardellini (a guy so nasty he’s been barred from visiting Council Services offices and interacting with state Department of Ag officials) and using his own campaign-style photo to promote the taxpayer-funded event.

Then there’s state Rep. Kaniela Ing, the Congressional candidate whose website claims: “Kaniela is the candidate who has consistently fought for progressive values, secured record funding for his district, and does not accept donations from corporations.” What he does do is drive without auto insurance and miss court appearances, lie about his academic record, misuse campaign contributions to pay rent and credit card bills, and file false campaign reports, netting a $15,000 fine.

And Big Island Councilwoman Jen Ruggles, who pretended to be a concerned citizen while on the payroll of Pesticide Action Network as a political operative.

Oh, and let’s not forget convicted felon and Maui Councilwoman Elle Cochran, the mayoral hopeful whose executive assistant, Autumn Rae Ness, actively lobbies the state Legislature on behalf of anti-GMO groups, without registering as a lobbyist.

But Hawaii’s “progressives” have not criticized these politicians for their sleazy deeds. Nope, their support remains unwavering. Just like the so-called “progressives” never spoke up when their more rabid followers were circulating “wanted: dead or alive” posters aimed at octogenarian seed breeder Jim Brewbaker and insulting memes about judges who returned verdicts they didn’t like.

Meanwhile, the so-called progressives also continue to support groups like Babes Against Biotech, Earthjustice (whose Hawaii director, Paul Achitoff, serves on the HAPA board), Hawaii SEED, Center for Food Safety and Pesticide Action Network — organizations that refuse to practice financial transparency, actively engage in producing and disseminating propaganda, seek to stifle any dissent among their ranks or criticism from the public, and have a decided aversion to the truth.

These groups and their leaders aren’t progressives. They’re demagogues who are trying to wrest political power from those who currently hold it, using a “brand” that they think will appeal to the young, disenfranchised new arrivals from the mainland who are desperately seeking to belong in Hawaii’s cliquish circles.

To me, progressives are people who speak up when wrongs are being committed. They aren’t people who commit wrongs while declaring themselves holier than thou. That simply makes them hypocrites. And that goes for Bart Dame, whose ugly intolerance was revealed in many comment threads on public news sites, as well as in his hateful messages to me.

Which leads me to the news source of “progressives” in Hawaii: Civil Beat. It’s bankrolled by Pierre Omidyar, who is so ethically challenged that he has no problem sitting on an editorial board and influencing coverage of groups that he funds through money donated to the Hawaii Community Foundation.

Civil Beat has made a mockery out of journalism. If you have any doubts about Omidyar’s political agenda, just look at how his other vanity press, Intercept, aggressively pushed the candidacy of New York Social Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

If Omidyar wants to finance partisan publications and surreptitiously influence politics, fine. But he shouldn’t pretend that he’s running objective, legitimate news outlets while operating like the Koch brothers — his billionaire brethren on the other side of the political spectrum.

Similarly, if folks want to behave like intolerant bullies with no regard for the truth as they seek money, fame and political power, fine. But they shouldn’t try to pass themselves off as progressives. Because they aren’t.

So yes, Dame may be correct that “progressive” is a new political buzzword in Hawaii. But as it’s currently defined and practiced in the Islands, it’s nothing more than a knock-off brand, like a cheap Louis Vuitton handbag.

A message out of the blue from a far-flung family member revealed an archived text conversation —and with it, the 180-degree shift in my thinking around GMOs.

It went like this:

Him: In 3 or 4 sentences can you tell me the worst aspects of GMO foods? I’m still not convinced on this matter.

Me: Some people fear the foods will cause allergies and health problems, others worry about the increased use of pesticides associated with GMO crops, and still others fear chemical companies gaining a monopoly over the food supply by controlling seeds. My main concern is with possible environmental impacts as these engineered organisms are released into nature, such as the salmon engineered to grow super fast possibly wiping out natural salmon.

Him: I agree completely. But what about Norman Borlaug who I thought created GMO wheat which saved billions of lives in India & China? Any comment on him?

That’s where it ended — or at least that thread. In the four years since, I’ve learned that neither of us really knew what the hell we were talking about. Though I, as the first reporter to cover the GMO issue in Hawaii, sure thought I did.

I now know there is no GMO wheat and that Borlaug’s “Green Revolution” did indeed save upwards of a billion lives, but it started in Mexico before spreading to India and Pakistan. It would take a while longer to reach China. And anyway, all of this was done well before humans figured out what bacteria have known for eons: how to shuttle genes between organisms.

