Big Island groups offer $30,000 reward for information on hacked papaya trees

[ellisonz]

By Star-Advertiser staff
POSTED: 12:40 p.m. HST, Dec 13, 2011

A $30,000 reward is being offered for information concerning the destruction of 10 acres of papaya trees in three adjoining fields in Puna in July.

The three properties are owned by separate people in the Kapoho area.

The reward is being jointly funded by the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association, the Hawaii Papaya Industry Association and the Mayor Billy Kenoi.

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The scene is near the area where police said 8,500 trees were destroyed a year earlier.

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/135541263.html?id=135541263

Some people speculate that this is over farmers growing the GMO Rainbow papaya variety. Even if their goals are noble, this is not the proper way to express them

[DCKit]

1. Hackers vs. GMO crops.... tough call without far more information (beyond the article). nt

[ellisonz]

2. It's kinda a mystery.

That's been the most plausible explanation because it's a group of people doing it. Sad for the farmers and their employees.

[saras]

3. If they are fighting GMO, they're NOT expressing themselves, they're trying to stop contamination

...and that would require the destruction and death of the trees, not political or social action.

Once the GM genes get moved into other species, it's too late to stop them by killing the trees.

[ellisonz]

4. They're committing criminal acts and destroying livelihoods.

UH has a seed bank: http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/seed/seeds.asp#papaya

There's no genetic mixing beyond the GMO. How would such a thing even be possible if distinct species aren't cross-bread ?

I would add that both GMOs are restricted: **These seeds cannot be exported out of the state of Hawaii and require an educational session before purchase.

BTW sunrise papaya is the delicious.

[ellisonz]

5. Some more stories on this issue:

Frontline: The story of the Rainbow Papaya, a Hawaiian biotech story. Excerpt from PBS "Harvest of Fear."

Vandals Destroy 3 Big Island Papaya Farms

Big Island Farmers Hold Meeting On Papaya Vandalism

If my memory is correct there was an incident on Oahu too; these people are organized and committed.

The bottom-line is this: the Hawaii papaya industry would be dead without the GMOs, and that wouldn't help anyone. Don't like the GMOs, there are farms that grow the non-GMOs but they're more expensive and out of the price range of most consumers in Hawaii. This just hurts working people and solves nothing.