Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 31, Number 7, 1 July 2014 — Should GMO have a place at the table? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Should GMO have a place at the table?

Trustee 's note: I want to mahalo Walter Ritte and Dennis Gonsalves for contributing tn thi ? nimith \ mhiwin nn Ch\AC)

genetically modified organisms. Mn Ritte offers the anti viewpoint and Dr. Gonsalves the pro viewpoint. ANTI University of Hawai'i had GMO the kalo and patented this newly invented kalo. UH then announced that it would be selling us the huli at $1.75. No one said anything against this new Mahele of our Mana. We organized, protested, marched and chained the doors on

the UH Board of Regents in our successful efforts to protect Hāloa, have the patents torn up and a signed MOA never again to GMO Hāloa. Today the GMO battle has grown into a multinational worldwide eeonomie endeavor to gain control of the seed supply and therefore the food supply. The top five ehemieal companies of the world are here in Hawai'i experimenting and exporting GMO seeds. The political battle rages as thousands have taken to the streets, state ' lawmakers have been bought off, counties have passed laws to protect their citizens and now numerous lawsuits filed by ehemieal seed companies. On Moloka'i, Monsanto's industrial ' farming practices are turning thousands of acres into dust bowls filled with chemicals, with dust and mud ending up on our precious reefs, and pesticides in our aquifer. Aloha 'Āina stopped the annexation of Hawai'i, stopped the bombing of Kaho'olawe and will stop this Mana Mahele! — Walter Ritte, activist and leader in the movement against GMO

PR0 A genetically modified organism (GMO)

is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. This perspective focuses on Hawai'i's GMO papaya, commonly known as Rainbow and SunUp, because I helped develop it and it is the most widely grown commercial GMO crop in Hawai'i. The GMO papaya was developed via a public-sector project including scientists from Cornell University, University of Hawai'i and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and a collaborating

scientist from the former Upjohn Co., and funded by monies from USDA and the state of Hawai'i. The GMO papaya was engineered to be resistant to papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) by inserting a small part of the virus genome into the non-GMO Sunset papaya. It is somewhat similar to "vaccination" against a virus. PRSV entered the papaya-growing areas of Puna in 1992 and caused tremendous devastation. The GMO papaya was deregulated and released to growers in 1998, successfully controlled PRSV and currently makes up about 80 percent of Hawai'i's production. Papaya is among the world's five most nutritious fruits, the GMO papaya arguably is the least expensive fruit in Hawai'i supermarkets and a dollar ean purchase four GMO papaya at a farmer's market. This would not have been possible without the GMO papaya. GMO technology could help control important Hawai'i diseases such as bunchy top virus of hanana, tomato spotted wilt virus of lettuce and tomato, and bacterial blight of anthurium. While eaeh GMO needs to be evaluated case by case, laws that discourage or prevent the use of this technology put Hawai'i at a disadvantage toward attaining sustainable agriculture production. — Dennis Gonsalves, retired director ofthe USDA Pacific Basin Agriadtural Research Center I

Rūbert K. Lindsey, Jr. Trustee, Hawai'i