The great avocado boom of … ?

Local avocado farmers are giddy with anticipation, and rightly so, about a U.S. Department of Agriculture proposal to relax restrictions on sending Hawaii Sharwils to parts of the mainland United States. Sharwils are the state’s dominant commercial avocado variety, and their export volume could virtually explode if the USDA proposal goes through.

Exports were curtailed in 1992 after oriental fruit fly larvae were discovered in an avocado cleared for export, and the industry here has been limping along ever since. Currently the only state to which the avocados can be sent without fumigating or otherwise treating them to kill the pest — processes that are said to degrade the fruits’ quality — is cold Alaska, where the pest is unlikely to survive even if it happened to be in any of the avocados and survived the trip.

The USDA, which hasn’t set a deadline for by when it will decide, is proposing that Sharwil exports be allowed for 32 states where it is similarly cold, but not Oregon, California, Texas, Florida and other mostly southern states. Sounds good to us, and please pass the guacamole.

Never mind: GMOs put back on the shelf

No doubt that the furor over whether genetically modified organism (GMO) produce sold in Hawaii should be labeled will continue throughout the year before re-emerging at next year’s Legislature.

But for now, the current Legislature has officially washed its hands of the issue — first shelving the labeling bill, then this week even foregoing a resolution that would have called for state agencies to study the GMO issue.

"There’s just no purpose except to distract us from the real issue," Rep. Jessica Wooley, a labeling supporter, said of the proposed study.

While it is true that the "study" or "task force" route is often used to buy lawmakers time from making the hard decisions, there would seem to be some value in having this particular study done on GMOs. Anti-labeling industry forces, for example, have trotted out the cost-hardship excuse, and it would be good to see this justified or debunked. Oh well, as we said, we’ll be talking GMOs again next year.