Display calls attention to bills on modified food

Several Molokai residents and University of Hawaii students have assembled a stone platform with a kii, or wooden statue, on the grounds of the state Capitol to bring attention to legislative bills that would require the labeling of genetically modified food in Hawaii stores.

Group spokesman Walter Ritte said the activists are lobbying at the state Legislature to pass the bills. He said the bills are being held in a joint committee that includes the committees on Energy and Environment and on Agriculture.

Ritte said while state Sen. Mike Gabbard, chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee, is willing to schedule a hearing on the bill, Agriculture Chairman state Sen. Clarence Nishi­­hara is not, meaning the bill will not advance.

Nishihara said he held the bills because he felt the legislation had no health basis and appealed to alarmists.

He said much of the food eaten today is produced by genetically modified plants, including cereal and corn syrup, and that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has made no determination that genetically modified food is a danger to consumers.

Ritte said his group feels consumers should have a choice on whether to buy genetically modified food.

He said residents are complaining about the dust entering their homesteads, the ocean and fishponds from areas where genetically modified crops are grown.

"Everybody is really angry about what the corporations are doing," he said.

Ritte said the kii, erected Feb. 6, represents the image of the first man, Haloa, and his sacred relationship with the taro plant and other food.

Ritte said the group believes genetically modified plants represent a threat to human health and the environment.

The group has a state permit to leave the platform and statue on the Capitol grounds until Feb. 29, according to state Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Ben Villaflor.