The engineered salmon is raised in inland pens, among other safeguards, and has virtually no chance of wiping out “natural” salmon. In fact, it could help protect wild stocks from our voracious appetites while reducing the carbon emissions associated with all the sea-farmed salmon we import. It’s just one of many biotech applications that are helping to reduce agriculture’s huge environmental footprint.

There is no evidence that GMOs are any more or less healthful or allergenic than their non-modified counterparts, as evidenced by more than two decades of widespread GMO consumption. In fact, biotechnology can actually remove harmful things from crops, like aflatoxin from peanuts and mycotoxin from corn.

Similarly, 20 years of production have produced enough data to show that pest-resistant Bt corn — perhaps the most reviled crop in anti-GMO circles — has resulted in higher yields and decreased pesticide use, while also creating a beneficial “halo effect” for organic crops, in terms of reduced pest pressure. In Bangladesh, Bt brinjal (eggplant) has dramatically cut the use of insecticides. The same is true for Bt cotton in Burkina Faso and India.

As for chemical companies gaining a monopoly over the food supply and seeds, well, anti-GMO activism is turning that fear into a self-fulfilling prophecy by clamoring for an expensive, prolonged approval process. Currently, only the big guys can afford to play, while countless public sector projects languish. But in any case, some GM seeds, like Golden Rice, are patent- and license-free, not under corporate control.

I learned all this because events rocked my worldview to such a degree that I began questioning deeply held ideas and beliefs. The catalyst was witnessing — and then personally experiencing — the repressive tactics of the anti-GMO movement, which I’d long supported, as it launched a campaign to end GM parent seed production in Hawaii. That disenchantment led me to an intensive process of soul-searching, reflection and research — not unlike the one that my colleague Mark Lynas, a former GM crop saboteur turned biotech advocate, outlines in his new book, “Seeds of Science.”

Like Mark, I did an about face on GMOs that earned me the wrath of some — and informed the most recent text from my relative:

“Just found out you’re living in Santa Fe, and that you got harassed from the left in Hawaii on your GMO reporting.”

It was accompanied by the laughing-to-tears emoji. And it made me laugh, too, to be confronted with a text time-capsule of erroneous views that I’d once so earnestly believed.

It’s all rather hilarious when you stop to think about it, this tendency we have to cling to our beliefs, even false ones, and our “facts,” even the alternative ones.

In the absence of real knowledge, we rely on personal views, or the guidance of someone we respect, or the ideology of our tribe, which we unquestioningly accept as the truth. Except, it usually isn’t.

As reasonable and thinking human beings, we can change our minds when confronted with compelling new evidence. It’s hard, but possible. And that’s a very good thing, especially for those of us who cherish Enlightenment values and critical thinking.

I’ve also come to learn that GMOs are a stand-in for many other gripes, like industrialization and corporatization. They’re viewed as the nemesis of a simpler, saner, slower way of life. For those who worship the god of organic, GMOs are nothing less than the devil himself. I understand all that, because I felt much the same way just four short years ago.

It’s OK to wax nostalgic for family farms and self-sufficiency. It’s great to want safe food, and a healthy, biodiverse ecosystem. It’s laudable to advocate for social justice and food security. But none of these concepts are antithetical to GMOs, which are simply a crop breeding technology.

In re-reading that old text thread, I was reminded that my errors stemmed from ignorance, rather than malice. That isn’t necessarily true for all who agitate against GMOs, however. Some have deep financial interests, whether it’s promoting a label, a product, lawsuits, or conflict activism, and like all self-interested opportunists, they don’t warrant any slack when they spread lies.

But the majority of those who hold anti-GMO beliefs are uninformed and confused. To reach them, we need to focus on sharing the human stories and compelling examples that can drill through a solidified mindset.

And we have to set the record straight, wherever we find it wrong.

If die-hards can change their hearts and minds, so too can those who are bewildered and uncertain about genetic engineering because all they’ve ever heard is something bad (and invariably incorrect).

This is not about getting everyone to agree, or even about being right. It’s about getting it right when it comes to ag biotech. Getting it wrong causes harm, whether it’s Mark uprooting field trials of GMO crops, Western elitism hindering global access to seed innovation, or me as a journalist disseminating incorrect information. As we struggle to feed billions in an era when climate change is making farming increasingly tenuous, we don’t have much room for error.

Hawaii’s GMO and hybrid seed industry is going through another merger-linked transition, with DowDuPont shuttering operations on Molokai and expanding them on Kauai.

