Tag Archives: GMO

Big Island, Current Affairs, Eating Locally, Food Security, Government, Science, Sustainability

Snatching Defeat from Jaws of Victory

2 Comments

Richard Ha writes:

Tomorrow, the Hawai‘i County Council will make the most important decision of our time.

Bill 113, the “anti-GMO” bill, would make it illegal for Big Island farmers to plant new, federally-approved biotech plants. We would be in the first farmers in the U.S. with such a ban. This bill would criminalize Big Island farmers who chose to plant what is legal in the rest of the country.

It would also prevent open-air testing of new biotech plants, which is required before biotech varieties are approved. This is a lawyerly way to ensure that biotech solutions will never be allowed on the Big Island.

This bill does allow biotech solutions to be used in cases where it can be shown there has been economic damage. That sounds good, but it is no help to the farmer – he or she would go out of business first, because it takes years to find a biotech solution. Farmers are not dumb.

Fundamentally, this all boils down to whether we are going to continue to avail ourselves of the scientific method, which allowed us to discover, for instance, the structure of DNA. From Wikipedia:

The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method as: “a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.”

The scientific method puts a solid foundation beneath our ideas, and we selectively ignore it at our own peril.

Farmers know that nothing is perfectly safe; it’s all a matter of risk and reward. So when every major scientific organization in the world says that biotech crops are as safe as conventional crops, farmers take notice. These scientific organizations represent thousands of front-line scientists. The Nobel Prize is awarded for finding something different, not for going along with the crowd, so it is very significant that there is such consensus among scientists.

Somewhere between the scientific and the non-scientific method lies common sense. Farmers have common sense.

  • Farmers see that Bill 113 would make farmers on the Big Island less competitive with the rest of the world. This is not good.
  • Farmers know that if the farmers make money, the farmers will farm, and this bill would eventually cause farmers to lose money.
  • Farmers have seen the bad effects of rising oil prices on farm expenses. They know that people have less money to support farmers when oil price goes up.

So this bill would make Big Island farmers less competitive, and our community would depend on cheaper food imported from elsewhere. Common sense tells us this is not good.

On the other hand, we could ask our local scientists to help develop biotech solutions to help us leverage our year-round growing season. Leveraging our Hawaiian sunshine will help farmers lessen their cost of production, protecting themselves from rising oil prices.

Any solutions in this direction will help farmers compete and increase our food security.

Will our County Council kill Bill 113 and move us in the right direction? Or will it snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

Big Island, Community, Food Security, Government, Science

Bill Walter on Bill 113

3 Comments

Richard Ha writes:

In this letter to the Hawai‘i County Council, Bill Walter of W.H. Shipman expresses very well what we farmers are trying to articulate.

Councilwoman Wille points to a stack of testimony, taller than the stack opposing Bill 113, and says, "The people have spoken."

If we used "tonnage of food produced on the Big Island" as a means to compare, though, the stack representing the folks opposed to Bill 113 would be 10 times taller.

But they did not bother to listen to the farmers.

Click to listen to what the farmers producing food on this island think.

Pg1
Pg2

Big Island, Eating Locally, Food Security, Geothermal, Government, Lowering Electric Rates, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Science, Sustainability

Let’s Adapt To Change, And Survive/Thrive

Richard Ha writes:

What we’re doing on the Big Island with Bill 113 is trying to make a law that prohibits us from helping ourselves. It is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

The biggest problem we face today is at the intersection of energy and agriculture. In a nutshell: As petroleum prices rise, there’s a direct consequence on agriculture and everything that goes into it (fertilizer, chemicals, packing materials, etc.).

We rely on oil here far more than does the U.S. mainland. We generate 78 percent of our electricity from oil, whereas on the mainland, it’s only two percent. As oil prices rise, everything that has electric costs associated with it gets more expensive. We already see this happening.

Our farmers and food producers on this agricultural-based island are becoming less competitive, and our food prices are skyrocketing.

We need to find a way to be more competitive, which will not only keep our farmers and food producers working, and make us more “food secure,” but will also make our food costs go down instead of continuing to increase.

