Approximately 19,000 Maui residents have signed a petition to push Monsanto and biotech interest off of their land for good. The proposed amendment, which could actually send the makers of RoundUp packing, is one that would prohibit the cultivation or reproduction of genetically engineered organisms with Maui County, and requires a 2/3 vote to pass.
Though Monsanto has been up to their usual propagandizing, the proposition would not hurt small farmers, but rather help them, and would prevent further cross-contamination of non-GMO crops. The Big Island Hawaii has already suffered an 80% contamination rate of papaya due to GMO planting.
Monsanto also claims that 600 jobs will be lost, but what is more accurate is that the entire agricultural system won’t collapse due to mono-cropped biotechnology which could wipe out crops as varied as sweet potatoes, greens, soy, corn, sugar beets, etc.
The Hawaiian islands are actually a prime target for biotech companies to grow their GMO poison food because they enjoy a year-round growing season, with perfect weather and frequent rain. The islands are also a prime location because biotech (erroneously) believes that they can maneuver through the political system there with ease.
Already over 80 chemicals are being sprayed on Hawaii’s food, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) goes along with this practice. These chemicals spread easily into waterways and eventually the ocean, turning a paradise into more of a hell. The Hawaii Department of Health has also tested hundreds of samples of water around the islands and found high levels of pesticides in every single sample.
Pesticides and herbicides needed to grow GM crops also contaminate the soil. RoundUp, the most commonly used herbicide in Hawaii, is linked to dozens of scientifically proven health problems. But of course, Monsanto wants to ensure their best selling chemical brand keeps selling. The only way to do this is through promoting GMO crops.
There is a vote coming for Maui residents November 4th to stop big biotech. They need all the support they can muster to fight against the millions of dollars Monsanto and their kind have dumped into special interest groups in Hawaii to try to keep GMOs present.
Monsanto has tried twice already to get Hawaii State Legislators to strip Maui residents of the right to determine whether or not GMO foods are grown on their land. So far, they have failed. Don’t let Monsanto win this time.
A ‘Yes” vote to support no-GMOs in November in Maui, Hawaii is just as important as the votes to label GMOs coming up in Colorado and Oregon. If all three states win their anti-GMO campaigns, we can look forward to additional momentum in defeating Monsanto for good.
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Monsanto propaganda is rife in the UK to with the major science research centres parroting the same nonsense as their handlers do. About time they got told where to get off.
Go for it Hawaii and rid yourselves of this monstrous con trick of an agricultural quack scheme. Its only end point is your permanent dependency on something that will continue to kill you slowly. It will be most profitable for the big pharma corporations too. Now that is what they call a double whammey and its you paying for it.
Kev— logic is rife in the UK just as much as the illogical activists that say Gm kills bess in the UK when no GM is grown. You ban GM but allow GM in cheese and wine making? You ag is going down in productivity – you are importing most of you organic food and organic food is killing people every year. That is a sign of complete stupidity. As an ex-Brit I should know. That is why I left the country. Backward view of science. Another problem with the brits is a total lack of science education for most. do you know that the papaya that Hawaii grows are nearly all GM after the non-GM were killed off by a disease. GM trait (not Monsanto’s but helped by them) made the trees tolerant and rescued the farmers. You don’t hear that do you – that is because you only see the anti-Gm propaganda. I used to be a Friend of the Earth in the UK then I realized all they do is complain – just like you are doing no solutions.
I work with someone who grew up in Africa. Had to pick the insects of the corn by hand before she went to school. She used to also place the insecticide on the plants by hand. With Bt corn there are is little insect damage and double yields – she knows what she would do with people like you who haven’t a clue of reality. BTW the Bt corn is given free to Africa – sold by local seed cos with no extra cost of the Bt. This year they also launched the drought tolerant corn.
The difference in yield is night and day – yields in EU and US 12 Tons per hectare – Africa before new hybrids 1 Ton/hectare – with Bt and drought 5 Tons/hectare.
Kev C, you see! I see that for the U.S., a business partnership with big biotech is perceived (by someone in US power) to be a means of shoring up its rapidly weakening global financial hegemony by promoting a GLOBAL FOOD DEPENDENCY on GM food crops. Fortunately for Russia, Putin appears to see the GM scam for what it is (multiple major issues). As well as El Salvador, Sri Lanka and others. It’s a rapidly shifting scenario.
For Monsanto and the rest of their chemical/mutation industry ilk, partnership with the U.S. is a means to protect, and continue to expand, their sterility-inducing fraud. The U.S. is playing both political enforcer and military enforcer for the mutation industry (in case Monsanto’s private paramilitary can’t handle a local situtaion).
Rape is an apt analogy. Like a rapist who won’t understand “No”, the mutation industry rapes DNA and they’ll rape national sovereignty or state sovereignty as a means of propagation if necessary, as they’ve done in India and attempted in El Salvador recently (“they” meaning the partnership).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
Over 7 years ago one of the first wicked leeks was an email about literally punishing France and the EU for questioning and resisting GMOs, authored by none other than the United States Ambassador to France at the time. Remember? Never heard about it? http://goo.gl/ZzLhQ
Today: Same biotech corporitis infecting Indian government and others:
India’s spying bureau serving interests of foreign corporations:
The IB (Intelligence Bureau), India’s top intelligence agency for internal security, has spent time and public money authoring a report that accuses citizens’ groups, NGOs, and individuals of “threatening the national economic security of India”. Their crime, according to the IB, is opposing socially and environmentally destructive “development projects”, such as the introduction of GMOs. Dr PU.S.hpa Bhargava, the father of modern biotechnology in India, joined Indian citizens and civil society organisations in condemning the report.
How will they deal with the GM papaya that are all over Hawaii and which HI deepens on for some employment? How will they compensate the farmers. Zero harm. but nuts rule
How hard is it to switch back to non-GMO papaya?
“Zero harm”?. Maybe, maybe not. But huge numbers of consumers, even whole countries, reject GM papaya. That’s not exactly a savior, but rather a big economic harm. Personally, I buy NO papayas that are not marked Organic, from a reputable certifier. And of course that means I eat far less papayas since papayas were GM’d. All in all, a disaster for real, organically-grown Hawaiian papayas. Let this one sacrifice be a lesson.
Oh yeah Hawaii,Colorado and Oregon Be the Triple Crown victories We The People
Thank You Thank You and Thank You We are in this together United we stand for one another. Congrats to all invoved all across our America and world who will not back down