Newcomers to Hawaii drive anti-GMO activism against local farmers and scientists

After Hawaii banned GMO crops, local farmers say they have no idea whether their plants are illegal or not. Plus, it’s unclear whether the state even has the right to enforce this ban in the first place. The Aloha State is about to become ground zero for the U.S. food wars.

The papaya industry was nearly decimated by the ringspot virus in the 1990s, until scientists engineered a disease-resistant variety, the “Rainbow papaya.” In short, this is a state where farmers appreciate what GM crops have to offer. And, the GMO producers appreciate what Hawaii’s climate has to offer. All the major agrotech companies are there because developing a new seed variety can require 10 to 12 growth cycles—which translates into 10 to 12 years on the mainland. In sunny Hawaii, 2 to 4 growth cycles can be squeezed into into a single year, significantly reducing the time required to bring seeds to market.

Small wonder, then, that Hawaii would be fertile ground for anti-GMO activism—which is, in part, a product of the state’s demographics. As historian Rachel Laudan, author of The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii’s Culinary Heritage and Cuisine and Empire, recently observed:

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Underlying the debate about GMOs in Hawaii is, I suspect, a tension between those who have lived in the islands for generations and newcomers from the mainland. For the locals, the islands have always been a place of high tech agriculture. Many of them worked on the big sugar and pineapple plantations. They saved to buy small plots of land. Those who farm these plots know that the papaya growers have survived thanks to genetically modified varieties that have been safely used since the 1990s.

Indeed, the campaign to ban GMO crops in the County of Hawaii (the “Big Island”) was led by Councilwoman Margaret Wille—neither a farmer nor a native Hawaiian, but a public advocacy attorney in Maine who moved ten years ago to the island, where her brothers had once owned a health food store.

Read the full, original article: ​If you want a glimpse of the future food wars, look to Hawaii