It’s energy and technology that determine agricultural costs, and fortunately we have two ways to solve this big problem:

Energy

We are extremely fortunate here on the Big Island to have a resource that most places don’t have: We have the gift of geothermal energy. Geothermal costs only half as much as oil, and the resource will be stable (we will be over the “hot spot” that makes it possible) for 500,000 years.

If we increase our use of geothermal over the years as the price of oil rises, we will be more competitive with the rest of the world. This will be good for our island’s ag industry and also for our people, who will see prices go down, instead of up.

Agriculture

Biotech solutions generally lower costs. They can help increase production, whether it’s with university-developed solutions that help plants resist diseases and pests, or biotech solutions that allow plants to manufacture their own nitrogen so we don’t have to import fertilizer (which requires electricity to produce and oil to get to Hawai‘i).

Then we will be able to rely on natural sunlight for our primary energy, which gives us a tremendous, and not common, advantage – we can grow crops here all year around. Insects, pests and weeds grow all year around too, though, and biotech can safely help us with those problems so we will become even more sustainable and competitive.

Using geothermal plus appropriate biotech solutions can give us a huge advantage over the rest of the world, and make life better for us here at home, but we don’t have much time. We have to let science and technology prevail so we can move forward, not stagnate nor fall behind, and we have to get on this now.

There is some unwarranted fear about using biotechnology, but know that all the major scientific organizations in the world say foods created with biotechnology are as safe as those created otherwise.

Oil is a finite resource, and its cost will rise. There is no question about this. It’s a predictable consequence of what’s happening now, and this is not just my take on it.

Gail Tverberg, who is an actuary and an expert on Peak Oil, says it’s not the physical oil that’s a problem, but it’s whether or not we can afford it – because, of course, the harder it is to find the oil, the more expensive it becomes. This is what’s happening right now. She predicts that in two years we’ll be in really serious trouble.

Citibank recently put out a report predicting that Saudi Arabia will no longer export oil by year 2030 – only 17 years from now – because they will be using all their oil within their own country. The consequence of this would be rising oil prices, and the effects would be felt much sooner than 2030.

Many, many other reports agree that the price of oil will continue to rise. The whole prospect is pretty scary.

Michael Kumhof of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says the IMF can’t even model what will happen if oil hits $200/barrel, because that would be entirely uncharted territory.

I have been to five Peak Oil conferences now, which I started attending in order to figure out how to position our farm for the future. In the course of learning about the oil situation, I realized I was the only person from Hawai‘i attending, and realized I needed to share what I was learning here at home.

What I learned is that the world has been using two to three times as much oil as we’ve been finding, and that this trend continues. Over the five years I attended the conferences, we started to hear predictions of when unparalleled high oil prices, the kind the IMF cannot even model, could occur.

It might be two years from now, or it might be 20 years, but it will happen, and it might happen soon. We need to start preparing now.

Charles Darwin said it’s not the strongest nor the smartest who survive, but the ones that can adapt to change. Let’s survive, and more.

Big Island, Food Security, Government

GMOs, Fears & Reality

Richard Ha writes:

Click and listen to these short radio spots while you’re reading (they will open in a new window). They are succinct and really tell the whole story about what’s going on here on the Big Island right now.

The anti-GMO battle that has been imported into Hawai‘i is largely being fueled with outside money, and the people behind it do not care about any of the collateral damage they could cause – whether it’s to youngsters who are going blind or dying from Vitamin A deficiency in developing countries, rising food costs for the rubbah slippah folks here on the Big Island, or that their actions will cause local Big Island farmers harm in the future.

It is Hawai‘i County Councilmembers Margaret Wille and Brenda Ford that have allowed the radicalization to take place on the Big Island. They propose to pass Bill 113, the “anti-GMO bill,” without thoughtful consideration for unintended consequences.

This is really a huge decision our County Council is trying to make, and one that is based on fear instead of reality and science and looking ahead to the future. We cannot go ahead with this bill. There would just be way too much collateral damage.

Please call or email your council representative and demand that Bill 113 be killed. Insist that a task force of stakeholders and experts be convened to research and study how we can come to a place where we achieve food self-sufficiency for the future, and where the final solution benefits all of us, not just a few of us.

Here are a couple of interesting, enlightening articles about the use of GMOs:

Bill Gates does not make excuses for supporting biotechnology in agriculture.

