Printed in the Maui News

Letters to the Editor, Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Education, Not Legislation, Needed to Resolve Taro Dispute

The mere presence of controversy should not cause government to over-react or over-regulate. On the issue of a moratorium on genetic modification research of taro, we need more education, not more legislation. Rep. Clift Tsuji, chair of the House Agricultural Committee, is to be commended for endorsing this approach.

Taro has many challenges in Hawaii, and is struggling. Do we really want to have our researchers unnecessarily restricted in their ability to meet these and future challenges?

No Hawaiian taro has been genetically engineered. The Chinese taro bun long has been engineered. Since there is no evidence they hybridize, where is the injured party that needs legislative recourse?

The College of Tropical Agriculture & Human Resources, UH-Manoa has a long history of responding to farmers’ requests for overcoming production challenges, and we use a variety of approaches including modern techniques of plant breeding, such as genetic modification.

For more than 100 years, CTAHR has worked with taro farmers to tackle problems, and we took the initiative over 70 years ago to assemble and maintain a collection of the remaining Hawaiian taro varieties.

We follow many truths down many paths, and to have a manufactured crisis threaten this proven approach should be unacceptable to the public and their policymakers.

Harold Keyser
Maui County Administrator
CTAHR, Kahului