ATLANTA — If you’re 65 and living in Hawaii, here’s some good news: Odds are you’ll live another 21 years. And for all but five of those years, you’ll likely be in pretty good health.
Hawaii tops the charts in the government’s first state-by-state look at how long Americans age 65 can expect to live, on average, and how many of those remaining years will be healthy ones. Read the rest
This is one powerful reason why we should not rush into passing Bill 79, the anti-GMO bill.
We need to plan for our future generations. The first requirement for food security is figuring out how we are going to provide affordable food for Hawai‘i's families, especially kupuna on fixed incomes and single moms.
The farmers need to be at the table. How do we enable farmers to farm? If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm. So far, the originators of this bill have not had a conversation with the farmers who grow most of the food.
We need our leaders to take charge and LEAD!
My letter to the editor on this same subject just ran in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald:
Dear Editor,
Bill 79, the anti-GMO bill, has brought out a lot of concern
and a lot of anxiety.
I say that we need to slow down. It would be premature to
rush into a decision on this bill without taking the time to hear everybody’s
input and address all the issues on the table.
Before we make big decisions – any of which could have
unintended consequences – we should set up some sort of task force to look at
the bigger picture of Hawai‘i’s self-sufficiency, and how we are going to
achieve that.
How are we going to get there, all of us together? We need
to end up at a place where we aloha each other, and take care of everybody.
Let’s not rush to pass this bill without fully understanding
the bigger picture.
Genetically engineered food? Is it safe? Should it be labeled?
Mark Lynas was one of the original founders of the anti-GMO movement. In this video, he explains that he has totally changed his mind about GMOs, his original position was not scientifically based, and he now completely regrets it.
“I want to start with some apologies….For the record, here and upfront, I want to apologize for having spent several years ripping up GMO crops. I'm also sorry I helped start the anti-GM movement back in the '90s, and that I thereby assisted in demonizing an important technological option that can and should be used to benefit the environment.
“As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counterproductive path and I now regret it completely….”
The video is called "Mark Lynas on his conversion to supporting GMOs – Oxford Lecture on Farming. Watch it here to learn why he changed his mind. (In short, he says he "discovered science.")
“Conclusions. Despite strong consumer interest in mandatory labeling of bioengineered foods, the FDA’s science-based labeling policies do not support special labeling without evidence of material differences between bioengineered foods and their traditional counterparts. The Council supports this science-based approach, and believes that thorough pre-market safety assessment and the FDA’s requirement that any material difference between bioengineered foods and their traditional counterparts be disclosed in labeling, are effective in ensuring the safety of bioengineered food.
To better characterize the potential harms of bioengineered foods, the Council believes that pre-market safety assessment should shift from a voluntary notification process to a mandatory requirement. The Council notes that consumers wishing to choose foods without bioengineered ingredients may do so by purchasing those that are labeled “USDA Organic.”
But organic farmers have high operating costs, and therefore organic foods are generally more expensive. How can we help organic farmers?
One way is to increase the discretionary income of organic customers. Geothermal-produced electricity puts money back in consumers’ pockets. Everyone benefits.
The large biotech companies aren’t going to come and plant and grow on the Big Island. Half our island is lava rock, and we don’t have long straightaways where you can set up irrigation. Lose money!
Why do you think the sugar plantations used "tracked” equipment to work the fields? So they wouldn't flip over, or get stuck in the mud.
Big tractors that are used in Big Ag make money on the straightaways, and they lose money on the turns. We don’t have the straightaways, and so we don't have that type of Big Ag here – and we won’t.
Banning University of Hawai‘i field trials on the Big Island only hurts regular farmers.
In the midst of the current GMO discussion, it is easy to lose sight of the long-term goal. The big question that is not being asked is: How are we going to feed Hawai‘i’s people?
It’s going to take all of us – from traditional, conventional, organic, permaculture and Korean Natural farmers to home gardeners.
For those who participate in the market system to produce food, it’s about cost. If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm. My Pop told me, when I was a small kid, to find three solutions to every problem and then find one more, just in case.