Bill Gates Calls For More Agriculture Research To Fight Hunger

DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP   01/24/12 

KIRKLAND, Wash. — Bill Gates has a terse response to criticism that the high-tech solutions he advocates for world hunger are too expensive or bad for the environment: Countries can embrace modern seed technology and genetic modification or their citizens will starve.

When he was in high school in the 1960s, people worried there wouldn’t be enough food to feed the world, Gates recalled in his fourth annual letter, which was published online Tuesday. But the “green revolution,” which transformed agriculture with high-yield crop varieties and other innovations, warded off famine.

Gates is among those who believe another, similar revolution is needed now. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent about $2 billion in the past five years to fight poverty and hunger in Africa and Asia, and much of that money has gone toward improving agricultural productivity.

Gates doesn’t apologize for his endorsement of modern agriculture or sidestep criticism of genetic modification. He told The Associated Press that he finds it ironic that most people who oppose genetic engineering in plant breeding live in rich nations that he believes are responsible for global climate change that will lead to more starvation and malnutrition for the poor….

Read the rest

And read this Slate article about golden rice and its creator, Ingo Potrykus. He says: “One of the cleverest tricks of the anti-GMO movement is to link GMOs so closely to Monsanto.”

Is Opposition to Golden Rice “Wicked?”

The genetically modified organism could save millions of lives.

By Andy Coghlan

Ingo Potrykus is a co-inventor of golden rice, which is genetically engineered to combat blindness and death in children by supplying 60 percent of the vitamin A they need in a typical daily helping of rice. His project has been opposed from the outset by environmental groups. 

Andy Coghlan: Why did you develop golden rice?


Ingo Potrykus: I got involved because I’m concerned about food security. I realized it’s not just about calories, but also about the quality of food. I started working on it in the early 1990s with Peter Beyer. We started on the problem of iron deficiency, but that work didn’t pan out, so we switched to tackling vitamin A deficiency.

By 1999 we had solved the problem. It was a surprise it worked because from the outset it looked totally crazy.

AC: But environmental groups, including Greenpeace, opposed it?

 
IP: They were against it from the beginning. They said it was fool’s gold because children would need to eat several kilograms of it to get their daily requirement. Children only eat around 300 to 400 grams a day. We worked out that Greenpeace wasn’t right, and that the rice contained enough to meet children’s needs, but we couldn’t prove that because we didn’t then have data from an actual trial.

AC: That didn’t kill off the project, though?

 
IP: Indeed no. The next big step was in 2005 when a group at biotech company Syngenta replaced one of the genes intended to produce beta carotene. The original gene, which makes an enzyme called phytoene synthase, came from the narcissus flower, and they replaced it with one from maize that is far more efficient. It produced 20 times more beta carotene, the molecule from carrots that combines with a second molecule of itself once inside our bodies to make a molecule of vitamin A. It was a big success….

Read the rest

I do not grow any GMO crops, and I don’t have any interest in any companies that do. I want to keep this bill from passing not because I hold any ideological convictions about GMOs, but because I’ve examined every angle of it and it’s clear to me that this is what will best serve our farmers, our people and our island. If I’d studied the facts and ramifications and found otherwise, then I would absolutely be trying to lead us in another direction.
Government

What Darwin Said

Richard Ha writes:

This was my testimony at yesterday’s Hawai‘i County Council hearing on the anti-GMO bill, Bill 113. I advocated for killing the bill and starting over with a study that brings forth good science.

I am Richard Ha. I have been a farmer for 35 years, farming
bananas and hydroponic tomatoes. During this time, we have grown more than a hundred million pounds of food.

And now we are a few weeks away from putting in a hydroelectric generator. It’s about adapting to change.

The most significant thing that has happened in my career is
that oil prices quadrupled in the last 10 years, causing farmers’ input costs to rise. Oil costs and farmers’ costs are inextricably tied together – as the oil price rises, farmers’ cost rise. Since farmers are price takers, rather than price makers, Big Island farmers have not been able to pass the cost on.

We do not grow GMOs, and I do not have any financial interest in any biotech company. I am just concerned about how we adapt to change. Darwin said it is not the strongest, nor smartest, that survive, but the one that can adapt to change.

