Representative Jessica Wooley

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Chemophobia of the Oblivious Anti-GMO Activists

I can’t tell you how many times I have been told, “If it’s not grown organically, then it’s poisoning the a’ina (land in Hawaiian).”  The GMO Free activists keep making this statement over and over and people start to believe it.  It is repeated over and over until it becomes a pseudo-truth that they all regurgitate at their social rallies.

From Big Island County Council Member Margaret Wille to Kauai County Council Member Gary Hooser and even Senator Josh Green, this is now stuck in the minds of the activists and seeping into the minds the general public.  These “leaders” have people thinking that chemicals are bad and we have to avoid them at all costs.  The activists then shout out, “I don’t want any chemicals on my food.”

I’m sorry to disappoint but everything in this world is made up of chemicals including us!  It really bothers me that people are saying these kinds of things, not even realizing that this shows a clear lack of understanding of science.  I sometimes wonder if the movement is not so much about being anti-science, but non-science.  That really is a better descriptor of these folks when they make comments that show their chemophobia.

What a lot of the GMO free folks really demonstrate with these statements is that they really don’t understand the concepts about chemicals and toxicity.  They automatically assume that if the chemical is derived naturally that it is safer and that is not the case.  They also think that anything used on a biotech or conventional farm is very toxic just because it is called a pesticide.  Little do they realize that just paying attention to what’s in our own homes, we have a lot of toxic things in our living quarters that work just like pesticides.  It’s time to educate people a bit on this issue.

Toxic Talk

Before we go on, let’s talk about toxicity for a bit here.  Here is the definition of it on Wikipedia:

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What is important to note with the concept of this is that there is a degree to which something can be harmed by the substance.  Certain substances like water and salt is vital to life but when taken in at high doses, it can prove deadly to organisms.  This applies to nearly every substance that we might ingest or be exposed to.  Like the ancient scientist Paracelsus noted, “The dose is what makes the poison.”

Ah, the dose that makes the poison is the key concept here.  Toxicity is also measured in something called lethal dose (LD) and is usually expressed in a measure called the median lethal dose or LD50.  LD50 refers to the amount of a substance it would take to kill 50% of the population of say rats or mice per milligram of substance to kilogram of body weight.  It is an indication of the lethality of a substance.  In general, the smaller the amount, the higher the lethality of the substance.

I decided to take yet another walk around my house to find “poisons.”  I bet if many of the GMO free folks did the same walk, we’d all find the same things too.

My Kitchen of Death

I started in my kitchen to see if I had poisons lurking there.  Sure enough, I found quite a bit of things that if taken in the right doses could be toxic to me.  Take a look at what I found.

salt

Right above my stove and purposefully added to food is a nice hefty, but toxic container of table salt or sodium chloride.  A GMO free activist would never believe it but this is much more toxic than RoundUp any day.  Table salt has a LD50 of 3000mg/kg vs. RoundUp at 5600mg/kg.

Eating small amounts of it makes food tastes great but too much isn’t good for us as we all know.

baking soda

I’ve seen so many natural fallacy sites and lots of GMO Free sites touting baking soda as the chemical free way to clean.  Please, baking soda is a chemical called sodium bicarbonate in technical terms.  Its LD50 is 4200 mg/kg and is much more toxic than RoundUp also.  If a small child were to consume just a few tablespoons of this, it would be extremely toxic and it’s stated right on the box.

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Dishwashing soap is also considered a pesticide.  When you go to the gardening stores, you can buy diluted dishwashing soap that’s sold as soap spray pesticides for the same price as a large bottle of it.  Save money by making your own pesticides right from your own kitchen.

Some people have tried using the homemade recipe for weedkiller that uses dish soap along with some salt that is effective.  That is likely much more toxic that the RoundUp you find premixed in the stores.  That’s why it makes a great weed killer of all weeds!

bug spray

I do hate bugs and will admit to using pesticides.  This stuff works great to keeping the bugs out of my kitchen and foodstuffs.  Who likes having roach infested cupboards?  I’m sure many other GMO free folks have a can or two of bug spray available for the same reason.  We live in Hawaii where cockroaches are the size of B52’s and we don’t believe in coexistence with them!

