Up To Their Ears Indeed

SUBHEAD: Dow has been fighting transparency and labeling of GMO food products. What is this corn they donate to our Food Bank.

By Michael Shooltz on 8 July 2014 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2014/07/up-to-their-ears-indeed.html)


Image above: Dow Agroscience’s John Rapozo is joined by Leona Perez of the Kauai Independent Food Bank loading freshly harvested corn onto a pallet Thursday afternoon as Burt Vidinha, Roger Aguda and Roy Rapozo of Dow Agroscience box the load in the Dow truck at the KIFB facility in Nawiliwili. From TGI article below.

Friday, July fourth's Garden Island featured a story titled "Up To Their Ears" which described the donation of a truckload of 4,000 pounds of "corn" to the Kauai Island Independent Food Bank.  

The donor was Dow Agrosciences. It went on to state, "The big rig wheeling in meant there was a lot of work to do." I couldn't agree more.  It left a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I thought of our fellow Kauaians consuming that toxic corn.

Dow Agrosciences is one of the Chemical Companies suing the County to avoid the disclosure requirements of Bill 2491/960. They are also one of the Chemical Companies spending millions to defeat labeling bills around the country which would require telling consumers when they are eating GMO products. Is it reasonable to assume that they would suddenly become transparent about what kind of corn they are delivering to the Food Bank here on Kauai?

Only two days ago I had a conversation with a local man from Waimea. He is a hunter and regularly hunts for pig and goat on the west side of Kauai. He shared with me that he and his fellow hunters are concerned because they are finding that the pigs and goats that they are now harvesting are often filled with tumors, both externally on their skin, and internally,  and that they have to just leave them where they died as fertilizer. He was the second west side hunter that has shared the same information with me.

The pigs and goats on the west side are filled with tumors. They drink the water, breath the air, and feed in the test fields. Of course this is only anecdotal evidence.

The chemical companies continue to dump one thousand pounds of toxins on Kauai every day, seven thousand pounds per week, and 30,000 pounds per month. The Garden Island article was quite correct.  "The big rig wheeling in meant there was a lot of work to do.



Up to Their Ears

By Dennis Fujimoto on 4 July 2014 for the Garden Island News -
(http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/up-to-their-ears/article_99f8a2b4-0346-11e4-a366-0019bb2963f4.html)


Leona Perez of the Kauai Independent Food Bank was just waiting for the close of day Thursday when the truck from Dow Agrosciences rolled into the loading area.

The big rig wheeling in meant there was a lot of work to do.

“I was OK with that until they opened the gates,” Perez said. “The corn, all loose ears, was filled all the way to the gate. I wasn’t going to unload all of that.”

Kelvin Moniz, the KIFB executive director, said he was on his way to attend Freedom Fest at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at the invitation of the base commander.

“I couldn’t let the guys do that by themselves,” Moniz said. “I turned around and came back to help.”
As the fresh corn was being unloaded, Randell Giminiz rolled in with the van overflowing with food from Kojima Store which celebrated its final day on June 30.

“This is stuff which was left over when the doors closed,” Moniz said, estimating there was more than 3,000 pounds of food. “We don’t have time to weigh all this in before the July 4 holiday, but it’s more than $5,000. Randell has been working at Kojima’s all day.”

A note from Kojima’s to The Garden Island states that “even after closing its doors this past June, Kojima’s is still expressing its mahalo to Kauai by generously donating more than $13,000 of food to the Kauai Independent Food Bank.”

Moniz juggled the Kojima Store arrival with the unloading of freshly harvested corn.

“Stephanie Iona coordinated this effort,” Moniz said. “Dow planted an acre of corn for distribution to the Freedom Fest and to its employees. Those ears were hand-picked and delivered, Wednesday.

But Dow needed to clear the acre of the remaining corn and used a machine to harvest everything Thursday and deliver to the two food banks.”

Moniz estimated the Dow Agroscience contribution at about 4,000 pounds.
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