On Tuesday Civil Beat published a story on how pro-GMO businesses like Monsanto are spending tens of thousands of bucks to help sponsor a meeting this week of state agricultural officials in Kailua-Kona.

The meeting, an annual event that has not been held in Hawaii since 1966, is being hosted by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

One of the speakers at the meeting was Margery Bronster, a former Hawaii attorney general who told meeting attendees why she’s fought with the counties over the cultivation of genetically modified organisms.

Bronster explained, according to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, that the state’s 1978 constitutional convention determined that Hawaii’s “guiding document” has held that it is the state, and not the counties, that is responsible for protecting and promoting agriculture.

Bronster, the Tribune-Herald notes, represented a group of agricultural producers who sued Kauai, Maui and Hawaii counties for enacting bans or limits on the growing and testing of GMO products.

Asked about Bronster’s view, Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille, who has led Big Island efforts against GMOs, told the Tribune-Herald, “To me, the bottom line is: Why are the counties and municipalities doing this? What is not right?”

Wille added, “Because people come to the level of government that is closest to them and say, ‘the state isn’t protecting us; the feds aren’t protecting us.’ Regardless of what happens with these lawsuits, how do we protect all of those farmers who want to grow non-GMO?”