Richard Ha writes:
There are strong signals all around us that the era of cheap oil is over and we will soon face enormous social consequences – but we choose, instead, to focus on banning biotech solutions to our farming challenges. Where is our common sense?
We say that the Monsantos of the world are evil, and then we turn around and beat up our own small farmers.
Where is King Kamehameha when we need him?
I keep saying it because it’s true and it’s important: If the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm. Bill 113 will, without a doubt, make Big Island farmers less competitive. Bill 113 will make the future of farming even more difficult than it is today.
It is going to have a huge, very negative, impact on our island’s agriculture industry.
People are angry at Monsanto and are willing to punish their own, local, small farmers – their family, friends and neighbors. It’s hard to understand.
I am very disappointed that Bill 113 passed. And I am truly concerned about what it says for our society that people have come to distrust and even fear science.
But coming out of the council room after the vote, I felt so much better when two ladies I had never met told me they respected our point of view, and that we all need to work together.
I told them how much I appreciated them reaching out to say that. The most important thing we will need for an uncertain future is our spirit of aloha.
After decades of obvious lies in the name of science, people have had enough. we distrust science when its the corporate researchers, paid to find these products safe no matter what cancers or mutations independent scientists find.
I am surprised that you, Richard, have fallen for this nonsense.
Traditional hybridizing has all the answers and none of the drawbacks. If you want to play Russian roulette, do it with your garden that you and your family eat from, not what you are selling to others to eat and feed to their children.