Richard Ha writes:
Monsanto is coming, Monsanto is coming. Hide the women and children!
Not.
Did you see the letter to the editor from the Monsanto spokesman, Alan Takemoto, in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald last month? He testified to the fact that the reason Monsanto is not on the Big Island is that this island does not have the combination of factors they need, like deep soil, plenty of sunshine, irrigation and flat lands. It’s a practical thing. He wrote that they do not own land or even lease land here.
The Aina Koa Pono biofuel project proves this point. The Ka‘u bio fuel project, which plans to grow crops to make biofuel, needs a huge subsidy or it won’t work. They are even trying to hide the fact that we the people will pay $200/barrel for the biofuel.
So why, again, are we banning all future biotech crops? There was a front page article in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald a few days ago saying that Hawai‘i seniors have the best prospects for quality of life and length of life in the entire nation. And the American Medical Association, at its 2012 annual meeting, said there is no substantial difference between crops that are conventionally bred and those developed from biotechnology. I trust the doctors.
The real problem is this: In a world of finite resources, how are we going to provide our people with affordable food? For this, we need, simply, farmers farming. All kinds of farmers need to contribute. And farmers need to make money so they will keep farming.
Let’s regroup, form a task force of knowledgeable stakeholders, and work toward this goal.
We need to work together in the spirit of aloha.
Can we get it in writing? A notarized signature, on a statement, saying they will not do field trials on Hawaii island. Their word is actually nor worth anything, unfortunately.
.
The other islands have large tracts of land, deep soils, abundant sunlight and irrigation. Because the Big Island is so young geologically, these conditions do not exist here. We don’t need signatures.
These conditions favor small agriculture. It is just the hand that is dealt us. We need to all focus on what we can do to encourage all of our farmers. We will need all food producers.