HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0271.009 2012-2014 Page 1 of 1
ti COUNTY CLERK PSM1c
Murashige, Laura COUNTY OF HAWAII Comm
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From: Merle Hayward [blackbird4aloha @yahoo.com] 2013 HAY I 0 PM I: 28
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 12:04 PM
To: counciltestimony @co.hawaii.hi.us
Subject: Testimony in support of Bill 79
Attachments: Council Testimony.docx
Please find my testimony in support of Bill 79 on Genetically Modified Organisms.
Merle Hayward
Hilo, Hawaii 96720
Comm. No I'
Ref. To: r ci
Ref. Date MAY 1.4 2013
5/10/2013
TESTIMONY IN SUPPORT OF BILL 79 GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS
My name is Merle Hayward and I reside in Councilman Yoshimoto's district. I'm
speaking in support of Bill 79. Most people who visit or move to Hawaii do so because they
believe it is paradise. They believe because many of them come from places where industrial
agriculture covers the land as far as they can see and they know well the negative effects of
pesticide drift, poisoned wells, and these days, very toxic spraying of superweeds that result
from GMO crop cultivation, and know the financial reality of GMO crop contamination.
Little do they know that parts of our paradise are already being laid to waste. The
residents of Molokai suffer from toxic chemical ladened red dust clouds blowing off the
intensely farmed biotech crop lands on that island, making many of them sick. 150 Residents
of Kauai have filed a lawsuit against biotech Pioneer Hi-Bred because of acute and chronic
exposure to fugitive dust from their fields. The Waimea Times reported in 2012 that a diver
found dead reefs offshore of a biotech field. Kauai's biologist for DLNR reported that an
estimated 52,000 sea urchins died in 2012 and pointed to GMO Bt insecticidal crops and toxic
agriculture chemicals in fields along the coast, as a contributing factor, saying that Bt
engineered into the crop is meant to kill, citing aquatic insect deaths in the Midwest attributed
to GMO corn.
The Big Island will become a dying paradise, too, if, knowing the human and
environmental costs of GMO technology, we do not put up a stop sign, a stop sign that says
NO GMOs IN THIS PARADISE. It won't take long for word to get around, for visitors to notice
the degradation, for consumers to avoid Hawaiian products containing GMOs. When U. S.
GMO labeling takes effect, what are we going say? "Taste this GMO food proudly grown in
Hawaii?"
There are far more safe and healthful business and job opportunities in sustainable
agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, and growing feed stock for farm animals, than toxic GMO
technology which is really chemical agriculture warfare.