coffee

Now why would I put coffee here?  Coffee contains a pesticide!  Yes, indeed, caffeine does kill!  How many millions of people consume coffee yet are fine?!  Caffeine’s LD50 is at 192 mg/kg.  Yes, it is much more toxic that RoundUp is!  The GMO free folks drink this organically but fear pesticides!  The irony of it all!

choc chips

Chocolate chips indeed have some chemicals in it that is toxic, yet we consume it with no fear at all.  The chemicals found in it are theobromine and caffeine.  We all know that keep the dog out of chocolate or they will get sick and it is all thanks to this chemical.  Theobromine has a LD50 of 1265 mg/kg and yes, it is more toxic than RoundUp!  The amount of theobromine in chocolate chips is quite small so you’d have to consume a lot of it for it to be toxic.

tabasco

Believe it or not but that hot sauce you douse your food in contains something toxic.  That chemical is called capsaicin.  It is naturally occurring and found in hot sauce, to kim chee, to even that muscle rub.  Some people love eating this pesticide!  It has a LD50 of 148.1 mg/kg to 161.2 mg/kg in rats, making this much more toxic than RoundUp.

 

iron

Iron is an essential nutrient to our functioning but in too high of a dose is very toxic.  It’s LD50 is 250 mg/kg in mice and 300 to 1100 mg/kg in rats making it much more toxic than table salt or RoundUp any day.  Anyone can buy this in the store too!

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The very things we give our children to make them well can also be toxic.  I found a bottle of acetaminophen in my kitchen cabinet.  The LD50 for this pain reliever is at 700 mg/kg for rats which shows that it is more toxic than the GMO free folks’ RoundUp.

ibuprofen

I’m sure many parents have a bottle of this in their medicine chest.  Ibuprofen has a LD50 at 800 mg/kg in rats making it also more toxic than RoundUp.  I personally like using this to really help my kids feel better and know that it works but is also toxic at high doses.  I’m sure other GMO free parents do the same and have no second thought about it when it comes to sick kids.

aspirin

Some folks take these tablets daily not realizing that it is more toxic than that dreaded weedkiller.  Aspirin, also known as salicylic acid, has a LD50 of 1360 mg/kg making it less toxic than iron and all the above pain killers listed.

Bathroom of Poison

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There are a lot of potentially poisonous things found in my bathroom but oh, so necessary for cleaning or health purposes.  Remember, that if used in the right amounts will make things toxic to us.  Using these chemicals sparingly as needed actually does wonders for our home and bodies when needed.

The Garage of Gloom

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I hate bugs in my house.  I admit that I hate letting nature take its course in my living quarters.  In Hawaii, the bugs will take over as it is their tropical paradise also.  I have those horrible pesticides to stop letting nature take it’s course over my home.  Am I afraid of these pesticides?  Nope.  Kills bugs so I love them.

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When it comes to cleaning up after dirty kids, dogs, and an old person, I’ll be honest that going chemical free as the antis love to harp on, doesn’t cut it for me.  Wiping down a toilet with vinegar and baking soda just does not do the job at all.  It takes some good germ killers that if taken in too high of a dose, this stuff is toxic.  I bet a lot of anti-GMO activists who marched had homes that had these chemicals in it!  All bought at Longs CVS on sale!

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I garden as a hobby for fun and yes, I use chemicals on my plants.  These indeed are toxins when taken in too high of a dose but so necessary for my plants to grow happily.  I give my gardenias a nice spraying of Volck’s Oil every few months to kept the sooty mildew that those pesky scales create.  If I don’t spray it, I get no flowers.  I also use snail and slug killer in my lettuce and greens boxes so that I have less worry about rat lungworm disease that is very dangerous for humans.

adams fleatick

I am sure that other anti-GMO activists who have pets must have pesticides like these in their homes.  With the warm weather all year long, the fleas and ticks love our beloved pets.  I don’t believe in coexistence with these blood suckers so I kill them and keep them out of my home.

