• Scientific evidence is what counts • Offer of free legal service was good • Support your local beekeepers • Solar system already paying off • We must act as guardians of land Scientific evidence is what counts Thank you
• Scientific evidence is what counts • Offer of free legal service was good • Support your local beekeepers • Solar system already paying off • We must act as guardians of land
Scientific evidence is what counts
Thank you for publishing the editorial on the use of biotechnology to develop better wheat, which cited a New York Times column by experts in agricultural economics and medicine. It is important that the editorial noted the authors of the column “primarily dismissed concerns regarding the health effects of genetically modified organisms.”
This is an important reminder that there is no accepted or documented scientific evidence of any adverse health impacts. The editorial writer also asked readers for their thoughts, but did not set any ground rules for responding. This invitation begs the question: Is it necessary to have a discussion that includes claims made by opponents of biotechnology in agriculture that have been repeatedly debunked?
There will always be those who refuse to make the effort to understand the science behind an issue, whether the issue is climate change, evolution or the use of biotechnology to grow crops with desirable traits that make them insect and disease resistant or drought tolerant.
Simply because those who don’t want to understand the science become consumed by fear of what’s unknown to them, doesn’t mean that their fantasies about “Frankenfoods” deserve a place in the discussion about the future of agriculture in this country.
One can certainly debate the merits of different farming techniques and tools and which hold more promise for the future of farming. We see these debates held in other fields, such as pharmacology, where the relative merits of different drugs and their safety are discussed. But we don’t see a rejection of germ theory, which, like genetics, has long been accepted.
By all means, let’s continue the discussion about expansion of biotech crops, but emotional claims, with no basis in reality, do not belong in these deliberations.
Mark Phillipson
President of the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association Lead for Syngenta
Offer of free legal service was good
Though we’re winter visitors to Kauai, we enjoy island events and activities and reading The Garden Island.
It is with interest we noted that a county review committee “rejected the only offer submitted to the county’s solicitation for pro-bono legal services citing a lack of requisite qualifications and experience for the job.” (TGI Feb. 13)
“The job” is in reference to the defense that the council is mounting against a lawsuit launched by Syngenta Seeds, Inc. The offer was from two local, willing and enthusiastic Kauai attorneys, ready to stand and work, for free!
Instead, council is going for the big guns charging big bucks from further away.
Too bad … obviously county council has not heard the story of David and Goliath.
Walter and Jeanie Lutz
Koloa
Support your local beekeepers
I am a beekeeper in San Jose, Calif., and was happy to read that Anne Punohu (TGI, Feb. 10) only buys Kauai or Hawaii honey. Kauai honey is just fabulous and unique! Some Kauai honey comes from bees working Kauai coffee plants. Yummy! No Mainland honey will ever have the flavor of Kauai honey because of the one of a kind variety of flowers here.
Anne is correct to say that store Mainland honey is cheaper. But be aware! Don’t compare cheaper mass produced honey from the Mainland with locally produced honey. Some Mainland honey may not even be from U.S. hives. I have found that local Kauai honey sold at the farmers’ markets and even Hilo Hattie are comparable or even cheaper than local, pure honey sold in San Jose.
Please, readers, support your local Kauai beekeepers. Talk to them and get to know the story of beekeeping. It’s so very interesting. Kauai honey is deliciously very, very unique! Not only because of our island’s flowers, but, also because Kauai beekeepers do not have to use chemicals to control a very serious world problem of varroa mites.
Edgar Lo
San Jose, Calif. and frequent island visitor
Solar system already paying off
Following the KIUC vote to charge analog meter members a separate reading fee, there was a comment about hippies having to make their own electricity. That’s just what I’ve done. We installed solar hot water last month and our usage is down 45 percent and our electric bill is down over 40 percent. This is for January when the sun is nearly its lowest. I’m laughing all the way to the bank.
John Patt
Koloa
We must act as guardians of land
One can grow almost anything somewhere on this island without having to irrigate regularly. Yet, 85-90 percent of the food supply is imported here, most of which probably comes from California, which is seeing one of its most severe droughts in recent times. It is obvious we live in precarious times, both economically and where weather patterns are in flux. Hawaiians are well aware of this fact. Large farming practices have evolved into subsidized mono-cultivators, moving away from crop rotation, depleting the nutrients from the soil.
Transport time causes the food to lose even more of its already-depleted nutrition. Growing your own food is cheap. In the growing awareness to the effects of chemical exposure and GMOs, one needs to evaluate the total exposure to all chemicals that we are being exposed to as it is a cumulative effect, from Paraquat to hand lotion. Our bodies are a growing cesspool of chemicals, ultimately affecting health.
At least one of your county council members is obviously biased in the direction of the “bright and intelligent” people whom she is talking to in the chemical/GMO industry. They speak with great forethought in the effort of cost containment, damage control and self-preservation. Just because the evidence is not apparent today does not mean that we will not see evidence in the future.
We are the guardians of the land and it is time to learn from past mistakes, holding ourselves and each other to higher standards that support a healthy environment and a healthy, available food supply.
Renee Miller
Mancos, Colo.