Conventional farmers on the Big Island are getting hurt in
the GMO cross fire. This bill criminalizes our small farmers and will raise their cost of production. It will discourage farmers from farming and threaten our food security.

Bill 113 cites the precautionary principle. All the major scientific organizations in the world, though, say that GMO foods are safe.

Hawai‘i has the longest life expectancy for senior citizens in the whole country.

Yet we are willing to ignore the effect of rising food costs on the most defenseless among us. These are the kupuna on fixed incomes, single moms, the working homeless, the rubbah slippah folks.

Hector Valenzuela, at the last Council hearing, advised organic farmers to seek high-end niche markets. He knows organics cannot provide affordable food for most of us. I agree. More than 90 percent of the food calories produced on the Big Island is produced by conventional farmers. Bill 113 will make the conventional farmers less competitive and less able to adapt to change. And that will threaten our food security.

Bottom line is how are we going to feed all of us. We need
to provide affordable food for the most defenseless among us. It is not a solution to provide food that people cannot afford. Biotech solutions can be a part of the solution. They will benefit everyone.

We should not throw that option away.

The Big Island has the lowest median family income in the state. We must find a way to provide lower cost food for the most defenseless among us. This is where the precautionary principle should apply. There are real social consequences to low median family income.

There are more Hawaiians living outside of Hawai‘i than live
in Hawai‘i. If we do not figure out how to provide affordable food, even more Hawaiians will be living outside of Hawaii.

Kill this bill, and start over with a study group that includes the stakeholders, including conventional farmers. It is not a matter of who is right, so much a matter of what is right. Good luck; this is not easy.

Related articles
Letter: ‘Proposed Anti-GMO Bills Have Consequences’
Retreating To The 1950s Is Not The Right Strategy
Papaya Growers’ Letter to Margaret Wille
Food Security, Government

If The Farmers Make Money, The Farmers Will Farm

1 Comment

Richard Ha writes:

Though there are 820,000 acres of farmland on our agriculture-based Big Island, our island’s farmers were not consulted when Bill
113, the anti-GMO bill, was drafted.

There is no question: Bill 113 will harm the livelihood of Big Island farmers. It also means they will have to use more pesticides. It will drive up their costs and make them much less competitive. It means our island will be less food-secure.

Is this what we really want? Call or write your councilperson and tell him or her to kill Bill 113.

Ask him or her to create a task force so we can thoughtfully determine our way forward, in the spirit of aloha – so we can provide affordable food for the rubbah slippah folks and move toward food self-sufficiency.

When new biotech seeds are developed, people will be able to buy small packets of them over the Internet. But not here. Bill 113 will make it a crime for Big Island farmers to use those same seeds. Farmers using those seeds, which will make farming less pesticide-oriented and more affordable, would become criminals.

Such seeds are being developed right now by the University of Hawai‘i and other universities and will help our crops become virus- and disease-resistant. This will result in less pesticide usage and lower cost. With Bill 113, only Big Island farmers will be banned from using them. This will force Big Island farmers to use more pesticides than farmers off-island. Farmers are responsible stewards of the land, and this is a depressing and discouraging thought for Big Island farmers.

More than 90 percent of the food grown on the Big Island is
grown by conventional farmers. Bill 113 will drive their farming costs up, not down, and this is going to discourage farmers from farming. When farmers’ costs go up, they are less able to pass those increased costs on. Farmers are “price takers,” rather than “price makers.”

As costs go up, farming becomes less attractive and fewer farmers continue to farm. Bill 113 makes the Big Island less food-secure.

Organic farmers elsewhere will benefit from new biotech animal feed crops, because these will increase the source of manure for
composting. Nitrogen is important for protein and this is a crucial weak link for organic farmers. Bill 113 means organic farmers on the Big Island won’t have these benefits that other farmers will.

There are people that want to believe GMO crops are not safe, but they are ignoring the evidence. The science. All the world’s major health organizations endorse the use of GMO crops as safe.

More than two trillion meals made of foods containing GMOs
have been served over the last 20 years. In spite of all those meals, here in Hawai‘i we have the longest life expectancy in the nation for those 65 years and older.

Since ancient times, farmers in Hawai‘i have been respected in the Hawaiian culture. Bill 113 will forever change that relationship and will, instead, criminalize farmers. Some folks may even feel justified in taking matters into their own hands. Is this really what we want?

