HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0271.479 2012-2014 COUNTY CLERK
COUNTY OF HAWAII
RECEIVED
Time E JA-
-f Date
Marya Mann, Ph. D. - Kona Coast Wellness - P. O. Box 5154 - Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
Testimony in support of Bill 79 for a GMO Ban in Hawaii County
July 2, 2013
Aloha, Council Members!
Mahalo for listening or reading my testimony. As a longtime doctor of wellness and creativity, I
consult with many who wonder why they don't feel as well as they used to. From my back
ground in classical yoga and from what I understand about the Hawaiian Lokahi tradition of
`aina, `ohana and aloha, our thoughts can in large part be responsible for how we feel.
But many people around the world are feeling bad today not because of their thoughts, but
because 60-70% of food products in groceries are already genetically modified. It would be
extremely difficult to get a large enough control group (people who consume no GMOs) to
conduct a valid study of GMOs anymore, so the best we can do is learn from experience, like
the experience of a farmer named Cindy in Coldwater, Michigan.
Another farmer with land near them next to Silver Lake dug a dug a deep well in 2010 about 600
feet from the lake shore. He did it in the dead of winter, going through snow and frozen ground
after the summer crowd left for the season and when everyone returned in the spring, Cindy and
her neighbors found that their water pipes often sucked air. The GM farmer used immense
irrigation systems the whole summer on his new GM crops. Another GM farmer near a pond that
our friend owns a few miles away in the same county also drilled a well to irrigate his fields and
the pond went dry.
The first farmer started planting GM crops about 4 years ago. They knew he did it because he
put out signs indicating that they were GM when he planted his corn and in the fall, when he
began to harvest, he actually flew a skull-and-crossbones flag on his combine and harvester!
Cindy and her husband started coughing, and they coughed their way through his harvest, as
we do every year now, with it getting worse every year.
The other thing that's happened is that Coldwater farmers have almost no birds anymore. Cindy
has her bird feeders out, for both songbirds and hummingbird . For years she enjoyed a wide
variety of birds outside her window. But last year, in 2012, she never once had to replenish her
bag of feed. The birds are gone. So are the butterflies. She saw zero butterflies last summer,
and there were hardly any bees. Everyone knows this loss of pollinators in our environment is a
cause for serious concern.
The bees used to battle the hummingbirds for food in Coldwater, but the two lonely
hummingbirds that visited Cindy's feeder this year had very little competition from the handful of
bees that came around. There used to be flocks of hummingbirds, but this year her
hummingbird feeder actually went sour before she had to change it. The wild deer are gone too.
In other parts of our country, people are blaming the drought for low bird populations. But
Comm. No. °?7/' 7�
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Reef. Date JUL 0 2 2013
Coldwater Farmers are sitting on a lake. There's plenty of water there. And there are no birds.
Again, the only thing that's changed is they're surrounded by GM fields.
GMOs —Genetically modifying organisms -- are a fundamental violation of nature. The means
don't justify any end, because the end is a diminishment of our capacity for diversity, genetic
profusion. GMO-invaded crops no longer have the adaptability organisms need to evolve and
they infect anyone or any animal who ingests these foods with toxins. It is not a natural process
occurring in nature. It is manipulating nature for short term financial gain with potential long
term consequences. It is precisely this pattern of grabbing for a short term quick fix that has
our world on the path of unprecedented destruction -- be it Climate change, Fukushima, nuclear
war, global economic collapse, etc.
To support Bill 79 for a GMO ban in Hawaii County is a small but important step of affirming the
long term life of the land over the short term quick fix of financial gain for the few at the expense
of the many. It is a step that affirms the sacredness and interconnection of all life. It is a step
for future generations and the earth for which this council can take pride.
We have choice. What do we choose from now into the future?
Mahalo nui Ioa,
1 ® -�
a a Man , P . D.
Author, Wellness Consultant and Yoga Dancer