Pesticides In Paradise
Pacific Islands Monthly,
December 1988
Michael Moriarty looks at
the toxic legacy of agriculture in the Aloha State
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Hawaii's fine weather and benign climate are famous the world over:
however, year-round warmth and the crowd it attracts produce some
problems. A 1968 report by the State Department of Agriculture titled
"Evaluation of Pesticide Problems in Hawaii" concluded that Hawaii used
pesticides at a rate fully 10 times higher than the national average.
Hawaii's pesticide consumption is three and a half times the per capita
national average and six times that of its nearest neighbour,
California- a major agricultural state. Meanwhile, dry stream beds on
Oahu are kept clear of weeds with herbicides and, as one visitor to the
islands said recently, "I've never seen a road gang spraying herbicides
from a tanker... with a fire hose."
The almost unchanging climate in Hawaii means that there is no
cleansing frost; pests are not killed or controlled by the rigours of
winter, and breed happily all year around. Add six million visitors a
year and an economy completely dependent on imports and you have a
situation where between 14 and 21 new species of insect pests are
identified in Hawaii every year.
Seventy-two major landowners control approximately 95 per cent of
Hawaii's land. The largest landowner, Bishop Estate, owns nearly a
fifth of Hawaii's private land, and such concentration of ownership -
together with a natural scarcity of land and Hawaii's tourist and
residential population- makes land prices skyrocket.
The market for land in Hawaii is not primarily agricultural:
development of subdivisions, resorts and retirement communities has
long been competing with agricultural uses. the small group of major
landowners naturally looks to its property for maximum return, so
farmers are paying premium prices, mortgage rates are high and the
average young farmer cannot afford a large property.
Maintaining a market share is also a major consideration and if the
small farmer fails to supply the ripe tomato or banana, Hawaiian
merchants will look elsewhere. North American suppliers can readily
satisfy the Hawaiian market through air freight, with the result that
Hawaii's small farmers have to plant the same crop year after year to
maintain their share of the market.
The net result is that many agricultural practices generally recognised
as beneficial are being ignored as impractical: pushed by mortgage
payments, it is economically impossible to let land lie fallow and the
small farmer simply cannot rotate crops. There is no "back forty" to
rotate the crops to, and all available land must be used to produce
crops.
With literally nowhere else to go, the pests and diseases attracted by
a given crop can build up over successive plantings until they
represent a truly serious threat - and the Hawaiian farmers only
desperate response is heavy spraying (once a week being the norm) which
in turn drives up production expenses as both labour and pesticide
costs increase.
With Hawaii's population including people from a broad range of
cultures, it is no surprise to find a similarly wide variety of
vegetables cultivated... and the State's farmers have been quick to
adapt modern chemical methods to weed, disease and insect control
problems. But there is a further problem in many cases, with the
legality of their pest control problems.
The United States has some tough laws relating to the use of the
various chemicals unleashes on the world by modern technology. To be
approved for use on any given crop, each chemical must be tested on
that crop and then evaluated for residues. The prescribed tests are
extensive and expensive, running into millions of dollars and in some
cases the total value of the crops is less than the cost of having the
chemical cleared for use.
Add to this laws that make high dollar value per hectare crops more a
liability than lower yield crops, and chemical companies shy away from
clearing crops that otherwise might be worth their trouble. In this
situation, it is unlikely many of Hawaii's variety of ethnic vegetables
will ever be tested to determine which chemicals are really safe to use
on them.
Hawaii's large agricultural business's also contribute to the pesticide
problem. sugarcane undergoes "close-in," when its leaves effectively
shade the entire land area below the plants, preventing weed growth.
But before this can happen, cane fields are sprayed with a variety of
herbicides. Of relatively recent introduction are cane varieties that
require spraying with the herbicides round-up or Mon 8000 to "ripen"
them ("ripening" consists of arresting the plant's actual growth while
leaving it to continue photosynthesizing, thus increasing sugar
content. Without spraying, the sugar content of the new varieties is
inadequate). However, the precision of application is frequently not
all that could be desired. A colleague told me in horror of how a 300
gallon (350 litre) planeload of Roundup had disappeared enroute to the
intended spray location. He knew the plane had been loaded, but when
the pilot went to spray the cane fields... there was no herbicide in
the tank. Where it all ended up between loading and its intended
destination was a complete mystery.
On another occasion he learned a crew had mistakenly spread rodenticide
in a forest reserve. He did not like to speculate about the effects or
retention of rodenticide in local pigs, which frequented cultivated
fields as well as the adjacent reserve.
Perhaps more dangerous- though dwindling in its extent- is Hawaii's
famous pineapple industry. In the past, exemptions have been granted to
pineapple growers regarding the use of pest control substances banned
elsewhere in the US. At various times in recent years it has been
discovered that drinking water sources have been tainted with enough
pesticides to cause restrictions on water use from the wells in the
area. One of the substances noted was used in pineapple fields to
combat ants: interestingly, it had been out of use for a number of
years when discovered... and today purified bottled water is finding an
increasing market in Hawaii.
Meanwhile, the closest office of the US Environmental Protection Agency
is in San Francisco, and in absence of the EPA the US Coast Guard is
supposed to be deputised as the EPA's agent.
President Reagan has been under criticism by environmentalists who say
he has essentially gutted the EPA- and in Hawaii the Coast Guard
Garrison has also been whittled down. There are no rescue facilities
located on the islands of Kauai and Hawaii and volunteer auxiliaries
are all that is left in their place. Undermanned for rescue and at the
same time called upon to escalate the "war on drugs" that the President
has declared, the Coast Guard has perforce been absent from the
enforcement of many of the environmental laws it is supposed to oversee
in Hawaii.
© Michael Moriarty
http://stevesullam.com/kohala.net/health/pesticides.html