HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0212.059 1996-1998 ir'~ - -
24 APRIL 1997 at gam, in the COUNTY COUNCIL RO~V~~t~e~A~~~'Vl
ASK FOR TWO MLLION OF OLJR TAX DOLLARS FOR THE STAT D j O OF
BUILDING AN IRRADIATION FACILITY IN HILO, IGNORIN(~~j),Fi ~OI;,LrO#'VING:
COUN I Y Gr HAVVAII
1. Fruitflys will still sting our crops, discoloring them and leading to spoilage and
disease.
Insecticides, herbicides and other chemical treatments will continue in use
because plantation agriculture is unsustainable without it. Loss of productivity is
the natural consequence of uncontrolled pests, and industrial agriculture.
2. Safety is still in question because of incomplete and contradictory research. Federal
approval is based on assumptions and projections, not on verified population
studies of human consumption. Studies conducted on laboratory animals were not
favorable, and any such research on humans would face ethical questions.
3. Irradiated product is equated to "cooked" product because of the loss in vitamins
and degrading effect on amino acids. Fresh product has limited keeping abilities
and begins almost immediately to succumb to natural decomposition, a factor
your body is designed to use in digestion. This is part of the food value in eating
fresh.
(Without fresh food your body tries to provide the digestive enzymes required for
what is in your stomach. The problem with a diet of processed foods, no matter
how they are processed, is the burden it places on your digestive system.
Undigested food, lingering in the human body, is the cause of most "civilized"
diseases.)
4. No deFinition of FRESH can include processing. IRRADIATED fruit is for all
practical purposes COOKED. Except that cooking with heat actually kills disease
organisms. Irradiation at approved levels will not. Nor will irradiation permit
long-term storage.
5. There are product labeling laws, with exceptions. That does not mean that
mislabeling will not occur. It has. It will continue to be profitable to skirt or avoid
regulations. You have only the marketer s reputation and assurance to rely upon.
Have you not gone to a market and found two seemingly identical products next
to each other, distinguished only by bin label and price? Were you not confused
which is' which? How did the stock clerk know? Did someone else mix them by
mistake? How would you know if someone didn't tell you?
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6. In fact there is no assured mechanism for determining if an individual product has
been irradiated once, many times, or not at all. As a matter of food safety, this
technology is essential, and as yet, absent.
7. If irradiation becomes accepted by the world's consumers, (as the Mayor hopes),
who else is naive enough to believe that we can compete on the world market
with an irradiated product?
8. Papaya has an accepted moist-heat facility on-line. Papaya does not depend on any
other treatment, especially not one certain to be rejected by Japanese buyers.
Ginger and many other cut-flower shippers can rely on hot water bath treatment to
disinfest their product. ]t also may confer longer keeping ability, depending on
species.
Irradiation is not acceptable for some Fruit, even if otherwise desired.
There is yet no assured throughput, on a daily, year-round basis to make an
irradiator economically selfsufficient. Subsidy may be a hidden agenda. It will be
a temptation to those who imagine that this could really answer this island's
economic woes, while preserving a plantation economy.
9. The irradiator will belong to Isomedic, or if that fails, to GreyStar. Money already
spent benefits only them. Projected expenditures by the County will benefit them.
Subsidies for this private industry do nothing to help small farmers, fishermen, or
entrepreneurs to reach their market. If, as every market economist says, small
business is the foundation of the economy, we need look no further to see who
needs help. Why does the Mayor ignore us?
10. Hawaii can always provide a quality product to market. We do face enormous
barriers, however. Fruitfly devastation is only one of them. We can take aim at the
problem and undertake along-term solution. We would be wise to do it without
the distraction of fanciful get-rich-quick schemes, but we should do it
none-the-less.
But once earning aworld-wide reputation for fake fresh food, we will not
easily market Hawaii, home of good taste and fresh food!
Edward Clark
17-466 Ipu'aiwaha St.
Kea'au, Hi 96749
(808)966-7966
edclark@hilo.net