We need to have a serious discussion of how we are going to feed Hawai‘i’s people.
For people buying food, it’s also about cost. Kumu Lehua Veincent told me something important several years ago. He asked: “What about the rest?”
When I ask myself that question, the answers become easier to see. It’s about all of us, not just a few of us.
Kaua‘i is having discussions about large corporate seed companies, GMOs, fear about the safety of our food supply, etc. It’s very similar to the discussions we are having on the Big Island.
Jerry is president of the Kaua‘i County Farm Bureau and a good
friend of mine. I’ve known him, as a fellow banana farmer, for more than 30 years.
I listened to the anti-GMO testimony at the Hawai‘i County Council a few days ago. It is very apparent that most of the animosity was directed at the large seed companies, particularly Monsanto. In the heated discussion, small farmers and their families, including their small children, were getting caught in the crossfire.
We all need to take a deep breath and think about what we are trying to accomplish. I think that the goal should be to move the Big Island toward food self-sufficiency. For this, we need all our farmers. We must try to help all farmers make money. We must not cannibalize from one group to benefit another group.
One huge piece missing from this discussion is the part that finite resources play in this discussion. We do have indigenous resources that could give Hawai‘i a competitive advantage to the rest of the world. We have curtailed throwaway electricity, which could help us all. But we need to have a strategic vision of where we want to go.
Right now, the Council is stumbling from amendment to amendment. It is responding to fear. There is no strategic direction to what we are trying to do.
Our political leaders need to be responsible and lead!
At the recent Hawai‘i County Council committee meeting about Bill 79, the anti-GMO bill, I said that it was a “Man Bites Dog” story because 90 percent of the Council room in Hilo was filled by small farmers.
And it’s still a Man Bites Dog story. Yesterday, our local farmers organized a rally, and 50 cattle trucks, papaya trucks, delivery trucks, etc. went around and around in front of the County building.
This video made by Lorie Farrell shows the farmers and the impressive rally:
Most trucks had two people in it. There were cattle ranchers, papaya farmers, nursery industry, banana farmers and others.
12:05 am – June 29, 2013 — Updated: 12:05 am – June 29, 2013
Farmers rally against GMO ban
Farmers and ranchers voice their opposition to County bill 79 on Friday in front of the Hawaii County Building
By COLIN M. STEWART
Tribune-Herald staff writer
“I’m here to save my job,” the woman explained as she waved to a honking line of vehicles crawling by the front of the Hawaii County Building on Aupuni Street in Hilo, shortly after 2 p.m. Friday.
The Panaewa papaya packer of nine years, who would only give her first name — Diana — said that she had joined with other agriculture industry workers to voice their opposition to Bill 79, a measure being proposed by County Councilwoman Margaret Wille that would limit the use of genetically modified crops on Hawaii Island.
In my 30-something years of farming, I have never seen diverse farmers come together to support each other like this. I could see on everybody’s face that it was not a one-time thing!
Farmers have, as their top priorities, taking care of their families, workers, and feeding Hawai‘i’s people. Bill 79 is alarming because it pits the community against farmers, and farmers against farmers. Now farmers are having to defend themselves for being farmers.
In the Hawaiian culture, farmers were highly esteemed. This is not rocket science: If you like eat, you need someone who knows how to grow the food.
Farmers have some good characteristics to help them cope with the future. They are multi-talented and can fix equipment as well as grow crops. But most of all, they have good, old-fashioned common sense. This is the most important trait one must have to face an uncertain future.
How are these two things related: The Aina Koa Pono biofuel project, which is subsidized by the rate payer at $200 per barrel, and Bill 79, the anti-GMO bill submitted by Councilwoman Margaret Wille?
There is a very good chance that we will soon start down the backside of the world oil supply curve. If there is even the remotest chance this will happen, we need to be focusing sharply on the things that are crucial to us, living out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Nothing is more important than being able to afford food.