Molokai workers will be guaranteed jobs on that island through the second-quarter 2018, with some ultimately relocating to Kauai or the mainland. The Kauai workforce will expand, as will the company’s footprint.

On Kauai, some $12 million in construction is planned to upgrade administrative facilities and build new shade structures in Kekaha. The company’s agriculture division research and development operations will be consolidated at Waimea.

“New shade houses will allow for a large portion of research operations to be conducted indoors, providing environmental benefits and reducing the need for additional lands,” the company’s news release stated.

Anti-GMO activists have complained that seed company operations are taking up too much agricultural land, even as thousands of acres of farmland remain fallow throughout Hawaii. Moving some operations indoors should also pre-empt activists’ undocumented claims that pesticide drift from field applications is harming people and the environment.

All parent seed operations will be consolidated at the facility in Waialua, Oahu. Field operations at Kunia, Oahu, will end in 2018, with the facilities there scheduled to close in 2019.

The Agriculture Division of DowDuPont was formed by the merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont on Sept. 1. Earlier this year, Syngenta sold its Hawaii operations to Hartung Brothers, a Wisconsin-based family-owned business. Last year, Beck Hybrids, another family-owned company, bought the former BASF seed research facilities on Kauai.

Monsanto, meanwhile, still has operations on Molokai and Maui.

The 50-year-old seed industry is the most valuable sector of Hawaii’s dwindling agricultural economy. The Islands are favored for parent seed production because they provide a year-round growing climate.

Though it’s too early to tell whether it’s imploding — or merely suffering growing pains — the $50 billion American organic industry is going through some serious soul-searching.

While some organic pioneers are bemoaning what they perceive as the ongoing degradation of a brand founded in an ideological movement, others see this as a time to critically reassess what organic really means, and how that ancient model of agriculture fits into the bigger picture of feeding and fueling 7.6 billion people in the 21st century.

The industry has long grappled with internal philosophical fissures. But these recently turned into a very public split when the US Department of Agriculture ruled that hydroponic and aquaponic farms, which grow crops in nutrient solutions, and frequently indoors, could continue to display the economically valuable organic seal.

Organic pioneers were outraged, claiming the Nov. 1 decision undermined the founding principles of a movement dedicated to soil health and regeneration. “They did incalculable damage to the seal,” lamented organic tomato farmer Dave Chapman in an interview with the Washington Post. “It’s just going to take them a while to realize it.”

Some of the reaction was grounded in the organic movement’s general disdain for large agribusiness firms, such as Driscoll’s, a conventional and organic grower that has used hydroponics to capture a significant share of the fresh berry market. A similar uproar occurred earlier this year around claims that certain producers, most notably “industrial” dairies, weren’t meeting the spirit —and perhaps not even the legal requirements —of the organic brand.

Though big business doesn’t dovetail with the bucolic, small farm image that the organic brand trades on, it’s part and parcel of the actual workings of the industry. Indeed, many organic food companies have already sold out to multinational corporations like General Mills, Post, Smuckers, Coca Cola, Miller-Coors, Nestle, Perdue Farms, Kellog’s and Hain-Celestial.

And some hydroponic growers, such as those represented by the Recirculating Farms Coalition, are in fact small, eco-friendly farmers who staunchly defended their practices. Following the ruling, Marianne Cufone, the Coalition’s executive director, issued a statement that read, in part:

“By siding with current science and recognizing that existing law purposely leaves the door open for various farming methods, the NOSB is sending a critical message that sustainability and innovation are valuable in U.S. agriculture.”

Still, as National Public Radio pointed out, the fight really seems to be grounded in market share, since hydroponic operations are already dominating organic tomato, pepper, lettuce, cucumber and berry production. That economic reality may explain why the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) accepted hydroponics and aquaculture, but rejected aeroponics, a related practice that has yet to attract the same consumer base.

And despite Cufone’s optimistic assessment, the NOSB appears to have ignored sustainability, innovation and science in its treatment of biotechnology, which is poised to deliver crops that can survive on minimal water and produce high yields without the use of chemical fertilizers. These applications and others now being developed by public sector researchers certainly appear compatible with the environmental and populist visions of the organic movement.

Nevertheless, the Board last year reaffirmed its complete rejection of gene editing and synthetic biology with the dubious claim that “every organic stakeholder is clear that genetic engineering is an imminent threat to organic integrity.”

However, at least two organic farmers, Raoul Adamchak and Amy Hepworth, see value in GE. They’re at the forefront of an effort to make organic farming more inclusive, which could mean growing crops genetically engineered to ward off insects without the use of pesticide applications — synthetic or organic.

