Seed companies on Kauai are a political “hot potato” but according to the numbers they are majors employers that bring a stabilizing effect to Kauai’s economy.
Seed crop industries have been present in the state for half a century, and there are currently 45, including Kauai-based parent seed corn operations, DuPont Pioneer, Syngenta, DOW AgroSciences and BASF.
The company’s have an estimated $220 million annual economic impact, said Kauai Chamber President and CEO Randy Francisco.
A recent Farm Bureau study found that that the seed industry employs about 1,400 people in Hawaii, and accounts for about one-third of the contribution made by agriculture to Hawaii’s economy,” said J. Kenneth Grace, Ph.D., Interim Associate Dean and Director for Research at the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
See the full, original story here: “GMO, by the numbers”