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JAN-04-2008 09:40 HARC 8084.8650.20 P.'-W4 the gene, to successfully transfer selected plants to potting material, to test the material to determine effectiveness and stability of the inserted gene, and finally, to safely determir-w effectiveness and stability under field conditions. In the early stages to set up a system, a researcher practices with different plant parts of several varieties and an easily recognized gene--like color or fluorescence. The regrowth process cim take several months and years can be dedicated to trying to reduce this time lag. Decades hal e passed in the development of systems for some of Hawaii's crops. Because of the exploratoq nature of this part of the process it may be financed through public funds. For the most part, research on minor crops is done by the public sector: colleges, universities, or non-profit research centers funded by foundations or competitive federal grants. Commercialization Assume the research community has developed a new plant. Before this plant becomes commercially available industry/farmers have to be willing to go through any intellectual property licensing process if applicable, and any applicable regulatory process before a new phuit will progress further. This is what is commonly referred to as technology tansfer: from the research community to the user community, and is applicable to all new product s developed, not just agriculture. It is not uncommon for products for any economic sector to be dropped at th''.s stage. The reason for this is there needs to be some compelling economic outcome associated with a product to justify its adoption. The present national agricultural grant system focuses c n basic research of wide and/or regional applicability and not on the commercialization of individual products. Private sector involvement and resources are! required `.or commercialization. The point here is that just because there is research on a particular product does not mean that it will end up as a commercial product. This is as true for an agriculture product as well as for any other product in our society. For Hawaii for genetically modified plants, the affected industry sector will have to step up to the plate just like the papaya industry did. If they do not step forward to participate in the later stages of product development, intellectual property rights acquisition and deregulation, there will be no commercial product. HARC, a non-profit scientific organization, cannot support this proposed legislation because the system for product development and commercialization as it already exists addresses the concerns raised, making the proposed legislation, which this resolution supports, unnecessary. Thank you for this opportunity to provide comments for your consideration. RES 462-08-January 8, 2008 Page 3 Hawaii Agriculture Research Center