Please contact your councilperson and tell them you want them to kill Bill 113 and form a task force to carefully, intelligently study how we move forward.

It’s not a matter of who is right. It is a matter of what is right.

Science

Some ‘Real Clear Science’ on GMO Safety

Richard Ha writes:

Speaking of science, here’s some:

From Real ClearScience, an interesting website whose founding member Dr. Alex B. Berezow(PhD, Microbiology) is the author of ScienceLeft Behind: Feel-Good Fallacies and the Rise of the Anti-Scientific Left:

MassiveReview Reveals Consensus on GMO Safety

“The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any
significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineeredcrops.”

That’s the conclusion from a team of Italian scientists, who just completeda thorough systematic review of the scientific research conducted ongenetically modified (GM) crops in the past decade. Their work is published inthe journal Critical Review ofBiotechnology.

Led by Alessandro Nicolia, an applied biologist at the University of
Perugia in Italy, the team collected and evaluated 1,783 research papers,reviews, relevant opinions, and reports published between 2002 and 2012, a comprehensive process that took 12 months to complete. The records covered all aspects of GM crop safety, from how the crops interact with the environment, to how they could potentially affect the humans and animals who consume them.

Read the rest

You can always click over to Real Clear Science in the links on the right sidebar of this blog. Here’s how the site describes itself:

RealClearScience is your portal to the best, most relevant science stories from around the globe. Here you’ll find everything from small talk fodder to the latest findings from the frontier of discovery. In addition to daily curated aggregation of news articles, university press releases and videos, our site features a plethora of unique, original content, which can be found on the Newton Blog and in our Journal Club.

Additionally, we release a weekly RealClearScience
podcast.

Whether you’re a curious reader or a professionally trained scientist, RealClearScience invites you to join us. 

Big Island, Current Affairs, Food Security, Government

Bill 113 & The Big Picture

Richard Ha writes:

Yesterday at the Hawai‘i County Council meeting, the anti-GMO Bill 113 got a positive recommendation, meaning it now needs two votes by the Council and the Mayor’s signature to be adopted.

From this morning’s Hawai‘i Tribune Herald:

GMO bill heads to council

By TOM CALLIS

Tribune-Herald staff writer

A County Council committee gave a bill that would restrict the use of genetically altered crops a positive recommendation Tuesday, ensuring that the legislation would survive nearly five months after the committee first took on the controversial issue.

The legislation, Bill 113, was moved forward to the council level in a 6-2 vote with Puna Councilman Greggor Ilagan voting no and Council Chair J Yoshimoto voting no with reservations. Hilo Councilman Dennis Onishi was absent….

Read the rest

At yesterday’s meeting, Councilperson Zendo Kern said the County has spent almost $20,000 on meetings regarding this topic. He said, “We can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and over again expecting a different result. That’s insanity.”

Councilperson Dru Kanuha said, “I think we are completely wasting our time, the committee’s time and taxpayer dollars on something that should have been talked about first and foremost.

Kanuha said a task force should have been formed first, in order to investigate and suggest action, and then a bill written.

But, instead, a bill was written first. And the predictable outcome was people yelling and screaming at each other.

Bill 113 exempts GMO papaya and corn now in cultivation – but outlawing future biotech crops, while giving GMO papayas and corn growers an exemption, de facto criminalizes those papaya
and corn farmers.

The bill’s sponsors say we need to move fast before the big seed companies come to the Big Island. But there are economic reasons they are not here. The Big Island is geologically young and has not eroded enough to develop flat, fertile lands. Tractors make money on the straightaways and lose money on the turns. Where we do have limited areas of flat and fertile lands, there is no irrigation infrastructure.

Maybe now, in picking up the pieces, we can focus on the big picture. We need to have, in the spirit of aloha, a serious discussion about food self-sufficiency for the island. We will need everyone’s contribution to this effort.

  • How can we achieve affordable food self-sufficiency?
  • How can we leverage our year-round growing season?

The downside of the wonderful gift of a year-round growing season is that weeds, insects and diseases thrive here, too.