“The organic movement was successful in changing the way the agricultural industry operates,” Hepworth, a seventh-generation family farmer who grows 400 acres of certified organic vegetables in New York, told the Alliance for Science.  “But the time has come to release ourselves from the tyranny of the label — taking its valuable lessons and evolving beyond organic to create the safest, most ecologically, economically, and socially-just agricultural system possible. Advances in biotechnology are a natural fit to meet the demand of the population for sustainably grown food.”

Adamchak, who teaches organic farming at the University of California-Davis, has proposed a new certification program for “sustainable agriculture” that would include GE crops. “I think there can be improvements made to organic agriculture that are science-based,” he said. “It’s a time when we need all the tools possible.”

Dan Blaustein-Rejto, The Breakthrough Institute’s agricultural analyst, is taking it one step further. He’s begun arguing that organic production is a luxury we can’t afford to indulge in this era of increasingly erratic weather patterns and a burgeoning population:

Rather than focusing on organic production, we ought to promote any production method that minimizes land use and farming’s other environmental impacts while providing enough healthy food for everyone.

Biotech isn’t the only area where the organic industry has found itself on the wrong side of science. The Organic Consumers Association helps to fund the anti-GMO movement, which associates with anti-vaccine activists and health quacks. This year, two documentaries — Food Evolution and Science Moms — brought the anti-GMO movement’s cognitive dissonance and scientific silliness to the screen.

Meanwhile, researchers have begun challenging the industry’s claims of environmental superiority, noting that organic growers do use pesticides and typically engage in more tillage than conventional farmers, a practice that contributes to erosion, topsoil loss and carbon emissions. Organic farmers also rely on animal fertilizers, and the livestock industry has been taking a beating for its contribution to climate change.

Other studies have questioned whether organic agriculture can produce sufficient quantities of food to meet global demand — without requiring everyone to go vegetarian and/or expand farming into wild areas.

Nutritionists fret that pesticide fears stoked by the organic industry are causing people to shy away from eating conventionally grown fresh fruits and veggies, even though samples consistently show they contain only trace residues. Others object to the way that organic marketing has contributed to food elitism and romanticized — some would say impractical — notions about farming.

As a result, some media sources have been looking more critically at core consumer assumptions about the organic brand, notably its claims to be pesticide-free and more nutritious than its conventionally grown counterpart.

And though the industry has been wildly successful at marketing, it’s now facing challenges in that arena — again from within its own ranks. The Detox Project recently launched its “glyphosate residue-free” verification and labeling project with the ominous warning that “even organic isn’t enough” to ensure that a product is free of the widely used— and heavily demonized — herbicide. In the opportunistic world of marketing, it seems someone is always ready to up the ante.

This new public scrutiny underscores a widening rift within the industry itself over what organic really means today, some 70 years after the movement first began to take hold.  Although some organic pioneers are threatening to pack up their marbles and go home, other farmers and researchers are questioning whether the original practices and philosophy can — or should — endure intact in the face of climate change and science-based agricultural innovations.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has awarded a federal grant that supports the anti-GMO movement in Hawaii.

Deldi Reyes, environmental justice program manager for the EPA’s Region 9 Enforcement Area, maintained the grant was “more about pesticides in general” than GMOs. However, the grant project specifically targets the companies that grow GMO and hybrid seeds on the island of Kauai.

And though Reyes claimed “this project focused more on the potential impacts versus taking a pro or anti GMO stand,” it was awarded to anti-GMO/anti-pesticide activist Phoebe Eng.

Eng intends to partner with Po’ai Wai Ola, an organization that recently brought an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging a state land lease to a Kauai seed company and has contested water use by seed companies.

Eng plans to conduct a public outreach campaign to “provide opportunities for west Kauai residents to learn about and protect against impacts to water quality and public health due to toxic pesticide use by large agricultural companies working in the local area,” according to the grant summary.

Reyes downplayed concerns about the potential for bias and conflict of interest in the outreach campaign. But she acknowledged the EPA will not vet any of the materials disseminated through the grant, even though Eng has no formal training in pesticides and has taken strident anti-GMO and anti-pesticide stances.

When asked whether EPA was interested in ensuring the public gets accurate, unbiased materials, Reyes replied, “Yes, it is important to us. We don’t want people out there spreading lies or slandering businesses.”

