HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0393.085 2012-2014 Page 1 of 1
Murashige, Laura
From: Rabin Konen [rabodhisattva @gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 14, 2013 9:50 AM
To: jyoshimoto @co.hawaii.hi.us; donishi @co.hawaii.hi.us; gilagan @co.hawaii.hi.us;
zkern @co.hawaii.hi.us; bford @co.hawaii.hi.us; dkahuna @co.hawaii.hi.us; keoff @co.hawaii.hi.us;
mwille @co.hawaii.hi.us; counciltestimony @co.hawaii.hi.us
Subject: Bill 113
Rabin Konen
Hi,my name is Rabin and I am a farmhand down in Kapoho,Hawai'i. I work on a diversified organic farm,producing tropical fruits,
grass-fed meats,naturally-farmed eggs and dairy.
Let me say this: farm work is definitely hard work,requiring early hours,dirt,sweat,exertion,and equally early bedtimes. But let me tell
you, I love it! Almost all the food on my plate comes directly from my efforts,and I know that it is some of the healthiest fare on the
planet.
In the garden,when we have weeds,I have to pull them out with a hoe or with my bare hands. Around the jakfruit and banana and sapote
trees, I have to work with a sickle and a machete to keep back the vines and cane grass. The cut plant matter falls to the ground to become
next year's nutrients.
We grow papayas,too,but I scoop the seeds out and throw them away. No way would I eat or replant them,what with commercial fields
just two doors down. I guess the flesh of our papayas is pretty safe,although even the seed that my boss gets from the U of H contains 1%
GMO pollution. (Facing Hawai'is Future,2012,p.48)
I've read stories about what farmworkers face in conventional and GMO settings. In a report out just this year from Farmworker Justice,
"each year farmworkers suffer up to 300,000 acute illnesses and injuries from exposure to pesticides."
I think about those guys out there working the commercial papayas and I just know that they're shortening their lives being exposed to this
stuff. I don't know how to get them into another job or another industry,but it doesn't seem fair. I know most of them are in debt for their
trucks,tractors,and sprayers,not to mention the chemicals they put in them. Its not the small lease-holders making the money,it's the
processors in Hilo. And yet the state spent 18 million over 10 years trying to get Japan to buy the GM papaya. Couldn't that money go to
retraining these workers in a healthier form of farming?
In conclusion,I support passage of Bill 113,without the research and papaya registration exemptions,and with a sunset for GE corn.
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