In the past, we used pesticides almost exclusively to increase production. Now, there are new, biotech options that can help us increase production while decreasing pesticides. We can lower food costs and decrease the pressure on our environment at the same time.

Remember, food self-sufficiency involves farmers farming. If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm.

Bananas, Food Security, Government, Tomatoes

‘So God Made A Farmer,’ And Now The Hawaii County Council Wants To Make Them Criminals

5 Comments
NOTE: I do not grow any GMO crops, and I do not have any financial or other affiliation to any large seed or other companies that advocate the use of GMOs. My interest in this topic is in finding the right direction for Big Island farming and in being able to feed our future generations.
 
The Hawai‘i County Council meets again tomorrow regarding the anti-GMO bill.

I sent a letter to the editor of the Hawaii Tribune-Herald and West Hawaii Today asking that we take a sincere look at the big picture.

We need to know what we want for the Big Island, and then formulate a plan to get us there.

We need to leverage our resources so as to provide affordable food to the rubbah slippah folks while also working toward achieving food self-sufficiency for future generations.

We need to identify how we can achieve a competitive advantage over the rest of the world.

We need to realize that the Big Island is young, geologically, compared to the older islands. We do not, therefore, have alluvial plains, which form after many years of erosion. We do not have the conditions that would support industrial-scale agriculture – flat land, a dry climate, strong sun energy, deep soil and irrigation.

The seed companies are not arriving here tomorrow to set up shop. Their tractors make money on the straightaways, and they lose money on the turns. It’s counterintuitive, but in spite of its size, the Big Island is an environment best suited for small farmers, not large one. Let’s not let a fear of industrialization cause us to make decisions that kill off our small farmers.

Margaret Wille has now suggested we do an ad hoc study group as part of the Bill 113 discussion. This is an excellent place to begin. Let’s place Bill 113 on hold while we do a fair and impartial study of how we will get from here to there. Who is right is not as important as what is right.

Kumu Lehua Veincent always asks: “What about the rest?” and that is the key question. How do we come to a solution that takes care of the rubbah slippah folks as well as everybody else?

There are a thousand reasons why, No can. We must find the one reason why, CAN!!

Some of my thoughts about all this:

Q. How is farmers’ morale now that Bill 113 is out there?

A. Big Island farmers are demoralized. Paul Harvey narrated a commercial during the last Super Bowl that said, “And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

It’s less than a year later, and now Big Island farmers are at risk of being criminalized.

Q. What do farmers think of Bill 113?

A. They feel it is unfair. They feel that they would not be able to use biotech solutions for insect and disease problems in the future, as will their counterparts on the other islands. They feel they would not be able to compete.

Farmers want to be good stewards of the land, and they are very distressed that they might be forced to use more pesticides than the rest of the state’s farmers.

Q. What biotech solutions are being developed for bananas?

A. Resistance to Race 4 Fusarium wilt, the biggest threat right now to banana farming worldwide, and resistance to Banana Bunchy Top virus. Both are taking place at the University of Hawai‘i right now.

Q. What biotech solutions are being developed for tomatoes right now?

A. Resistance to Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus, which could devastate a tomato farm.

Q. As a relatively large farmer, do you think the big seed companies will come to the Big Island?

A. No. They’d lose money, which is why they are not already here. They need flat land, low humidity, high sunlight, deep soil and irrigation. Because the Big Island is so young geologically, these conditions are very rare here. Big tractors make money on the straightaways and lose money on the turns.

Q. Will Bill 113 increase our island’s food self-sufficiency?

A. No. Food self-sufficiency involves farmers farming. If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm. Bill 113 would make Big Island farmers less competitive. So it would result in less food self-sufficiency.

Q. Would Bill 113 result in less pesticide applications?

A. No. It’s biotech solutions that result in fewer pesticide applications. Big Island farmers would have to use more pesticides as compared to the rest of the State.

Q. What do farmers think of registering GMO farms?

A. They worry that this would make it easy for ecoterrorists to locate them.

Q. Hector Valenzuela suggested that organic farmers seek high-end markets. Would that help provide food for the masses?

A. It won’t. That solution anticipates a niche production for people who can afford high prices.

Q. Can organics provide sufficient affordable food for the masses?

A. No. There is no winter here to kill off bugs and provide an automatic reset. There isn’t sufficient manure for compost to provide the nitrogen fertilizer, which is the basic building block for protein.