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Dear golly goodness, I even feed pesticides to my pooches too.  What an awful owner to be feeding poisons to my dogs!  Well, I hate fleas and critters so the pooches have to eat these pesticide pills.

glaze rainx

I love keeping my car shiny and sparkly and have yet to find chemical free things to do this.  For now, I use my favorite resin glaze and Rain-X headlight polish to keep my car in tip top shape.  I apply this directly to the car and my skin comes in contact with this stuff.  Oh, the exposure to toxins!  Hmm.  Toxins or rust?  I pick toxins to keep my car nice.  I bet a lot of of antis do the same thing since I’ve seen them with some nice GMO fueled cars and trucks!

bleach

I like my clothes fresh and clean and a bit of bleach helps to accomplish this.  It’s toxic in the right dose.  It is also known as sodium and calcium hypochlorite.  Its LD50 is 192 mg/kg making it very toxic indeed.  Let’s not forget that that this is also used in food preparation, and even though it is synthetic, it is approved for use on organic food processing.  We even drink it and even swim in it!  It kills the germs that can make people sick which is why we use it.

To sum it up, take a look at Doc Cami Ryan’s table on toxicity.

Still Chemophobic?

Should you now be even more afraid of chemicals after finding out all of this?  No.  We rely on these chemicals for sanitation, food preparation, bug control, and other helpful reasons.  Remembering that something is a toxin at the right does is what makes it important to remember.  The more you know, the less you have to fear.  If someone is making you fearful, cross check them and you will find a different story.

It’s kind of like how County Council Members like Gary Hooser and Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff will go to rallies and tell people that GMOs are poisoning them and it’s being shoved down peoples’ throats.  Shortly after that, they sit together and have a GMO meal at a GMO restaurant.  Get off the fear mongering bandwagon and question what’s being said and actually listen to the answer.

 

 

 

 

 

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How Hawaii Will Achieve Food Sustainability: Jail a Farmer!

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Breaking News on GMOs: It made front page news today of the Star Advertiser that people want to have their genetically modified labeled.  Well, a majority of some 642 people apparently do.  So how are legislators attempting to satisfy what 487 people want?

They are going to do GE food labeling at the STATE level by the Department of Health!  (Of course the anti-GMO crowd will say that 62 countries label their GMOs!  So we should too!  When did Hawaii become a country?!)

Of course we can’t quite figure out why this law is needed in the first place, other than people like Nomi Carmona, who believes that lilikois grow on trees and that there are GMO melons in Kunia.  She apparently has an inherent “right to know.”  She and others can’t figure out that foods without the organic label isn’t GMO and it’s a travesty.  The others clamoring for this right to know also think that snowballs don’t melt because of chemtrails, since they apparently skipped out on science class to learn about something called sublimation.

And if you read SB2521 carefully, it is all spelled out there on how they are going to enforce such a law.  No one has yet to die of GMOs, but when and if it happens, our politicians will be there to save us from it with this label.  Just in case it doesn’t kills us, they were trying to make raw milk more available to help address that issue.

If one does not comply with this law after January 1, 2015, the penalties are as follows:

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Yes, if that locally grown biotech food and other products aren’t labeled, you can get fined, jailed, and sued.  Since the anti-GMO people can’t get it banned, the alternative is to jail the farmers and others who feed us.

Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety is also ready to work for some dough to sue food producers and farmers if this benign food is not labeled.  These two groups apparently had too many GMOs shoved down their throats laced with swigs of RoundUp unwittingly from being on Kauai several months ago, which caused them to develop a severe case of dementia as a result.  That’s why they never went back to defend the county as promised.  But hey, they had their colons cleansed back on the mainland with their organic food and are ready to jump back into the muck of Hawaii politics for the rubbah slippah folks!

Hawaii politicians who put their name to this kind of bill should be highly commended for their skillfulness to craft laws that really look towards the future.  The way to achieving affordable, local, and sustainable food supply is really simple.  Jail and fine those farmers for growing food for us.  That’s how our leaders do their best to support agriculture here.

It’s a really proud day in Hawaii when the politicians show their thanks to the farmers!  Welcome to your cold cell Mr. Farmer!

**If you agree with this way of achieving their goal, please thank them by sending this quick email .  The farmers really look forward to spending time in jail over a label.**

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Hawaii Leaders: Let’s Work Collaboratively in Agriculture

My mind is always thinking about things, reading, learning about what’s going on, etc.  It’s always busy.  I even dream about some of the issues that go on in Hawaii.  The other night, I had a crazy, innovative thought that might really solve a lot of problems with agriculture in Hawaii.  Read on…

Remember this poll on the Star Advertiser a few weeks ago?

