For the last two weeks, agricultural companies on Kauai have been rolling out the new Good Neighbor Program, a voluntary pesticide-use disclosure program organized as an alternative to Article 22 (formerly Bill 2491). Two of the companies involved, Syngenta and DuPont Pioneer, have already started reaching out to local schools that fall within the 1,000 foot notification zone. Article 22 would require the agricultural companies to disclose all pesticide use, offer weekly information updates and create 500-foot buffer zones or face criminal charges. In contrast, companies under the Good Neighbor Program would disclose only restricted-use pesticides, offer monthly updates and decrease the pesticide buffer zone to 100 feet.
Opponents believe that Article 22, whichย is scheduled to go into effect in August 2014, is โlegally flawed.โ Singling out certain activities for disclosure โunder the convenient notion of โright to knowโ suggests the public should be worried about those activities,โ writes Dow AgroSciences in a recent statement.
Environmental and anti-biotech activists do not think that the voluntary program is good enough, calling it โinsultingโ and a โlast ditch effort to derail the countyโs efforts.โ Andrea Brower, a social justice advocate and PhD candidate, who has written on the controversy before, says that because the program is voluntary, it “is insufficient and comes without guarantees.โ
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Read the full, original story here: Disclosure begins
