Disappeared News

The growing struggle in Hawaii to eject growers of GMO crops in Hawaii and label their products in stores is beginning to achieve national attention. A story by Imani Altemus-Williams, identified as working with Occupy Wall Street and with indigenous causes (among other activities) in New York City, has been published today on the popular Nation of Chang website. 

Because Hawaii is geographically isolated from the broader public, it is an ideal location for conducting chemical experiments. The island chain’s climate and abundant natural resources have lured five of the world’s largest biotech chemical corporations: Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Pioneer and BASF.  In the past 20 years, these chemical companies have performed over 5,000 open-field-test experiments of pesticide-resistant crops on an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 acres of Hawaiian land without any disclosure, making the place and its people a guinea pig for biotech engineering.

[Nation of Change, The Struggle to Reclaim Paradise: In Hawaiian indigenous culture, the very idea of GMOs is effectively sacrilegious, 4/12/2013]

The article is a good chronicle of the current struggle, and does not pull punches. It describes Hawaii as being ruled not by the “Big Five” of the past, but by the big five chemical companies.

It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to understand the influence that Monsanto and the other companies, acting through well-funded lobbyist organizations, have on our state legislators. It also documents Monsanto’s co-opting of the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at the University of Hawaii.

It will take more articles like this to raise awareness of what is happening in Hawaii. Be a citizen journalist: Check out the article. When you see articles like this, tweet them to your friends here and on the Continent.

Help pollinate the news media with the seeds of change.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 4/12/2013 08:12:00 AM