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Note that these polls aren’t too reliable for multiple reasons, but the fact that homelessness is a top priority on the minds of the voters is telling.  No one can ignore the fact that there are homeless everywhere throughout our entire state and it’s an eye sore as well as saddening.

In the practice of occupational therapy, we know that by engaging in meaningful activity, we can restore well being physically and mentally.  As I watch many of these folks, they appear to be functionally doing pretty well.  I see them lowering themselves down to the sidewalk, laying down on it and getting up with ease much of the time.  Some of them can pace back and forth on highway medians begging for money for hours.  Others are able to squat down for hours outside of public places looking for handouts.  There is a lot of meaningless human energy here being wasted that could really be converted into meaningful work like being on a farm and growing food.  Voila!

Why not create a community based program that combines these two issues: growing food and homelessness. For one, you’d get people off of the street and into some form of meaningful activity and work.  They could work on a farm growing food as well as have a roof over their heads.  These people will be able to receive treatment for their conditions as well as not be an eyesore in public places.  They would also be doing something good for others and themselves by growing food.  That’s beautiful to me and I know it works based from my own experiences.

As a Star Advertiser Off the News post today said, we should end the food fight, and they are right.  Rep. Jessica Wooley wants more people to grow food and to keep agricultural lands in farming, while others want to take care of the homelessness problem here.  Let’s give Rep. Wooley her farms and walk the talk by doing what she proposes to do with it.  Then other’s like Rep. Tom Brower don’t have to get frustrated with the carts and homeless people all over his district.

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From an email sent out by Jessica Wooley’s camp showing how she thinks biotech is only about the agribusiness companies.  Note that HB147 is about firearms and not about GMOs.

We all know that Rep. Wooley isn’t a local person when she only stands for the activists and their demand to only go organic.  Local style is to take all sides and work together and come to an understanding and a plan.  As she states in her letter, she doesn’t like the “status quo.” You might not like how we do things here, but you can’t just come in and tear our livelihoods apart the way your activists demand.  It’s also too bad that other locals like Rep. Kaniela Ing have jumped on this fighting attitude.  That’s not the way we do things local style.  This is our Hawaii as much it is yours, but to point a finger at us law abiding family farms is basically standing on our yards telling us how to farm.  I don’t like this and many others too.  Your letter refers to fighting, and we don’t like to fight but are forced to.

Let the farmers farm, and go start up your small sustainable farms in the country.  Do your job for agriculture and work collaboratively for the sake of everyone involved.  Be creative in your plan, not just worried about your way or the highway attitude.  Take care of people too, including the homelessness by coordinating with other committees and do it.

The farmers have had enough of your activists attacks and here’s a way to give them what they want.  The attitude needs to change from “only organic” to “how can we solve this problem together.”  I ask that we end the fight now and actually do something purposeful with your talks about growing food and be that leader to stop the attacks against the biotech farmers big and small.  The bottom line is that we need all forms of agriculture.

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Live, eat, and drink farming rather than continuing to legislate what you don’t know on, and see a whole different side of the picture.  Take the path that will lead to helping people based upon evidence for it is better than leading us into a war.  That’s what a true leader would do.  Can you be that true leader and work with everyone?

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There Is Real Harm in Misinformation

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It is good that there is an effort to teach people how to grow food in their own gardens and possibly start up their own farms.  What is quite disturbing to me to hear that the Hawaii Organic Farming Association in alignment with Representative Jessica Wooley are touting that only organic is the way to go to doing this.  There is a major problem with this and papayas.

As much as people would like to think that there is no papaya ringspot virus around and that organic methods will prevent this, they are far from the truth.  No amount of dirt that Senator Russell Rudeman proposed as  a solution to this problem is going to solve it.  Nor is Jeffrey Smith coming up with any solutions either to deal with this.

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It’s even sadder when a senator continues to perpetuate myths that harm his very own constituents on his own island.  He doesn’t even support his own papaya farmers in Puna!

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What he fails to realize is that every single thing we eat is a result of some form of modification.  We humans have been tampering with nature since the beginning of civilization.  Genetic modification is just another form of plant breeding.  So technically, yes, Senator Ruderman, we are all eating a form of genetically modified food for thousands of years, regardless of how it was grown.

