It didn’t take long for Christina Smith and her family to start feeling ill after moving into their new Kihei home about a year ago. There were skin problems, eyes burning, lung irritation, allergic reactions and other "weird illnesses" they never experienced before, she said.
"My hormones are way out of whack," said Smith, a mother of two who plans workshops for a living. "I’m tired all the time. It’s clear that I’m overtoxified."
Smith puts the blame squarely on her neighbor: a large Monsanto farm that tests and produces genetically modified organism seed for farmers.
"They’re dumping chemicals on the fields and allowing it to blow over here," she said bitterly. "Yes, I’m impacted, definitely."
Smith is part of a rising chorus of Hawaii opposition to the biotechnology seed companies that have moved into the state’s former sugar cane lands and have quietly become the state’s top agricultural industry.
Monsanto didn’t respond to Smith’s complaint specifically, but said it would work "closely and cooperatively with the state Department of Health if they have a need to investigate any formal complaints."
Anti-GMO groups on Kauai and Hawaii island campaigned loudly against the agribusiness corporations on their islands over the last year, and now the spotlight shifts to Maui, where activists with the Shaka Movement made Maui County history when it became the first citizens group to gather enough signatures to qualify an initiative on the ballot.
The Nov. 4 ballot measure proposes a moratorium that would make it illegal to cultivate, grow or test genetically modified crops in Maui County until environmental and public health studies show their practices are safe.
While the anti-GMO groups hope to put the breaks on GMO crop production for health reasons, their foes insist safety concerns are unfounded and the ban could be permanent, putting hundreds out of work and devastating Maui County’s economy.
Underwritten by what some are describing as a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign by the biotech corporations, Citizens Against the Maui County Farming Ban Initiative has saturated the media with commercials and ads aimed at undermining the ballot measure.
And like recent community drives against GMO crops on Kauai and the Big Island, the campaign in Maui County has ignited passions on both sides. There have been reports of campaign-related graffiti, vandalism and the trashing of campaign signs. The two sides also reportedly clashed at the Maui County Fair, with police having been called to the scene.
"It’s the most divisive thing that this state has ever dealt with. It’s bigger than the Superferry or anything else I can think of," said Mark Sheehan, a real estate agent, organic farmer and Shaka Movement leader who is 30-year veteran of environmental battles on Maui. "There are moms out there who are freaking out. People don’t want Maui to become a testing ground."
If passed, the law could end up in court just like it did in Hawaii County and Kauai. Kauai’s Ordinance 960 was struck down by a federal judge who ruled that it was pre-empted by state laws regulating pesticides and GMOs. Hawaii island farmers have gone before the same judge to present the same argument against Bill 113, which bans cultivation of any new genetically altered crops, including GMO papayas, unless registered with the county.
Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa was quoted recently describing the ballot initiative as poorly written and a potential administrative nightmare.
"From an administrator’s position, not taking a stand on good or bad, I think it is impractical and impossible at this time," he said in the Maui Weekly.
Supporters say that while there may be some challenges implementing the law, there is nothing that can’t be dealt with from a practical point of view.
Ashley Lukens, program director for the Hawaii Center for Food Safety, said the moratorium is important to assure Maui residents they are safe from what the big agrochemical companies are doing to their crops. The measure, she noted, requires a complete health and environmental impact assessment before the Maui County operations of Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences affiliate Mycogen Seeds can resume. Lukens, who helped to put together the Coalition for a Safer and Healthier Maui, which is supporting the ballot measure, said rural Hawaii has become an outdoor laboratory for these and other large chemical companies that are developing corn and soy varieties that are genetically engineered to resist greater applications of their signature pesticides.
Testing these crops in Hawaii means repeated spraying of chemicals near neighborhoods, schools and waterways, she said, and that poses potential health threats to the neighboring communities.
"This is not rural acreage in Nebraska," Lukens said. "On Maui we don’t know what they are spraying. It is the county’s responsibility to know if what they are spraying is safe for its residents."
Officials with Monsanto Hawaii said they do their best to comply with federal and state laws that govern pesticide use.
"As a sustainable agriculture company, our products have a long history of safe use," said John P. Purcell, vice president of business and technology for Monsanto Hawaii, which owns or leases about 3,000 acres on Maui and Molokai and employs 500.
