So far as pesticide education and control were concerned, the plantation system had advantages over today’s decentralized, diversified agriculture. In the past, regulators had to deal with a handful of plantation managers, who in turn were responsible for making sure pesticides were properly applied. Today, the state Department of Agriculture is simply overwhelmed by the growing numbers of farmers, including many who are unable to read label instructions, applying some of the most toxic pesticides on the market today to their truck crops.
But it is absolutely wrong to think of the plantation as a time when pesticide misuse was unknown. Some idea of the extent of the problem is suggested in a May 10, 1982 letter that Senator Daniel Inouye wrote to John Tolan, then executive vice president of the Pineapple Growers Association of Hawai’i. Prompting the letter were growing public concerns over levels of dangerous pesticides in food and drinking water.
Inouye wrote: “The EPA has been ineffective in enforcing its regulations governing the use of pesticides in Hawai’i, and widespread abuse of pesticides in Hawai’i, and widespread abuse of pesticides continues – both in use and application. For example, the sugar industry admitted in testimony that it used heptachlor in cane fields, even though it does not have any legal right to do so. Similarly, people who recently visited the Big Island found workers applying potent pesticides with spay guns from the back of trucks without wearing any of the required protective gear.”
“[E]nforcement and testing procedures are notoriously lax,” he continued, “and if people really started looking for pesticides in Hawai’i’s environment, they would find them in alarming quantities. For example, pineapple growers have ignored for years, – with the tacit approval of state inspectors – the requirement that they wait one year before harvesting and selling plants sprayed with heptachlor.”
In the mid 1980s, the Pesticide Branch of the state Department of Agriculture was harshly criticized by the governor, the Legislature, and the public for its inability to curb the misuse of pesticides by farmers. In the early 1980s, heptachlor, a known carcinogen, had been found in Hawai’i’s milk supply, and DBCP and EDB, also carcinogenic pesticides, were discovered in wells in Central O’ahu, – an area heavily planted with sugar and pineapple.
In 1984, the Legislature set up an 11-members advisory panel to find reasons for the pesticide contamination. A year later, in a state Senate committee hearing, Hector Matsuda, and investigator with the Pesticide Branch, testified that pesticide misuse was common, inspectors were insufficiently trained and encouraged to be passive, pesticides were allowed to be used on crops for which they were not registered, and the branch had been lenient in granting certification to workers who did not speak or read English well. (To buy and apply restricted use pesticides – the most toxic kind – a farmer must be certified by the state as having given evidence of his or her ability to read label instructions.)
A Governor’s Investagatory Panel on Pesticides was set up to investigate Matsuda’s charges and make recommendations. The panel eventually cleared the Pesticide Branch of any wrong doing, but noted in a July 1985 report that the branch was understaffed and that “the question of whether there can be effective enforcement of pesticides useage [with a limited number of inspectors]..should be discussed further.”
Doubts about the branch’s effectiveness rose again in 1994, when Tom Mather, associate editor of North Carolina Insight, a publication of the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research, accused the state of poor monitoring of pesticide users.
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin quoted him as saying that the state relied on pesticide dealer records to monitor their use, and that those records were not specific enough to help pinpoint environmental problems resulting from pesticide applications. Mather criticized the state for not using the actual use records that federal law required farmers to keep. These tell what and how much of a chemical was used on a particular area.
To this, Pesticide Branch manager Bob Boesch replied that enforcement could be improved if “inspector positions lost to budget cutbacks were restored.”
Today, the branch remains understaffed. Eleven inspectors are in charge of supervision of 1,551 certified pesticide applicators as well investigating the unknown number of farmers who use restricted pesticides without verification.
Adding to the burden is the switch from centralized plantations to diversified agriculture. According to University of Hawai’i Pesticide Coordinator Barry Brennan, restricted use pesticides were rarely used on sugar. While he does not know for a fact that farmers growing diversified crops are using more restricted use pesticides than sugar did, he suspects this is so. “If 100 acres of former sugar lands are turned into 100 acres of diversified agriculture lands, logically, you would assume there would be and increase in restricted use pesticides,” he says.
The 11 pesticide branch inspectors conduct about 400 inspections a year, and about ten percent of those yield a violation – 40 to 50 a year. Only rarely does a violation lead to illness, Boesch says.
Like many other states, Hawai’i has a pesticide training program. Money from fees charged to businesses selling pesticides are put into a revolving account. This account supports the Pesticide Applicator Training Program run by the UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources.
This fall, the CTAHR offered 16- hour training courses on O’ahu and Moloka’i. The classes covered understanding labels, regulations, application equipment, drift management, and ground water protection, among other things. Course organizer Charles Nagamine says that the course brings in about 20 people per class. This year’s class on Moloka’i was cancelled because only three people were interested, he says, but the classes were well attended in previous years.
The classes are advertised on the Internet, in the CTAHR newsletter The Pesticide Label, at pesticide dealerships, by county agents of UH-CTAHR, and by word of mouth, Nagamine says.
Farm workers, pest control company workers, landscapers, maintenance people, and government agents all attend the classes, and according to Nagamine, all have a good command of English.
For pesticide users who don’t speak English well, and are not in contact with the system, UH Pesticide Coordinator Brennan has sought grants – so far unsuccessfully. Among other things, he wanted to set up a “train the trainer” program for Laotian farmers, the largest group of non-English speakers. CTAHR has a person on its staff who is fluent in Laotian and who would help conduct the training.
Meanwhile, the pesticide branch has established a similar program, working with the Mutual Assistance Association Center, a Honolulu social service provider helping immigrants.
The state’s contract with MAAC notes that many of the immigrant farmers work without supervision on small plots of land. “According to the Hawai’i Farm Bureau Federation,” the contract notes, “there are close to 200 such farms on O’ahu’s Mililani-North Shore area alone. There are also small farms operated by these non-English proficient farmers on the Leeward and Windward coasts and on the neighbor islands…Over the years, a number of cases of food contamination resulting from pesticide misuses have been traced to this group.”
The first contract with MAAC, which began in July 1998, was to determine pesticide training needs in the Laotian farming communities in Kahuku, Waialua, and Mokuleia. MAAC surveyed the community, identified bi-lingual trainers and assisted in other efforts to develop programs for these people. For this MAAC was paid $9,700.
Many Laotian farmers in Kahuku sublease land under a master lease with Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate. The person holding the master lease required all tenants to participate in MAAC’s efforts, Boesch says.
“Getting everyone educated is difficult,” he say. “Only 50 to 100 people were reached in the first year, and in that case, we had a hook” – the Bishop Estate master lessee.
This year, MAAC has a $22,900 contract to do much the same work with Laotioan farmers in Wai’anae, Mililani, and Waimanalo – all areas where, according to the state contract, “there is no solid community leadership and communication network” among the farmers.
— Teresa Dawson
Volume 10, Number 6 December 1999