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While Ruderman and Wooley, both of whom are not farmers, keeping harping their organic wheels of misinformation, there are those who believe this campaign.  Those are the people who have the learn things the hard way.  You can ask any long time farmer, not yardener, if one can grown GMO free papayas here on Oahu.  Most will tell you that it is hard because the virus is still around.  Piling soil on the roots isn’t going to prevent the papaya from getting a disease spread by aphids.  Learning the hard way doesn’t hurt the yardeners much but it could do harm to those investing in growing the fruit for an income.

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Example of a non-GMO papaya tree infected by the virus next to a transgenic variety that remains unaffected. Trees were grown on the Windward side of Oahu.

Why would you knowingly grow a crop that is known to be at high risk for disease?  No farmer would ever risk their livelihoods for that, which is why they are fortunate to have the choice to grow such crops, and provide fruits to their customers year after year.  Misinformation against this choice hurts every farmer and every farmer to be.  Of course, it isn’t Jessica Wooley’s or Russell Ruderman’s investments that are being harmed, so they really don’t care and it’s glaringly obvious.

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Priced out of Paradise: What’s Hawaii Leaders Doing?

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Tweet made by Rep. Wooley back in March 2013.

Last night at the Kaneohe Neighborhood Meeting, I had the opportunity to talk to a fellow resident. She came to the meeting because she wanted to speak out about an issue she was having with where she lived. Her and fellow tenants live in an affordable housing complex and were being subjected to a huge increase in rent because the units were sold by the City and County to a mainland developer.

She continued to share her story with me about her life and why she came to the meeting. She has worked as an educational assistant at Castle High School. She’s employed but doesn’t make a whole lot of money so a rent increase will leave her with only $100 left over each month. She could live with her daughter but wants to remain as independent as possible.  It’s a struggle to make ends meet but she does it.

I really started to think about this more later on. There are a lot if people who are in a similar situation to her. Any local person will tell you that cost of living here in Hawaii has been rising. We hear and see it everywhere. Everything is going up: gas, electricity, basic groceries, property taxes, rents, car registrations, sewer fees, and so on. The only thing not going up is our income to keep up with this, and that is a major problem.  So many folks are struggling and living paycheck to paycheck as well as working multiple jobs to get by.  How can one have quality of life when most your time is spent working just to survive?

Earlier in the year, there was a Star Advertiser article that looked at the poverty issue here in Hawaii with kids.  The percentage of kids living in poverty was 12.5% in 2005.  This year’s Kid’s Count Report found that there were 51,000 kids living in poverty, which is up to 17%!  Then when you look at poverty in seniors, the AARP has found that nearly 20% fall into that category.  There are a lot of people in need in our state and what is being done to address this?  How can we make peoples’ lives better?

As I listened to her story, I really thought about the politicians of Hawaii and how they get into offices making lots of promises that we know can’t be kept.  Or there are issues that they bring up that don’t really help anyone other than their own personal agendas most of the time.  It was really nice to see many local looking folks, most of whom were born and raised here and had long time established families in our communities.  As the residents of Kulana Nani apartments sat in the meeting waiting for their turn to speak up, I could not help but think more about this issue.

In the back of the room, I noticed that Rep. Jessica Wooley came in and sat in the back.  When it was her turn to speak up, I had to ask her my question.  “As you know, many people are struggling to keep up with the cost of living here.  What are you planning to do as ag chair to help address this issue to keep things affordable as well as keep farmers in business?”

Her answer was that she realized that many farmers are at risk for going out of business and that we need them and she has various programs and things in the works to address this.  We all know that when costs go up for farmers, their products will cost more also, which is why local produce tends to be more pricey.  Not once did she go on about the labeling issue for biotech food in this answer.  I know for a fact that the labeling will mean that food costs will go up since manufacturers will have to specially label food just for our state.  How is that really going to help keep basic foodstuffs affordable for people who are already struggling?  She didn’t bring up that issue until my second question for her, which I’ll continue on another blog post.

Politicians like Wooley and others like her who have decided to align with the activist groups like Hawaii SEED, the Babes Against Biotech, Hawaii GMO Justice Coalition, Hawaii Farmers Union United, and the Hawaii Organic Farming Industry are all about self serving their own interests.  They are pushing to grow their industry that may increase availability of organic produce but at a cost that most folks can’t afford.  They have plenty of money to fly between islands, stay in hotels or other accommodations, or get funded by their supporters through subscriptions or gofundme.com and don’t have to work like the real local people.