Purcell noted that employees are certified and receive extensive training to apply pesticides using best practices that follow label directions as specified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"We take our role as a neighbor in Hawaii seriously, and we’re committed to meeting or exceeding all environmental, health and safety laws and regulations," he said.
Of further concern is what the potential shutdown of the seed companies will do to the economy, said Pamela Tumpap, president of the Maui Chamber of Commerce.
"The effects would ripple throughout our business community, affecting many small and medium-sized enterprises," she said.
The chamber hired noted economist Paul Brewbaker, who concluded the voter initiative would put at risk $55.8 million in direct and indirect annual impacts on Maui County’s economy, $84.2 million in total Maui County economic output including household consumption from incomes originating from seed farms, 770 jobs directly and indirectly associated with the seed farms, and at least $4 million in state taxes.
"Nearly a thousand Maui County families’ livelihoods depend on employment with the seed farms or as suppliers and providers of services to those families," Brewbaker wrote in his report.
Citing the "temporary shutdowns" that permanently closed Aloha Airlines, Maui Land & Pine, and Del Monte Plantation on Molokai, Brewbaker said, "Seed farming is Maui’s second largest agricultural activity after sugar cane cultivation, and the largest on Molokai. It is too important to Maui County’s economy to be placed on a so-called ‘hiatus.’"
Purcell said the language of the initiative is written in such a way it would be a de facto ban, with immediate and permanent consequences for people and farmers throughout Maui and Molokai, who would lose their freedom of choice to grow whatever food crop they choose or else face criminal charges including stiff financial penalties and jail time.
"These GMO crops have already been reviewed and approved by federal agencies; it does not make sense to deny farmers the right to grow and benefit from these crops if they so choose," he said.
But initiative supporters insist the initiative is not a farming ban. The temporary moratorium, they said, would affect less than 1 percent of the islands’ agricultural operations, and Monsanto and Mycogen can grow out their current crops and replant with non-GMO without much upheaval in operations.
"It applies only to those entities who knowingly propagate GE crops," Lukens said.
Bill Greenleaf, Maui Chapter president of the Hawaii Farmers Union United, said people need to know that the moratorium will not affect the ability of Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. or other non-GMO farmers to continue using pesticides or herbicides they use now. The focus, he said, is on GMOs and the combinations and frequency of chemicals used on them.
Greenleaf, who grows organic fruits and vegetables on a 2-acre farm in Makawao, said the media blitz is scaring and confusing farmers and nonfarmers alike.
"I’m upset with all the lies that are being told," he said. "It’s a dangerous situation. And it’s basically unregulated. No one is watching the henhouse, except the industry."
Kula flower farmer Stu Nicholls said he isn’t confused. He said he wishes he had GMO corn seed back when he raised sweet corn on Oahu in the 1970s when he struggled with infestations of corn earworms.
"It was a disaster," Nicholls recalled.
But now, thanks to GMO corn, he said, there is natural resistance to the earworm bred into the seed, allowing farmers to increase their yields by more than 30 percent and without using insecticides.
"Pesticides are expensive," Nicholls said. "No farmer wants to use more than they have to."
Chris Manfredi, president of the Hawaii Farm Bureau, agreed: "GMO crops are designed to allow for use of fewer pesticides, which is something the proponents of this measure should be in favor of."
Manfredi said he’s trying to rally opposition to this campaign and others around the state attempting to undermine Hawaii’s seed industry. He said anti-pesticide and anti-GMO activist organizations have recognized that if they are able to shut down the Hawaii farms, they could affect agricultural biotechnology across the United States.
Aggressive tactics are dividing local communities and dragging farmers into battles with national, if not global, implications, he said.
Sheehan, meanwhile, said he’s just trying to do the right thing. He said the Shaka Movement didn’t have much trouble collecting signatures — some 19,000 — in its drive to take the question to the voters.
"Everybody became aware of the problem," he said. "And once you became aware of it, you can’t shut it out of your mind. People have started to really wake up."
But now the campaign is fighting an uphill battle, he said, battling a mighty foe that is outspending proponents 40-to-1.
"If Monsanto follows the same playbook it has in the past, they will dump massive moneys in the last week of the campaign," he said.
