The recent ruling on Kauai County’s Ordinance 960, formerly Bill 2491, has profound positive implications for the Garden Island and the entire state. For farmers and ranchers, the backbone of Hawaii’s agricultural industry, this was a major step forward, but there is still much more work ahead.
Ordinance 960 was directed at only a handful of large farming operations on the island, redundant, but inconsistent and costly regulations burden all farmers, many of whom are already struggling. They need protection from overzealous special interests if we are going to continue the long history of agriculture in Hawaii. For these reasons, we applaud U.S. District Court Judge Barry Kurren’s decision that state law invalidates the proposed county ordinance.
As part of the statewide farming community, we believe this decision has positive implications for the other counties facing similar issues fomented by mainland activist organizations. With high-powered public relations campaigns, these organizations infiltrate our counties and recruit willing elected officials and well-intended but uninformed residents to further their cynical agenda of producing fear, not food. We hope the Kauai County Council and other counties will look to this ruling when considering future proposed laws that would threaten the livelihood of Hawaii’s farmers without basis in science or fact.
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Read the full, original article: Nixing Kauai’s Anti-GMO Ordinance Was Good for Hawaii