When you have a lawyer for a husband who makes a decent salary and a property in San Francisco, it is easy to tout your agenda.  It’s easy to listen to activists’ cries for a label for food that many of them consume for the sake of pushing your agenda and forget about your real constituents that struggle for years.  Have some empathy for these people Rep. Wooley for they are who you need to work for.  A good leader will look at all the issues, use evidence and best practices to help solve the problem, which is always more complex that what it appears.  Remember that you were elected by the very people in your community and should be lending your ear to them first and foremost, and not to a Babes Against Biotech activist or an outside environmental attorney, whom you fondly call Andy Kimbrell.

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Listen to the Farmers Representative Wooley

A few weeks ago at the Kaneohe Neighborhood Board meeting, I had the chance to talk in person to Representative Wooley.  She mentioned that we can contact her as to what laws she’d like us to consider for the upcoming session.  I decided to take her up on it and sent her this email tonight.  If you’d like to share a word or two with her you can contact her at repwooley@gmail.com or repwooley@capitol.hawaii.gov

Aloha Rep. Wooley,

I spoke with you the other night at the Kaneohe Neighborhood Board meeting and would like to take you up on the offer as far as what kind of legislation I’d like to see regarding agriculture in Hawaii.
As a daughter of a long time farmer and farming family for nearly 4 decades, I really think that as a leader, Hawaii needs to consider the bigger picture.  Your statement to me that we need to change the meaning of agriculture is very disturbing because for Hawaii. It is not only food that needs to be grown here.  We have many other thriving industries here from seeds to nursery plants and other non-food crops that would not fall under your umbrella definition.  If we want to grow more food, just going after the seed industry isn’t going to solve the problem.  As a leader, I would hope that you could see that.  That is a very linear way of looking at the problem which ultimately never solves anything.
If the goal is to grow more food in Hawaii, we have to look at all the issues that affect why we aren’t more self sufficient.  Look at the whole system to address the best way to reach the intended goal.  When you look at those issues like energy costs, labor, supplies, land issues, and the other factors, you can have a better view of a more holistic plan of solving this issue.  The problem has to be solved systemically.  Your simple solution of changing the meaning of agriculture to growing of food and asking for label for biotech food does nothing to make food more likely to be grown in Hawaii. It places a line between farmers and that is not what is needed.  As a leader for the agriculture committee, how can you best serve the farmers, not just a certain faction of them but all farmers?
Does siding with one kind of farmer do anyone any favors?  No, it doesn’t.  You as a leader need to band together all farmers to solve these problems.  That is the responsible thing to do.  Where does the research and evidence lead to?  That should be your guide through all of this.
I must also note that your broad statement that there is no regulation about GMOs is patently false.  If that were the case, why is it taking such a long time to get through the process to be approved?  I’d really appreciate it if you’d be more honest when talking about the issues.  You know darn well that there is many tests that have to be presented before anything is approved by the FDA, EPA, and USDA.  You may not be happy with the process, but don’t state outright lies about the issue.
I’m counting on you, as well as many the younger generation of farmers, who are hesitant on whether or not to continue family farms in this current environment.  They need to know if you are really going to be a proponent of agriculture and education and plan to secure the future of ag technologies in Hawaii since you stated that there will be an education campaign.  It may not make you popular to your activists but do the responsible thing for the real people who work and support agriculture in Hawaii.
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Jessica Wooley Wants to Redefine Agriculture Rather Sink Farmers

I realized last year, with the brouhaha of the failed labeling law, that we do not have enough local voices in politics. I decided to start participating in the neighborhood board meetings. I have been attending these meetings monthly since June this year.

At this last meeting something very peculiar happened. Jill Tokuda and Ikaika Anderson’s representative attended as usual and are very regular in their participation to notify the community of what’s going on and what they are working on. The others like Clayton Hee, Cynthia Thielen, and Ken Ito, are non-existent. Jessica Wooley will send a representative twice but never attended it herself since June. At this past month’s meeting, no one on the board recognized her, and as a result, and mistook her for another presenter.

