Richard Ha writes:
Non-GMO Cheerios were recently unveiled with great expectation and anticipation, but the result? People did not flock to the stores. There was no increase in sales!
This does not surprise me. It is entirely consistent with the survey done by the Hawaii Rural Development Council, which found that Food Security is the most important sustainability issue in Hawaii. GMO didn’t even make the top three concerns, but came in at number five.
Hmmm.
Richard Ha writes:
According to Hawai‘i Rural Development Council surveys, food security is Hawai‘i’s number one priority. “Difficulties faced by local farmers” is number 3, and “GMO agriculture” is number 5.
Banning GMOs (a much lower priority issue) threatens our food security (our most important concern).
I say this all the time because it’s so important to remember: If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm. We need our farmers farming in order to have food security here in Hawai‘i. We need to work toward that end.
One way to do that is to remember that agriculture and energy are inextricably tied together. Working toward having low-cost energy here on the Big Island will strongly benefit both our farmers and the rest of our people—it lowers food cooling costs for both farmers and their customers. It will help the farmers to farm, which will increase our food security.
We are lucky to have the option here of generating electricity with geothermal. Geothermal-generated electricity is similar to oil in its characteristics. It is steady. And very importantly, it costs only half as much as oil and will not run out anytime soon.
It’s all related. Geothermal energy means lower electric bills, for both farmers and consumers. Lower electric bills means farmers keep farming, and consumers have more food security out here in the Pacific where we important 80 percent of our food or more. Lower electric costs also mean consumers have more discretionary income, and that helps our local economy.
Banning GMOs (a.k.a., biotech solutions to farming problems, which all our competitors will be able to use) moves us in exactly the wrong direction.
Richard Ha writes:
Take a look at this survey of “Hawai‘i’s Food and Ag Challenges Ranked in Order of Importance.”
Between October 2012 and December 2013, while the Hawai‘i Rural Development Council screened the film “Seeds of Hope – Na Kupu Mana‘olana” around our state, it asked viewers to fill out this survey about the issues discussed in the movie.
Survey takers ranked “Food Security” as our number one food and agriculture challenge (note that “GMO Agriculture” came in as lowest priority of the five issues discussed).
Statewide, 94 percent of survey takers thought Food Security should be either “top priority” or “important” as a state policy issue, and on the Big Island, 97 percent of people thought so.
This is what I have been saying, over and over. Food security is a critical issue out here, in the middle of the ocean, where we import most of our food. We need to have important and rational discussions, now, about how we will ensure we are food secure as conditions continue to get more challenging.
It’s a real disconnect to realize that 97 percent of people on the Big Island consider food security “important” or even “top priority,” and then to think about recent community support of the Hawai‘i County Council’s banning GMO/biotech solutions on the Big Island.
All I can come up with is that there are a lot of people who don’t see the whole big picture and who don’t see that there are unintended consequences:
We need to take a hard look at what we are doing now so that we head down the right path. The decisions we make now will affect not only us, but also our grandchildren and their grandchildren. Let’s make sure they are able to thrive and live a good, affordable, food-secure life here on the Big Island when it’s their turn.
