Big Ag meeting scheduled for Kona – Bad Taste, Bad Judgment – Bad Policy

The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) is holding their 2015 Annual Meeting beginning this Sunday, September 13, in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. The meeting is hosted by NASDA President and Hawaii Chairman of Agriculture Scott Enright.

http://www.nasda.org/News/37606.aspx

One of the featured key note speakers is former Hawaii Attorney General Margery Bronster. Ms Bronster and her law firm Bronster Fujichaku Robbins on behalf of the largest chemical companies in the world are suing Kauai County for the right to spray poisonous chemicals next to schools, hospitals and homes.  The court action also prevents Kauai residents from knowing exactly what chemicals are being used in their neighborhoods (disclosure).

Actually Ms Bronster and her associates are representing the chemical companies in legal actions in 3 of 4 Hawaii Counties seeking to block, overturn and prevent local governments and the local citizenry from protecting their local communities via the regulation of pesticides and genetically modified organisms.

On Kauai, the law that was passed by the Kauai County Council simply required disclosure and modest buffer zones around schools, hospitals and homes.  Rather than comply these large chemical companies hired Ms Bronster and numerous other big guns in the legal community to take Kauai County to court where the matter is now on appeal.

5 of 7 Councilmembers on Kauai voted to pass Ordinance 960, a majority of Hawaii County Councilmembers and over half of Maui voters voted to regulate the growing of genetically modified crops on their island.

Yet, the NADC invites the person leading the charge against all 3 counties as a key-note speaker to their conference on agricultural policy.

Ms Bronster will no doubt speak on the horrors of having local governments attempting to govern.  At the minimum the NADC in its wisdom (or political acumen) should have invited an opposing view point and balanced the conversation with a presentation on the benefits of local control and local agricultural policy.