LEGISLATURE

Hāloa supporters vow to return next year

By Lisa Asato / Ka Wai Ola

With the GMO kalo bill dead this legislative session, taro farmer Jerry Konanui said supporters of Hāloa are planning to use the upcoming 2008 election to support those who are friendly to their cause.

“The job we've got now is to remove those (in office) who did who did not support us, especially on the Big Island,” said Konanui, an eighth generation taro farmer from Puna. “We have other people on other islands also working on that too. We want to stress we're not going to go away. Because they didn't listen to us, we're coming back next year because we need the numbers to get a bill in, and they've told us directly it will never happen again.”

Senate Bill 958, which in its original form would have imposed a 10-year moratorium on genetic modification of taro, died after being sent back to committee April 8 on the floor of the House. “It was sent back because the votes were not there to pass it out,” said House Speaker Calvin Say (D-Pālolo). “It's normal procedure.”

Say, who said he used to farm taro as did his grandfather and uncle, said the amended bill that passed out of the House Agriculture Committee following more than seven hours of testimony was a compromise measure that he would have liked to see pass for further debate. But, he said, the votes were split. Say said he supported the compromise bill because GMO “will make it pest-resistant and virus-resistant” in the face of threats like water rot and apple snails.

The amended bill would have decreased the moratorium to five years and would have banned only Hawaiian varieties from genetic modification.

“The five-year (moratorium) wasn't the problem,” said Konanui, who years ago had supported GMO as a tool “to save the world.” He changed his mind, he said, after attending an international conference where scientists and farmers convinced him otherwise. Konanui and other farmers say taro doesn't need to be tampered with to thrive.

Konanui said the big issue with the amended bill was that by genetically engineering some taro varieties, all varieties are threatened through cross-pollination. He also said the bill would have denied the counties a say in the genetic engineering of taro.

He said supporters of the bill, including 'Ōnipa'a Nā Hui Kalo, the largest taro association statewide, call themselves “the caretakers of our taro,” which is held sacred to Hawaiians.