Ban further GMOs in Hawaii County
August 2nd 2013 Newsletter from
Margaret Wille
Councilmember, District 9
County Council
Tuesday August 6 at 1:30 pm – Communication 271.703, the current draft of the GMO Bill #79 introduced by Margaret Wille will be deliberated by the Committee on Public Safety and Mass Transit (This Bill would restrict the cultivation of GMO crops.)
Public testimony will not be heard as this is the continuation of the July 2nd – July 3rd and the cancelled July 30th meetings at which 223 of 276individuals testified in support of the Bill (approximately 500 signed up to testify, but many were not able to wait a day or more to be heard). To date, there have been more than 700written testimonies sent in withthe vast majorityin support of the bill.
I encourage you to attend the meeting to observe the discussion either in person at the Hilo Council Chambers or via video conference from West Hawai‘i Civic Center, Waimea, Pahoa or Ka’u.
It is vital that we as an island community make a decision at this time whether to go in the direction of GMO biotech industrial production as the principal agricultural model on this island or pursue more eco-friendly diversified local farming, including organic, conventional or “natural farming”. The experience both in Europe and in Latin America is that where GMO crop production is permitted, other modes of farming are wiped out.
The related food sustainability/resilience question we are addressing is not how much food we can grow but rather how much nutritious safe food we can grow — for both present and future generations.
This Bill is also about making decisions that affect our island community here, in other words AG home rule. If we do not seize this moment to determine our own future, you can be sure that come January when the state legislature convenes, the GMO lobbyists will be crafting state level legislation to usurp our right to county level local decision-making. For this reason any effort to postpone or create an elite stakeholder task force, in place of passage of this legislation, will for practical purposes equate to killing this Bill and foregoing this opportunity to chart our own future.
