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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0385.121 2012-2014 Page 1 of 1 Murashige, Laura From: Brian Miyamoto [brian @hfbf.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2013 10:51 AM To: counciltestimony @co.hawaii.hi.us Subject: Testimony in Opposition of Bills 109 & 113 Attachments: Bills 109 & 113.docx Aloha Hawaii County Council's Committee of Public Safety & Mass Transit, Attached is Testimony in Opposition for Bills 109 and 113 from Dean Okimoto, President of the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation and Nalo Farms, Inc. Mahalo, Brian Miyamoto Chief Operating Officer Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation 2343 Rose Street Honolulu, Hawaii 96819 (808) 848-2074 www.hfbf.org This message, including any attachments, is intended for the use of the party to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please contact the sender immediately by reply e-mail, and delete the original and any copies of this message. It is the sole responsibility of the recipient to ensure that this message and any attachments are virus free. c C) w �n ri F-O -o --I w -< rrl ts, Comm. No. 3 gig 12 I Ref. To: P/fl M !e Ref. Date SEP 0 4 2013 9/3/2013 Hawaii Farm Bureau 2343 Rose Street • Honolulu, Hawaii 96819 Phone: (808) 848-2074 • Neighbor-Islands: (800) 482-1272 Fax: (808) 848-1921 • Email: infoga,hfbf.org www.hfbf.org September 4, 2013 Hawaii County Council Committee on Public Safety & Mass Transit Testimony in Opposition to Bills 109 and 113 Committee Chair Ford and Members of the Committee: I am Dean Okimoto, President of the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation (HFBF). Organized since 1948, the HFBF is comprised of 1,950 farm family members statewide, and serves as Hawaii's voice of agriculture to protect, advocate, and advance the social, economic, and educational interest of our diverse agricultural community. I have been a farmer for over 30 years, and am strongly opposed to Bills 109 and 113. It disturbs me to see that our farmers, who are in the fields every day trying to make a living, trying to move the bar on sustainability for the island, trying to make a living to give their families the same as every other American...a viable living and take care of their families and their communities! These are your neighbors and friends, and I do NOT believe that they are trying to hurt anyone by growing the products they grow, even if they are helped along by technology that has been proven to be safe. These farmers are being hurt by all the insinuations that they are growing products that are harming people, even though there is not one documented incident of harm to anyone. If you have claims that it is unsafe, why aren't people going to the State Dept. of Health and having these incidents looked into, so that it can be documented? These GMO products are vetted for over 10 years, for health risk, and allergens before they are approved for open field growing. Millions of dollars are spent in making sure that the health risks are minimized. Are they totally 100% guaranteed safe? No, but name me one thing that is, besides death and taxes! Farmers are faced with so many challenges going forward, food safety regulations which will be costly, finding enough water and land to farm, along with labor issues, transportation issues, besides everything else all of you have to deal with...insurance and taxes. Taking away the one tool that can help them become viable, bio-technology, without understanding the industry, and the possibilities of making our islands sustainable with this technology, just doesn't make sense. I am saying this also with the thought that these are your neighbors and friends, and you are implying that they are growing things to hurt YOU, to hurt your community. If the County of Hawaii passes legislation such as Bills 109 and 113, which takes away tools that allow our some of our farmers and ranchers to be viable, we may see less farmers and ranchers farming. Farming is one of the most difficult careers to be successful at, These bills will make it even tougher and may even close some farm operations. It will discourage farmers to seek science and innovation to expand and grow new products. If in several years the County of Hawaii changes their mind about the technology, they may find it difficult putting the farmers back on the land. There are tremendous costs to restart or start up a farming operation that our farmers may not be able or willing to take. Hawaii's poultry industry is an example of this. I think the choices you have to make as a governing body, is, do we want to have a sustainable community of food production, or do we want open lands with no food production and import all of our food from the Mainland. By the way, the Mainland food will be using all this technology to be able to grow more for you. The farmers are coming before you and saying, we need this technology to survive. understand that people want more organic products grown locally, and we totally agree with that premise also. All farmers would benefit by increasing our local organic production, but it is not easily done, and we need ALL FORMS OF AGRICULTURAL production (organic, conventional, and biotechnology), to work together, to make Hawaii more sustainable going forward. The benefit of increasing organic agriculture is to limit imports of organic which bring in many invasive species. But invasive species come in on all our imports, so if we are to protect our food supply, we need to embrace all agriculture and limit our imports, by producing more food, period. Therefore as a governing body, a more comprehensive discussion on the merits and detriments of chasing one form of agriculture from our communities needs to be done, and people need to come with open minds and open hearts, that no one is trying to harm anyone, but we need to have a better understanding within our communities of what each form of agriculture delivers in growing our communities. Thank you for the chance of giving this testimony.