She did a quick report on what she plans to do as the agriculture chair. Basically she wants to redefine what agriculture means in Hawaii, referring to calling it the growing of food. I asked her what she will be doing to help farmers. She also talked about attempting to get that label on biotech derived foods and stated, “there is no regulation” on it. Of course she continued stating that consumers should be able to know and that papaya farmers are already doing it for export and it won’t shouldn’t affect them by doing it here. She did also state that, “I would not ban GMOs.”

As I listened to her answers and statements, I started to think more about what she was saying. Okay so you feel that there is no regulation, which is completely false, and that a label is going to suddenly create this sense if transparency that her “constituents” want. Something doesn’t make any sense here.

Why is a label suddenly going to solve the transparency and so called “right to know issue” after you just stated that there is no regulation? If you are so concerned about no regulation, then why don’t you work at the federal level to start these regulations that you claim there is none? Doesn’t that make more sense? If you were to travel to somewhere else, as a consumer, you won’t be able to get your right to know since there is nothing across the board by state. A consumer could unwittingly eat GMOs at a restaurant and that would be such a travesty too because that is not labeled!  Even the locally produced foods like papaya seed salad dressings to some locally made taro chips would all need a label too so that these folks’ right to know are fulfilled and that they are suddenly enlightened by this label!  Poor Hawaii constituents would not have their rights respected Ms. Wooley if they were to go to a Las Vegas Trader Joes! You’re not protecting peoples’ rights! What a non-tragedy!

Of course Ms. Wooley doesn’t show her transparency when it comes down to who’s feeding her this information. She is well connected to anti-GMO groups like Center for Food Safety attorney, Andrew Kimbrell, and is married to David Henken of Earthjustice. Take a look at what these people say about why they want this label from the Genetic Literacy Project.

genetic literacy

Knowing all of this, I asked her if she was aware of what is happening to many small farmers in the community. I shared with her, as well as all the board members present, about how some farmers reported being asked if their bananas and produce were organic.  When it was told to the person that it wasn’t, the questioner tossed it aside very rudely and marched away in disgust.  Jessica raised her eyebrows stating that she was not aware of this and it should have turned into a police report of some kind.  I told her that these farmers are afraid to speak up against this and become targets.  Local people don’t speak up against these activists for that very reason.  I’m not sure which planet she lives on but these anti-GMO activists have been doing this for some time already and there was a public incident with this already that made the news.

We all know that there is a lot of hope in the anti-GMO movement that somehow this is going to make people eat healthier.  Do you actually think that a little sticker on a package is going to help that?  When those fat free labels appeared on food stuff did it make people eat better?  Uh, no.  Shame on her for thinking that this really is going to make a difference all to earn more money from consumers marketed with fear.  That’s where shortsighted thinking in politicians get us no where.  A label isn’t going to change people’s weights! Education about healthy eating is!

If Jessica Wooley is really wanting the focus of agriculture to be on food and growing it, I suggest she rethink her strategy.  Making more laws against farmers isn’t going to make more people want to get into farming.  It already is a difficult business to stay afloat given the high costs of land, labor, and supplies.  It doesn’t help that weather, disease, and other uncontrollable variables can devastate your whole year’s worth of work either.  If you make laws to limit the tools and research in agriculture, that itself will make it even less viable as a profession.  Does that mean your out to kill farming that isn’t organic because it sure appears that way?

I was sent some commentary about the petition that was posted to help open up a forum for others to speak up for our farmers.  This has created a small storm of controversy in the GMO Free Groups of course and someone sent this comment to me.

selma

I find it amazing that her GMO Free followers actually get it but they just don’t connect the dots about what they say.  Yes, farmers are poor and why are you making it harder for them to do their job Ms. Wooley and GMO Free groups?  Wouldn’t it be better to ask them, “How can we make your job easier so you can do what you need?”  That would be a much better option then outright stating that you need to label your produce because your right to fair treatment is outweighed by the needs of activists.  That’s a pure kick in the face to our farmers.

If Wooley is about fulfilling her role as someone who wants to make Hawaii better as a transplanted local, she needs to take off the anti-GMO hood and stop wasting our taxpayer dollars on that little label of hers.  If she really wants to help people live better, have more farmers, and grow more food, she needs to get off her “right to know” “label it” podium and reinvest those monies and resources back to the farmers and towards educating the public about healthy eating if her motives were right.  But we all know the truth about her agenda here which is plain to see where she wants to take small papaya farmers…  Into extinction.

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