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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0271.319 2012-2014 Page 1 of 1 Murashige, Laura COUNTY CLERK e g COUNTY ^ ' NA yY 11 From: Dennis Gonsalves [dennisgonsal @gmail.com] 2013 111. I PH 12: r 9 Sent: Monday, July 01, 2013 9:13 AM To: counciltestimony @co.hawaii.hi.us Subject: Testimony against bill 79 Attachments: GonsalvesTestimonyAgainstBill79.6.30a.13.docx Dear Council members: Bill 79 is a divisive bill that should be defeated. It is ill founded and lack facts. Attached is my testimony against the bill. Aloha, Dennis Gonsalves Comm. a' 7 ( • 3'q RI. Ta: if P51141 7/1/2013 R{.f, Date JUL 0 2 2013.._. Date: June 30, 2013 To: Brenda Ford, Council Council Chair, Committee on Public Safety& Mass Transit Margaret Wille, Vice Chair, Committee on Public Safety& Mass Transit Karen Eoff, Member Greggor Ilagan, Member Dru Mamo Kanuha, Member Zendo Kern, Member Dennis "Fresh" Onishi, Member Valerie T. Poindexter, Member J. Yoshimoto, Member From: Dennis Gonsalves, PhD Born and raised in North Kohala Retired former director of USDA Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center, Hilo, Hawai Led the development of the transgenic papaya Subject: Testimony against Amended Council Bill No. 79 I was shocked and saddened when I saw bill 79 that the Honorable Margaret Wille, Council Woman of Kohala, introduced to propose a ban of further commercial production of new transgenic crops on Hawaii Island. The original bill 79 has been amended and will be voted on by the council on July 2, 2013. In my opinion, the amended bill 79 needs to be voted down. This memo specifically addresses the detrimental impact that amended bill 79 would have on transgenic papaya production on Hawaii island, although the bill is also aimed at banning all new transgenic crops on Hawaii island. I know about transgenic crops and biotechnology because I spent over 30 years investigating this field and I led the research team that developed the transgenic virus resistant papaya that virtually saved Hawaii's papaya industry. Many of you are familiar with the popular transgenic Rainbow papaya that is resistant to papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) and is the dominant papaya produced in Puna. Amended bill 79 threatens to seriously curtail production of transgenic papaya on Hawaii Island farms and makes it nearly impossible for homeowners to raise transgenic papaya. Brief background of PRSV on Hawaii Island. In the 1970s, PRSV was infecting papaya trees in Hilo and was a potential threat to papaya in Puna, where 95% of the state's papaya was being grown. Starting in the 1980s, I led a small team of scientists to develop transgenic papaya that could resist PRSV. Resistance to PRSV is not naturally found in papaya so efforts to breed resistance into papaya had failed. In 1991 we successfully developed a PRSV-resistant transgenic papaya. In May 1992 PRSV was discovered in Puna and within two years all efforts to eliminate or control the virus in Puna had failed and the industry was in a crisis situation. We scientists and the papaya industry worked to test, deregulate, and commercialize the Rainbow papaya. Rainbow was released in May 1998, six years after PRSV was detected in Puna. The PRSV-resistant transgenic papaya literally saved the industry from destruction and today it is a common scene in Puna to see fields of healthy Rainbow papaya. The Rainbow papaya has been commercialized for 15 years and over 250 million pounds have been marketed. Today, one can buy four papaya for a dollar in the farmer's market. The transgenic papaya is one of the most well characterized transgenic crops in the world (see references 1-4 for details if you wish) and is safe for consumption and for the environment. Bill 79 threatens to make growing the transgenic papaya very difficult at best and impossible at worst. The bill needs to be voted down. Amended Bill 79. This bill 79 is detrimental to Hawaii Island for the following reasons: • Requires that anyone growing transgenic papaya have the trees a minimum separation distance of 750 feet from adjoining properties and waterways and the buffer zone must be maintained as GM0-free. o This requirement eliminates many households from growing transgenic papaya in their yard since most households are within 750 fifty feet from their neighbor. o This will also make it very difficult for commercial papaya farmers to raise transgenic papaya because the isolation distance would require extensive acreage. Many papaya farmers have small acreage. o Furthermore, it requires that all people (whether farmers or backyard gardeners) pay an annual $100 registration fee if they grow transgenic papaya (or any transgenic crop). This is prejudice against transgenic papaya growers. • In the enforcement in section 14, the bill says, "the director shall give written notice to the suspected person that a violation of this article constitutes a health hazard...." o The transgenic papaya has been commercialized for 15 years, and the US government deregulated the papaya and ruled that it is safe for human consumption and for release into the environment. It DOES NOT constitute a health hazard!! • Because the transgenic papaya controlled PRSV, people can purchase papaya at very reasonable prices in supermarkets and very cheaply at farmer's markets. Many people eat papaya frequently because of its health benefits. Bill 79 will make papaya much less available to the people of Hawaii Island. • Hawaii Island grows about 90% of the state's papaya, and papaya is the second most important fruit crop next to pineapple. This bill will hurt the economy of Hawaii Island. Summary. The transgenic papaya (Rainbow and others) developed for Hawaii has been deregulated by the US government and is safe for consumption and the environment, saved the papaya industry, over 250 million pounds of the papaya has been consumed with no ill effects, papaya contributes roughly 9 to 10 million farm gate dollars to Big Island economy, it is consumed by many of he residents of Hawaii island, the rest of the state, and outside of Hawaii, and constitutes Hawaii's second most important fruit crop. Bill 79 seeks to severely curtail the production of transgenic papaya and other transgenic crops to the detriment of Hawaii country and the state. This bill needs to be defeated. References on testing of transgenic papaya 1. Suzuki JY, Tripathi S, Fermin GA, Jan F-J, Hou S, Saw JH,Ackerman CM,Yu Q, Schatz MC, Pitz KY,Yepes M, Fitch MMM, Slightom JL, Ferreira SA, Salzberg SL, Alam M, Ming R, Moore PH, Gonsalves D, 2008. Characterization of Inserton Sites in Rainbow Papaya, the First Commercialized Transgenic Papaya Fruit Crop. Tropical Plant Biology 1, 293-309. 2. Fermin G, Keith RC, Suzuki JY, Ferreira S, Gaskill DA, Pitz KY, Manshardt RM, Gonsalves D, Tripathi S, 2011. Allergenicity assessment of the Papaya ringspot virus coat protein expressed in transgenic Rainbow papaya.Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 59, 10006-12. 3. Tripathi S, Suzuki JY, Carr JB, Mcquate GT, Ferreira SA, Manshardt RM, Pitz KY,Wall MM, Gonsalves D, 2011. Nutritional Composition of Rainbow papaya, the first commercialized transgenic fruit crop Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 24, 140-7. 4. Gonsalves D, Gonsalves C, Carr J, Tripathi S, Matsumoto T, Suzuki J, Ferreira S, Pitz K, 2012.Assaying for Pollen Drift from Transgenic 'Rainbow' to Nontransgenic 'Kapoho' Papaya under Commercial and Experimental Field Conditions in Hawaii. Tropical Plant Biology 5, 153-60.