What impact will genetic engineering have on Hawaii’s farmers?

There are numerous hazards that genetic engineering poses to farmers that choose to grow GMO crops and farmers grow conventional or organic crops, including loss of markets, cross contamination, loss of farmer independence, increased costs to farmers, yield reduction, liability threats, and the diversion of money and energy away from truly sustainable and productive agriculture. We have already seen some of these hazards play out here in Hawaii:

Kona organic Farmer Melanie Bondera cuts down a contaminated papaya tree on her farm.

Crop contamination: Another concern is crop contamination. Cross pollination or mistakes in shipping can contaminate non-GMO crops. This is dangerous for the farmer for a few reasons. First, if a farmers non-GMO corn crop is contaminated by a neighboring GMO crops and the company that patented the GMO corn finds out, the farmer can be forced to pay the leasing fee for growing the GE seeds and taken to court if they refuse. Hundreds of farmers have already been fined because of contamination by GMO crops. Cross pollination is a big concern for the people of Kauai and Molokai because the EPA already found that DuPont on Kauai and Dow on Molokai violated safe planting restrictions meant to reduce the risk of cross-pollination of their genetically engineered crops. Cross pollination and co-mingling of seeds can also cost food manufacturers. For example, Terra Prima, an organic corn chip maker, lost $87,000 when some of its European exports were returned after testing positive for GE ingredients.

The inability to contain genetically engineered crops and the potential for them to contaminate neighboring crops has been made clear in the case of the genetically engineered papaya here in Hawaii.

In September 2004, laboratory testing by Genetic ID, one of the world’s leading laboratories for genetic analysis, found GMO contamination in the seed stock of Waimanolo variety papaya seeds from the University of Hawaii. These are seeds that UH sells around the world and label as being non-genetically engineered. Genetic ID also found contamination on organic farms on Kauai, the Big Island, and Oahu. Composite testing of organic, conventional, and wild papayas collected from across these three islands showed varying levels of contamination; the composite from Kauai showed no contamination (though trace levels were detected on one organic farm in a separate test), the Oahu composite tested with more than 5% contamination, and the Big Island sample showed a 50% level of contamination.

GMO contamination takes away farmers’ ability to choose what they grow on their own lands, and can open them to liability threats for growing GMOs without paying the patent fees first. Major export markets like Japan also refuse to buy GMO foods; therefore, GMO contamination could lose local farmers significant revenue in exports. If GMO crops are found on their property, organic farmers could also lose their organic certification.

On the Big Island, an organic papaya farmer, Toi Lahti, who had been growing organic papayas and developing a seed line for years, discovered that his papaya trees had been cross-pollinated and were GMO contaminated. He cut down his entire 170-tree orchard, losing thousands of dollars.

Because of contamination levels both in the UH seed stock and from cross-pollination, farmers and consumers can no longer be sure their papayas are GMO-free. The University of Hawaii is a land grant university, whose mission is to help farmers. Please call on UH to divert their resources away from developing and promoting GMOs and towards researching truly sustainable, non-GMO solutions to local agricultural problems, before they contaminate any further Hawaiian commodity crops. Also call on them to provide free, accurate, and accessible PCR testing for farmers and growers who are concerned that their crops could be GMO contaminated. For more information on contacting UH, please see What You Can Do.

Market loss: Consumers around the world are saying no to GMO crops, and this means a loss of markets for farmers who have to shoulder the financial and logistical burdens of testing and segregating non-GMO from GMO crops. In 1996, US farmers sold $3 billion worth of corn and soybeans to Europe. In 1999, these exports had shrunk to $1 billion. In Hawaii, genetically engineered papaya has drastically undercut the export market for local papaya growers. Japan, the former number one importer of Hawaiian papaya, is buying elsewhere because of their opposition to GMO crops. This hurts not only the GMO papaya farmers, but all Hawaiian papaya growers.

Loss of independence: By signing Technology Use Agreements, farmers that choose to grow GMO crops are locked into buying certain kinds of herbicides and pesticides and are forced to buy new seed each year. They no longer own the crops they grow, they lease them from multinational corporations. Even farmers who do not grow GMO crops lose freedom of choice of what they can grow when GMO crops are grown around them. For instance, on Kauai farmers were issued letters in 2002 and 2003 telling them that they were not allowed to grow corn, sunflowers, or soybeans because of the risk of contamination of surrounding GMO fields.

Cost: Then there is the issue of the cost of growing GE crops. It is expensive! For instance, to grow Roundup Ready crops, farmers have to buy the seed and buy the Roundup to spray on the seed, which can end up costing 50% more than non-GMO growing systems.

Liability: There are a number of liability concerns that both GMO and conventional farmers face when GMO crops are grown. Non-GMO farmers can be fined or sued if their fields are contaminated by GE crops, and GMO farmers can be fined or sued if they save and replant GMO seed. Another concern is that liability for any harm that might come from genetic engineering is placed on the shoulders of the farmers who grow these crops, not on the companies that create them. This is something farmers agree to by signing Technology Use Agreements. In fact, insurance companies think genetic engineering ventures are so risky that they refuse to insure genetic engineering corporations.

Yield reduction: There is also mounting evidence that genetically engineered crops do not perform well and can actually reduce yields. For instance, herbicide-tolerant soybeans, the most widely grown genetically engineered crop, yielded an average 6.7% less and required two to five times more herbicides than non-GMO varieties.

Diversion of resources: And finally, genetic engineering hurts farmers by diverting private and public research money from investigating sustainable ways to feed the world’s hungry, to support agriculture that doesn’t rely on chemicals, and to research the hazards of genetic engineering, and uses it instead to support the hype and profit potential of genetically engineered products. In terms of feeding the world’s hungry, there are many safe, effective programs that can provide food to those who most need it, that are less costly and that do not carry the dangers of genetically engineered foods and crops. In Bangladesh, for example, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations began a project in 1993 to help poor families without access to land grow small, nutrient-rich home gardens with improved cultivation methods. Families were shown how to grow nutrient-rich plants up the walls of their homes, and it didn’t take long for the health benefits to be seen. By 1998, the program was helping 3 million people grow vitamin-rich foods at home. Dollars spent on genetic engineering research could instead be spent on programs like this, that can truly help the world’s poor and hungry.

Find out more:
	What is genetic engineering?		How is genetic engineering different from traditional crop breeding?
	What crops are being genetically engineered?		Who is doing genetic engineering? Why are they doing it?
	How are these crops regulated?		What impact will genetic engineering have on Hawaii's farmers?
	How do genetically engineered crops and foods affect our health?		What effect will genetic engineering have on Hawaii's environment?
	Where are these experiments being conducted?		What are pharmcrops?