Kauai residents will be served a full plate of discussions on genetically modified organisms that will be aired Monday through Thursday and will include public participation. Hoike Kauai Community Television and Olelo Community Media, along with Hawaii’s Public, Education, Government
Kauai residents will be served a full plate of discussions on genetically modified organisms that will be aired Monday through Thursday and will include public participation.
Hoike Kauai Community Television and Olelo Community Media, along with Hawaii’s Public, Education, Government access organizations, invited experts from both sides of the GMO issue to present their positions and address community questions in a four-night series of discussion on the issue.
This is Hawaii’s first statewide expert-discussion on the pros and cons of GMO foods and their impacts on island residents, according to Hoike.
GMO Week on Hoike starts with two pre-recorded shows from panels convened earlier this month.
Monday’s show will have 30 minutes of programming from the pro-GMO panel, followed by 30 minutes from the anti-GMO panel. On Tuesday, the order will switch, with 30 minutes from the anti-GMO panel to air first, followed by the pro-GMO panel.
The pro-GMO panel featured Dr. Dennis Gonsalves, director of the USDA Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo; Dean Okimoto, owner of Nalo Farms and president of the Hawaii Farm Bureau; and Adolph Helm, project manager for Dow AgriSciences Molokai and a board member of the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association.
The anti-GMO panel featured Walter Ritte, manager and teacher at Keawenui Fishpond and Learning Center of Molokai; Kauai County Councilman Gary Hooser, chair of the Agriculture and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee; and Scott Cooney, professor of sustainability at the Shidler College of Business at UH Manoa.
On Wednesday and Thursday, residents across the state are encouraged to participate in live discussions on GMOs through live tweets or pre-submitted comments by phone.
Questions or comments by phone should be submitted
by calling (808) 834-5303 no later than Thursday at 4 p.m.
To submit questions via Twitter, use the hashtag #olelogmo. The Olelo Web page on this topic is www.olelo.org/gmo.
Questions submitted by the community will be among those discussed by the experts.
The pro-GMO position in both live shows will be represented by the individuals who participated in the pre-recorded panel earlier this month: Dr. Dennis Gonsalves, Dean Okimoto and Adolph Helm.
The anti-GMO position will be represented by the following:
Wednesday: Dr. William Steiner, dean of the UH Hilo College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management; Dr. Hector Valenzuela, professor and crop extension specialist at the UH Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture; and Hooser.
Thursday: Steiner and Hooser will be joined by Bill Freese, science policy analyst with the nonprofit Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C.
Hoike, Kauai’s PEG provider, will be airing the programs from Monday through Thursday at 6:30 p.m. on Channel 54.