Q. How can biotech solutions give Hawai‘i farmers a competitive advantage over the rest of the world?

A. They leverage our Hawaiian sunshine, which allows us to grow food year round. Also, reducing the cost of controlling insects and diseases that thrive in the humid subtropics gives Hawai‘i farmers a competitive advantage over the rest of the world.

Q. Do you think GMOs are safe?

A. Yes. Every major scientific organization in the world has endorsed the use of GMOs. Two trillion meals have been served with no harm done. Hawai‘i seniors have the longest life expectancy in the nation.

Q. Do you think RoundUp is safe?

A. Yes.

Q. Why do you think RoundUp is safe?

A. We know that the herbicides we used 25 years ago were much more toxic. Today, we have the ability to detect minute amounts of chemicals, and we must put things into perspective. One could take a sample of sea water and detect gold. But that doesn’t mean we would invest money in a business to mine gold from the ocean. We farmers have been taught, over and over, that the dose makes the poison. We need to use common sense.

Q. In your 35 years of farming, what do you consider to be the most important trend that will affect our future?

A. The price of oil has quadrupled in the last 10 years, which has caused farmers’ costs to rise. Farmers cannot pass on their costs as efficiently as others can. Farmers are price takers, rather than price makers. Because it is a finite resource, the oil price will steadily rise and food price will steadily rise as well.

But we can leverage our sun resource with new biotech solutions. We can take advantage of our year-round growing season and lower our cost to control pests and diseases and therefore lower the cost of food production. This will increase our Big Island residents’ discretionary spending, which makes up two-thirds of our economy. By doing this, we take care of all of us, not just a few of us.

Q. What do you suggest?

A. Defer Bill 113 and form a committee of stakeholders and experts to focus on Big Island solutions to future food security. It should not be political. It should be a solution that takes care of all of us, not just a few of us.

Big Island, Food Security, Government, Science

Mainland GMO Battle, New York Times Arrive In Hilo

1 Comment

Richard Ha writes:

Yesterday, as I sat in on a Hawai‘i County Council discussion of the anti-GMO bill, I realized that I am starting to get a very uncomfortable feeling. It looks like the anti-GMO effort we are seeing here is being organized and run from the Mainland.

A reporter from the New York Times attended yesterday’s Hawai‘i Council Council meeting, too. I think they are tracking the money.

From Genetic Literacy Project (tagline: “Where Science Trumps Ideology”):

Hawaii anti-GMO ‘corruption’ scandal? Genetic Literacy Project investigation underway

Jon Entine | September 3, 2013
| Genetic Literacy Project

It’s shaping up to be an ugly week on Hawaii Island. Beginning in Hilo on Wednesday, September 4, the island Council will again debate controversial measures designed to curtail the growing of genetically modified crops on the island.

The Battle over GMOs on both Hawaii and Kauai has been rancorous, threatening to tear apart the aloha spirit that has defined the Hawaiian Islands for centuries. The ‘public discussion’
took a sharply political turn in May when Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille brought forward Bill 79, which banned GMOs but proposed to exempt the GMO Rainbow papaya crop, which is credited by scientists and independent experts for rescuing the papaya on Hawaii from extinction threatened by the ringspot
virus.

Bill 79 was widely regarded as a scientific and political mess, as the independent website Biofortified.org noted in its analysis. The
committee held four days of public comment sessions, with tensions running high and the debate turning personal. Wille withdrew the bill in early August after the hearings and a Council discussion made it clear that it was poorly written.

Now Wille is back with a similar measure. (The
GLP publishes a response to the bill below provided by the Hawaii Papaya Industry Association.) But this time, she has dubious company. South Kona/Ka‘u Councilwoman Brenda Ford has introduced her own “book burning” measure, proposing that all papaya fields be cut down and burned—the position supported
by the more radical anti-GMO activists who have come to dominate the anti side of the debate.

Funding corruption by anti-GMO campaigners? 