However, Eng already has engaged in such practices. In addition to describing genetic engineering as an “irresponsible technology,” she wrote a piece where she claimed:

The pesticide and herbicide practices of GMO tenants damage our soil over the long term, reducing it to a lifeless growing medium. Open air GMO chemical spraying is affecting the health of West Side children and families, resulting in increased health care costs that are borne by taxpayers, insurance companies, and private citizens.”

However, not a single study conducted in Hawaii has documented any soil harm or health hazards associated with the cultivation of GMO seed crops or their related pesticide use. Indeed, testing conducted by both state agencies and anti-GMO groups found only trace amounts of pesticides — well below EPA thresholds — in the air and water near GMO fields, indicating that pesticides are not migrating off-site in any significant amounts, and certainly not at levels that could cause harm.

Eng also made numerous false assertions in her grant application, including this spurious claim circulated by an anti-GMO group, the Center for Food Safety:

Because the west Kauai fields are R&D test fields where pesticide tolerances are being studied to create new patented seed and parent seed strains, the level of pesticide application far exceeds that of conventionally grown, commercial genetically engineered crops, for example on the US mainland. Herbicide resistance is a frequently tested trait in GE crop field tests in Hawaii. This means that plants genetically engineered in Hawaii, by and large, are engineered to resist ever greater applications of pesticides.

The residential communities of these towns therefore bear an extremely large toxic load as a consequence of pesticide spraying.

In reality, herbicide and pesticide testing does not occur in Hawaii. Herbicide-resistant crops are grown in the Islands primarily for breeding purposes. In other words, making new combinations of traits and selecting among the progeny. When an herbicide tolerance trait has been developed, it is not necessary to “test” it with repeated high rates of herbicide.

Eng’s application also falsely claimed that west Kauai residents had a higher rate of cancer, though a state study showed that Hawaii residents in general have lower cancer rates than the rest of the US. The only elevated rates on Kauai were found on the north shore, far from the seed fields, where the district’s largely Caucasian population had high incidences of the skin cancer melanoma.

Surely the EPA’s Region 9, which is charged with regulating and enforcing pesticide use in Hawaii, should be aware of these facts. But Eng was given the grant despite these falsehoods and her history as an anti — even though Reyes claimed that “we certainly want them to do it [the project] in an objective and science-based way.”

Furthermore, the grant allows Eng to use federal money to identify others sympathetic to her cause, and proselytize west Kauai residents, including seed company workers, “to consider job choices that more closely align with their values.”

Or in other words, her values, as articulated in materials she’s written about the need to “change the long-term direction of West Side agriculture … so it can be a world-class destination and model for sustainable regional development.” Sure sounds like she’s aiming to get rid of the seed companies.

Perhaps most disturbing, the grant authorizes Eng to draft “a Community Collaboration Action Plan which relies on the continuation of our work together in the years to come.”

In short, the EPA is giving Eng funds to establish herself as the voice and decision-maker of the community — even though she wrote the grant on behalf of a newly formed group with no identified members, and no nonprofit status. What’s more, Eng provided no proof that she had any community partnerships, and she did not disclose or identify any additional sources of funding.

When questioned, Reyes said only that the application process didn’t require her to show any proof of collaboration. Reyes then added, “The people out there [west Kauai] deserve a voice.”

Yes, I replied. They do.

But shouldn’t it be their own voice, I argued, rather than the voice of an activist transplant who makes patronizing references to the “plantation mentality” of west Kauai residents and their inability to comprehend complex issues like pesticide laws?

Eng’s grant application included such dismissive contentions as “Many residents do not read well…are not proficient in English… and lack the ability to communicate their views in ways the policymakers are accustomed to.” However, Eng failed to note that two of the current Kauai County Councilmembers were raised in that very community, and so should have no problem communicating with its inhabitants.

At the end of our conversation, I told Reyes that many in the Hawaii agricultural sector believe that EPA’s Region 9 is in cahoots with anti-GMO/anti-pesticide activists.

“That’s not me, that’s not Region 9,” Reyes replied.

Perhaps not, I said. But when you give out a grant like this, it sure reinforces that perception. And on a small island like Kauai, perception tends to be more important than reality.

Update 12-4-17: An EPA official read my piece, contacted me and offered assurance that the official will personally scrutinize both the materials developed and activities carried out under this grant. “When the EPA gives its stamp of approval [to pesticides] that means a lot and it’s not something to be taken lightly,” the official said. “To have somebody come around the backdoor and say, ‘they’re not safe,’ is not fair to the public or to the companies that use these chemicals. It sends a double message and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.”