HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0271.292 2012-2014 July 2, 2013
To: Brenda Ford, County Council Chair, Committee on Public Safety & Mass Transit
Margaret Wille, Vice Chair, Committee on Public Safety& Mass Transit
Karen Eoff, Member
Greggor Ilagan, Member COUNTY CLERK
Dru Mamo Kanuha, Member COUNTY OF HAWAII
Zendo Kern, Member RECEIVED L
Dennis "Fresh" Onishi, Member Tate By ler�'s`,
jty
Valerie T. Poindexter, Member ,'
J. Yoshimoto, Member
Subject: Testimony to oppose County Council Bill 79, Draft No. 2.
From: Joseph DeFrank, property owner and farmer in Hawaii County.
I am an owner/operator of an active landscape nursery on 6.3 acres in Waipunalei and professional Weed
Scientist employed by the University of Hawaii for 29 years. I submit my testimony, as a private citizen,to
oppose the passage of Bill#79, draft#2.
Human intellect has provided us with hand held computers that, at their inception,filled entire rooms. The
technology that floated the Wright Brothers above the sand at Kitty Hawk, now carries millions of passenger
around the world at prices that a wide spectrum of the population can afford. The technology that the
committee seeks to ban with Bill 79 will deny the citizens of the Big Island the same fruits of human intellect,
as it applies to agricultural science that have defined our modern world.
The justification for banning GMO crops on the Big Island is based, in large part, on a current snap-shot of that
technology and disagreeable aspects associated with it. To be specific, Roundup Ready crops are the focus of
this technology ban due to health and environmental problems cited in Bill 79. When you cherry pick the
internet for information on glyphosate,the active ingredient in Roundup, you can easily paint a disturbing
picture of the U.S government in collusion with Multinational Corporations determined to poison the air and
water and destroy the productive capacity of the soil to produce food. Bill 79 discounts the knowledge, skill
and integrity of scientists, like me, to document, evaluate and then change the direction of GMO technology
when serious problems arise and the public demands action. Banning GMO technology is based on a narrow
aspect of its application while denying the wide spectrum of human endeavor that can be impacted in a
positive way.
GMO technology has been used to make papaya resistant to an industry devastating virus. Scientists have also
used this technology to address a similar disease with plums, called plum pox. GMO technology has improved
the vitamin levels in rice and seeks to improve food crop tolerance to drought and high levels of aluminum
found in many tropical soils. My personal idea for GMO technology is to remove the Frankenstein aspect from
food crops and into non-food cover crops to address difficult soil related problems like bacterial wilt in ginger
and nematodes on coffee. But this sort of GMO innovation is to be denied Big Island farmers by prohibitions in
Bill 79. Even though research in these areas is allowed, why commit scientific intellect and scarce research
funds to a technology that is to be banned for on-farm use.
To conclude, I oppose Bill 79 because it seeks to dull the sword of human intellect to solve the most difficult
problems in agriculture now and those sure to arise in the future. Comm. No. �-1 I. 29 2-
Ref.f. Date�j L U 201
Ref. �UL