The Hawai‘i Farm Bureau Federation Organic Symposium
HFBF Organic Symposium was held at the Ag Sciences Building, UH Manoa on May 27, 2011. The featured speakers included Sylvia Yuen, the UH CTHAR Interim Dean; Russell Kokubun Hawai‘i Dept of Ag Chair; and Jim Hollyer Food Safety Coach, as well as several prominent organic growers. Puanani Burgess (Oahu conflict-transformation facilitator) provided the Keynote address, and Myrone Murakami (Hawai‘i Farm Bureau president) provided the welcome.
The event was well attended by many outer island farmers, certification related people, university students, government officials, CTHAR, and a handful of interested Oahu based people.
This was a gathering of organic industry leaders, government officials and university people in a forum that for the most part allowed attendees to talk with each other and learn about local and national issues. The focuses were on the Hawai’i agricultural infrastructure reaching out to organic growers, food safety issues, certification issues, and general organic concerns.
Puanani started out with a message of trying to build community and see each other’s points of view. Myrone, the Farm Bureau president, stated right out front that he grew GMO papaya and felt he needed to protect against disease. He still wanted to encourage organic growers to join the farm bureau and try to work together. Sylvia also stressed finding a common voice. Russell offered some of the best information. He told farmers about a new bill that passed that will allow the Dept of Ag to loan money to farmers at low 3% to 6% interest rates. He also talked about biosecurity and sustainability.
The most confrontational presentation came from Jim Hollyer’s talk on food safety. He described the history of food safety regulation well, and then went on tell farmers to follow his program or be knocked out of the market. His presentation was overly defensive and threatening, which diminished his message and further polarized the food safety debates. His arguments against allowing children to eat produce that they grow themselves in their school gardens illustrated the weakness of a food safety program based on litigation. What is the primary fear? It is that a child might get sick and the parents could then sue the school system and the state can’t afford that. The atmosphere of listening to each other and discussing different points of view evaporated in this presentation. Issues such as not being allowed to consume non-pasteurized milk and fresh eggs from chickens started to come out.
The panel discussions were lively and allowed a lot of audience participation. People talked about how to deal with thrips, how to disseminate information, policy changes that could help our island economy and self sufficiency, and the Tester amendment on the federal food safety law.My overall gut feeling from the organic symposium was that the agricultural establishment has recognized the dynamic growth of organic and local food in the last twenty years and is cautiously reaching out to the organic community. There are many areas that all farmers have in common, but there are also serious differences in perspective, goals, and actions.
The organic movement is a confluence of environmental protection, ecological growing, and consumer health concerns. As such, it does not usually speak with one voice. There is a conflict between caring for the land, people, and building local communities, on the one hand, and using the island to produce export commodities on the other hand. There is a difference between planting a GMO papaya, which contaminates its neighboring papayas with genes that trigger allergenic immune responses in some people, and growing an organic papaya that doesn’t spread disease-causing genes. These differences are reflected in how the resources of the state government, the university, and the farm bureau are used.
It is understandable that the agricultural establishment is cautious about reaching out to the commercially bright star of local and organic agriculture. I think it realizes that to successfully work together, soothing words and good intentions will have to lead to changes in attitude and changes in resource use. This is coming at time when many available resources are greatly diminished and the struggle to allocate them is tougher.
As an example, food safety can be approached from a science-based risk assessment basis as has been done in California with unpasteurized milk regulation, instead of a litigation-based system that is designed to prevent all but large scale agro-industry organizations from reaching the market. Does declaring all aquaponics systems unsanitary (this just happened in Hawai‘i) because of fish poop in the water really prevent anyone from getting ill? At the same time, is there any local market based farmer who doesn’t want to make sure that no one gets sick from his or her food? There are none that I have met. An effective program would start from that point of view and provide the guidance and structure needed to achieve this goal.
The agricultural establishment will need to develop lateral communication systems between all farmers, environmentalists, and consumers. And it will also need to be willing to understand the depth of the differences, and therefore change some of its positions. The organic movement can gain understanding of the resources that are available and begin using them. Organic farmers could apply for some of the funds Russell told us about, and work with CTHAR to overcome production and market problems in a collaborative way.
I think the organic community will benefit by cautiously accepting the outreach that is being offered and preparing on a person by person, farm by farm, committee by committee basis to gradually and systematically change the direction of agriculture at state level. I think the fact that the organic symposium was held, and top ranking people in the agricultural establishment made presentations, shows this process has already begun.
Tane Datta grows certified organic crops on a 7.5 acre farm in Honaunau, Hawai’i. He is on the crop advisory council for the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) and is a commissioner for the Mayor’s Agricultural Committee on Hawai’i Island. He is an environmentalist dedicated to ecological community development. Tane and his wife, Maureen, run Adaptations Inc., a 100% local foods distributor. Adaptations Inc. distributes island-grown produce to over 60 hotels, restaurants, and health food stores on all the islands, and also through a CSA called Fresh Feasts on Hawai’i Island. Adaptations buys produce from over 100 local farms. Adaptations, Inc. can be reached at 808-328-9044, or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.