Hawaii’s Big Island bans biotech companies, GMO crops

Published time: November 21, 2013 02:26

The governing council for Hawaii (or Big) Island Tuesday banned biotech companies from operating on the island while barring growth of genetically modified organisms.

The Hawaii County Council approved Bill 113 by a vote of 6-3, which would mandate a possible 30 days in jail and up to a $1,000 fine for any violator of the ban on growing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on Big Island, officially known as Hawaii Island, the largest and southernmost of the Hawaiian state.

The bill also keeps out biotech giants like Monsanto, Dow and BASF, which have operations on other Hawaiian islands. One of them, Kauai, recently advanced its own legislation that increases regulation of biotech companies there.

The large papaya industry, with around 200 farms on Big Island, would be exempt from the bill, which was supported over a competing bill that that would have subjected papayas to the rules.

Big Island Mayor Billy Kenoi has 10 days to decide whether to approve the council’s bill. The council could override a veto by Kenoi with a vote from six members.

"We are at a juncture," Councilwoman Margaret Wille, who introduced the bill, said to Honolulu Civil Beat of the Big Island. "Do we move forward in the direction of the agro-chemical monoculture model of agriculture, or do we move toward eco-friendly, diversified farming?"

Civil Beat reported extensive public testimony on the bill in September, marked by passionate statements by several residents.

“Forcing genes of one species into another and changing the DNA of plants is not natural and could turn out to be a huge danger, similar to nuclear disasters, for our planet that we can’t put out,” one woman testified.

Supporters of the ban linked cancer, birth deformities, tumors, sterility and other conditions to GMO consumption.

Yet small farmers worry the measure, aimed at much larger companies, will leave them without access to new technologies that could aid their operations, Civil Beat reported.

"How can you say you can only farm what you are farming now?" Dean Okimoto, president of the Hawaii Farm Bureau, said. "You may be putting guys out of business by restricting what they can and cannot use going forward. The cattle guys are depending on trying to develop a drought resistant grass."

Supporters of GMOs say adverse effects of food that comes from the manipulation of an organism’s genetic material are unproven at this point. The US Department of Agriculture says over 80 percent of corn and over 90 percent of soy in the US, for instance, are GMOs.

Yet science is also inconclusive on whether genetically engineered products cannot cause long-term harm to human health. At least, that is the consensus held by the several dozen countries which have banned or severely restricted their use worldwide.