Please, think outside the box just once
I’m so blown away by (Wednesday’s) council meeting and the message that is meant to be taken away that I wrote this piece for your consideration:
The County Council meeting this morning sounded a lot like an abusive husband. “If you don’t shut up and let me beat you, I won’t pay the bills. You will have nothing and nowhere to go.”
Give me a break.
Think outside the box.
There are absolutely ways that the Kekaha Agriculture Association, the state, the county and the farmers that rent these areas can come up with a solution to keep the ditches maintained and the irrigation flowing (in a more sustainable way) to keep, expand, farming in this area.
It’s critical that we expand farming and keep infrastructure alive, especially in this area.
The reality is by counting on multinational corporations who likely will pack up and leave (as they use our land like assets in liquidation) when conditions no longer suit them, we are setting ourselves up for a worse situation when they do.
At some point we are going to need a real, sustainable plan for supporting these systems that don’t rely on multinational chemical corporations who are dumping excess pesticides and nutrients into our environment and exposing our children to it. We don’t have to suck up the abuse because they are paying the bills, and we won’t.
Those statements sounded like hearings about why we needed slavery to keep farming alive and there was no way we could farm without slaves It’s another way we so clearly say to our people, there is no other way then for you to accept this, or farming will die and your homes will flood.
There are other solutions.
We don’t have to stay in the abusive relationship because they are paying all the bills!
We can have healthy systems and sustainable solutions that expand agriculture on the Westside without putting all our eggs in a basket that is quickly going to fall apart (just like plantation) when conditions are more favorable overseas. Delaying the inevitable will leave us less prepared to adapt when we need to.
“Don’t ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility. Make decisions based on what should happen, not what shouldn’t.” — Michelle Obama.
Fern Anuenue Holland, Kapahi