Activist leaders opposed to crop biotechnology, such as Walter Ritte, the Molokai-based political activist, have attempted to frame this battle as David vs. Goliath, threadbare grassroots campaigners fighting Big Ag. Although they claim their opposition to the innovative technology is home grown, a Genetic Literacy
Project investigation, still in its infancy, suggests that the opposition is flush with cash, getting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from mainland anti-GMO organic organizations that have an ideological stake in blocking new farming technologies.

For nearly a decade, an impressionable anti-GMO mob mentality has been carefully cultivated on Hawaii island, but documents reviewed by the GLP suggest this increasingly ugly turn has been nurtured by slick and well financed outsiders….  Read the rest

Not only is outside money possibly dictating our future, but also of note is that Councilperson Brenda Ford arranged for someone named Jeffrey Smith to Skype into the County Council discussion yesterday from the Mainland.

It takes very little research to see that Jeffrey Smith is not credible, but goes around the country scaring people with his unsubstantiated claims that have been widely discredited by the scientific community. He has no scientific credentials and has self-published a book called “Genetic Roulette.”

Here’s what the independent, non-profit organization Academics Review says:

Yogic Flying and GM Foods:The Wild Theories of Jeffrey Smith

…The “scientific studies” that Smith says support his theories are thoroughly contradicted by a vast body of data and scientific
experience; they are wholly irresponsible. In his single-minded campaign against GM crops, Smith has shown an amazing capacity to ignore the scientific literature on almost every topic he discusses.

But, as he showed at that press conference when he explained the role that meditation should play in the “collective consciousness,” Smith is a gifted communicator.

He’s particularly adept at getting his message out via the latest online methods, which he uses to spread his misinformation about
biotechnology, in particular, to an ever-widening audience. In his most recent self-published book, Genetic Roulette, Smith claims to show 65 different “documented health risks” associated with biotech foods. Not one of them has been found to be scientifically valid by Academics Review.

Also from Academics Review, which is “an association of academic professors, researchers, teachers and credentialed authors from around the world who are committed to the unsurpassed value of the peer review in establishing sound science. We stand against falsehoods, half-baked assertions and theories or claims not subjected to this kind of rigorous review:”

Jeffrey Smith: False Claims Unsupported by Science

Jeffrey Smith has gained fame for claiming biotech foods are dangerous, but none of his claims are based on sound science. Smith has no discernible scientific training  yet makes 65 such claims in his book Genetic Roulette. Click here for a point-by-point response based on peer-reviewed science.

Others agree:

Discover magazine blog:

When the definitive history of the GMO debate is written, Jeffrey Smith is going to figure prominently in the section on pseudoscience. He is the equivalent of an anti-vaccine leader,
someone who is quite successful in spreading fear and false information. (AsDavid Gorski at the Science-based Medicine blog has noted, the anti-vaccine and anti-GMO movements are two birdsof the same feather.) 

Forbes:

For whatever reason, Smith hasbecome wildly popular among the antis, and his books—however dubiously written and sourced—are cited as canon by rank and file protestors.

Smith’s own Wikipedia bio: A variety of American organic food companies see Smith “as a champion for their interests,” and Smith’s supporters describe him as “arguably the world’s foremost expert on the topic of genetically modified foods.” Michael Specter,
writing in The New Yorker, reported that Smith was presented as a “scientist” on The Dr. Oz Show although he lacks any scientific experience or relevant qualifications. Bruce Chassy, a molecular biologist and food scientist, wrote to the show arguing that Smith’s “only professional experience prior to taking up his crusade against biotechnology is as a ballroom-dance teacher, yogic flying instructor, and political candidate for the Maharishi cult’s natural-law party.” The director of the Organic Consumers Association says Smith is “respected as a public educator on GMOs” while “supporters of biotechnology” have described him as “misinformed and misleading” and as “an activist with no scientific or medical background” who is known for his “near-hysterical criticism of biotech foods.”

Per Wikipedia, then, Jeffrey Smith’s professional experience is in ballroom dancing and yogic flying.

Honestly, I don’t think any part of this debate is about us. From my local point of view, this whole mainland-fueled debate is about national organic farming vs. Monsanto.

But fighting this war here means local farmers become collateral damage. All we farmers want is not to get trampled by the elephants. If we on the Big Island cannot use biotech when farmers all around us can, we lose and eventually we Big Island farmers all go out of business. So what if food costs rise for the rubbah slippah folks, right?