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.