A complaint filed Wednesday charges the state Department of Agriculture and the state Agribusiness Development Corp. with discrimination by allowing pesticides to drift into neighborhoods that are largely Native Hawaiian.

Community groups the Moms On a Mission (MOM) Hui and Po‘ai Wai Ola/West Kaua‘i Watershed Alliance filed the complaint with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture, calling on both agencies to investigate violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The act’s Title VI prohibits agencies that receive federal funding from engaging in practices that have the effect of discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin.

The Agribusiness Development Corp., established by the state Legislature in 1994 to help turn former sugar and pineapple lands into new agricultural endeavors, is administratively attached to the state Department of Agriculture. An official with the Agribusiness Development Corp. said the complaint had not reached its office and declined to comment.

According to the complaint, the Agribusiness Development Corp. enables the drifting of pesticides and dust into Native Hawaiian communities by leasing thousands of acres to major pesticide users, primarily seed companies, in rural West Kauai and Molokai.

The state corporation makes no apparent effort to protect these communities nor consider the effect of its actions on them, said Paul Achitoff, attorney with Earthjustice, which is representing the community groups.

“The fact that these activities are most concentrated in areas with a higher average of Native Hawaiians is not a coincidence,” Achitoff said. “I’m confident they wouldn’t take place there if the neighbors had more political power.”

Achitoff said the state Department of Agriculture has failed to use its powers to limit pesticide exposure to neighbors of the seed companies. Instead, it routinely signs off on pesticide use without considering the impacts on neighbors, maintains lenient enforcement and fails to establish buffer zones and pesticide disclosure, he said.

Agriculture officials did not respond to a call and email for comment.

The majority of the state’s $151 million seed industry is located in West Kauai, where the proportion of Native Hawaiians significantly exceeds the statewide percentage.

Seed companies spray fields between tracts of Department of Hawaiian Home Lands on Molokai, which has the largest percentage of Native Hawaiians in the state.

Earthjustice also represents four nonprofit organizations that are appealing a federal judge’s decision to invalidate Kauai County’s law regulating pesticide use on genetically modified crops. Following court arguments this summer, the case is now being weighed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In addition, the environmental law firm is suing the Agribusiness Development Corp. for polluting waters in West Kauai and has filed a complaint with the EPA seeking to revoke the state Department of Agriculture’s authority to enforce pesticide use violations.