Salon is the latest national media outlet to report on the intensifying debate in Hawaii over genetically modified crops and all that comes with it.

Reporter Adam Skolnick highlights concerns over cancer, pesticide sprayings near schools and a controversial bill that Kauai County Council member Gary Hooser introduced this year.

The article also calls out one of the seed company’s experts who tried to claim that there really isn’t that much pesticide spraying on the Garden Isle. Here’s an excerpt:

At first glance, it appears that Kauai uses less than half the pesticides of the heaviest user, Kentucky. But read the fine print and you’ll discover that while other state measurements represent annual usage, tiny Kauai’s is calculated for a single growing season. And we know that there are at least two, and often three growing seasons in Hawaii, which means the amount of RUPs sprayed per acre on this small island dwarf that of all seventeen states during their biggest ever pesticide usage years. That is misinformation at its most egregious, but may explain why the companies are so dead set against disclosure.

Read the full Salon story here. And check out past Civil Beat articles here. 

— Nathan Eagle

Corn fields in Waimea. (Pat via Flickr)