We cannot waste time subsidizing $200 per barrel oil; what is the objective there? And we cannot waste time pitting farmer against farmer. We need to focus on helping all farmers make money. Because food security involves farmers farming. And if the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.
Here in Hawai‘i, nearly 90 percent of our food is imported. We are going to need the help of all farmers to achieve food security. Bill 79 is a distraction that takes our focus away from helping farmers become economically viable. Worse, and most distressing, is that it pits organic farmers against conventional farmers.
We need the help of all the farmers to make Hawai‘i food secure.
The problem is that farmers’ customers are being squeezed by rising energy costs. The rubbah slippah folks can only go so far in supporting locally grown products. Oil costs have quadrupled in the last 10 years and electricity rates have continuously risen. It’s as if we had a massive tax hike. We’re in the middle of a crisis and we don’t even recognize it.
The small farmers on the Big Island know it, though. That’s why they are taking valuable time off from work to show support for each other.
By Steve Andrews – The following is taken from an interview with Steven Kopits, managing director of the New York office of Douglas-Westwood, an international energy analysis firm. The views expressed are atttributable to Mr. Kopits and do not necessarily represent those of Douglas Westwood.
…Peak oil does not occur when we run out of oil. Peak oil occurs when the marginal consumer is no longer willing to pay the cost of extracting and processing the marginal barrel of oil. And we can actually calculate what the related numbers are.
Q: How do we do that?
Kopits: To begin with, we refer to the price a nation’s oil consumers are willing to pay as its “carrying capacity.” For the US, carrying capacity is about $95-100 Brent [per-barrel oil price in London]. If the oil price is above this level, oil consumption will decline—which is exactly what we see and what we predicted four years ago. But carrying capacity is not a static number. It changes over time, specifically, with three things: GDP growth, efficiency gains in the use of oil, and dollar inflation. So if GDP goes up, efficiency goes up and the CPI goes up, then the amount that consumers are willing to pay for oil will increase. For China, by the way, we estimate the carrying capacity at around $115-120 / barrel Brent. So oil consumption will increase in China at $115 Brent, but fall in the advanced economies—exactly the pattern we’ve seen in the last few years.
Q: So the story line getting a ton of ink of late—peak oil is dead….it isn’t actually quite dead yet, is it?
Kopits: No. But importantly, we’re going to peak out production not because we’re “running out of oil,” but because the marginal consumer is not willing to pay for the marginal barrel. We seem to be pretty much at that level today.
We need to understand these dynamics better. What are the combined effects of flat oil prices and rising production costs, that’s where I think the challenge is and where our professional work is focusing on the macro side…to better understand what these trends are, what they mean, and how companies in the industry should respond to it.
I’ll give you an example. Normally, if you look at an oil production system, it tends to be symmetrical around the peak. The rate at which you approach the peak is the rate at which you depart from the peak. We haven’t done that. What we’ve done is that we’ve approached the peak and we’ve leveled out production, the so-called “undulating plateau”. But we’ve maintained that plateau by turning to non-oil liquids, by dramatic increases in upstream spend, and also by technological innovation related to hydrofracking. All of these, as of today, look to be running their course. Even shale oil. Yes, it will grow for the next few years from the three majors plays in the US, but the peak of production growth is already behind us in the Bakken, for example. On current trends, Bakken production will be increasing by single digits within two years. Not a tragedy by any means, but not enough to move the global oil supply at that time, either.
I was amazed to see that 90 percent of the people attending the Hawai‘i County Council meeting on Wednesday – when the anti-GMO bill was being discussed - were farmers.
Nobody picked up on that, but it's significant. Farmers don't normally attend Council meetings, because they are busy farming. But on Wednesday they were spilling out the door.
They were not there to testify, but to watch for unintended consequences. One unintended consequence, which has already happened, pits farmers against farmers and that's very distressing to the whole farming community.
It was a quiet bunch of farmers that were just observing. They were from all segments of the farming community. They thought it was important enough that they dropped their work and came.
I have a hard time describing just how significant this was.
