Kim slaps down GMO ban

[Rob Tucker]

Ask yourself if, as a papaya farmer, you want to lose your primary market (Japan) because their buyers will not touch GMO foods with a ten foot pole. You can also ask yourself, as a coffee grower of premium coffee, if you want to lose your primary markets for the same reason. The mainstays of Big Island export agriculture are niche markets. These growers do not want to risk losing their markets based on verbal assurances (and no guarantees) from some grant funded professors who risk nothing themselves.

For the time being the ban is a direct response to the demands of the local agricultural community. Best bet to lift the ban is educate the growers. Somehow prove or convince them otherwise. So far paternalism hasn't served them too well. By paternalism I mean some Daddy figure who assures them that everything will be alright as long as they don't complain.

The ban taking place has little effect here. It has an immediate effect on the buyers elsewhere who are assured their growers will have the product they want for them tomorrow.