How I Wish I Were a Papaya Princess…

by Joni Kamiya, Hawaii Farmer’s Daughter, July 14, 2014

Someone sent me the following screenshot a few days ago about what the activists are saying about me.  They are always chattering here and there about me so I know I must be ruffling some feathers with them.  From stating that I’m poisoning my children or being infertile and full of cancer, they have lots of wonderful things to say about me speaking up against them.  It never bothers me because what they say only reflects on how they really are as people.

It’s funny how she now calls me the “GMO papaya princess and vicious attacker of the environmental and food agvocates.”  Seriously, this is how small minded these activists think that by putting out facts about what her and her associates do is considered attacks.  Facts really do hurt these folks apparently.

Naomi Carmona, who has never farmed a day in her life or ran a business or grew anything for that matter, is now a professional in agriculture.  That’s pretty amazing.  She suddenly has expertise in agronomy, integrated pest management, human resources, accounting, marketing, public relations, social media, driving and repairing heavy machinery, sales and marketing, and food safety management.  Those are all skills that farmers like my dad has and it totally overshadows the skills of any activists for that matter.

There’s so much talk from activists about how they want more local food grown here but then they seek to lobby laws against farmers like the labeling law and pesticide laws.  Farmers already have to deal with a huge load of laws from labor laws, food safety, environmental laws, tax laws, and so on.  Then we want to pile on more regulations on them and point fingers and tell them, we want you to grow more food to this certain amount.  Of course, no one talked to them to see if it wad doable and what issues limit them if any.  If people really want more local food, they will seek to make farming easier and more attractive as a career, not dissuade people from it.  You can’t just say one thing and then do another as things just don’t work that way.

If we want to meet these goals of more local food, we’d better start coming to the table together to see why it’s not happening and end the attacks.  This kind of activism is dangerous to problem solving and only makes the situation worse. Farming communities can’t work together when outside people keep leveling attacks in misinformation.  They are left to defend their work and are off of their fields.  That’s not a good thing.

Why do I keep speaking out against this kind of hobby activism fueled by fear and misinformation?  I don’t want Hawaii to be filled with fearfulness of what the scientific process really is and the tools available to grow food.  We should have open minds to discovery and further research on how we can improve what we’re doing, not just worried about the food we eat and whether it’s organic!  We have the potential to help others in the world and meet our goals, if we allow it but many are using poorly sourced information and the heavy handed tactics of a wealthy, tax free, lobby to influence lawmaking here in Hawaii.

I really do wish I was that papaya princess that Naomi thinks I am.  I would have never spent hours after hours working my dad’s farm as a kid or worked in the papaya lab to help save his crops.  I took a lot of science classes like chemistry, biology, organic chemistry, biochemistry, human anatomy and physiology, and physics as well as a business law class to open my mind to the world.  I got a lot of dirt under my hands from NOT being a princess and I still love it.  A princess would never get hate mails or nasty messages from Naomi’s friends like Jessica Mitchell, Terez Amato, and Dustin Barca.   I would never have to work a full time job in the day because a princess never has to work and can do whatever she wishes.

I also don’t sit around watch videos that are mean to scare me and prefer to read science journals and magazines to know what’s happening in research around the world and here.  My mind seeks information from research on how we can do things better and cleaner.  I don’t watch scary stories made up by pseudoscientists and prefer to learn about someone named Norman Borlaug, since he’s the reason why most of us, including you, don’t have to farm and are free to protest across the islands.

Unfortunately, the reality is that I’m not a princess.  I’m a farmer’s daughter.  I’ve seen the things my dad has gone through to get where he is now and it has not been a pretty journey.  We were never rich and had the nicest cars or clothes and latest gadgets.  I never got to eat out a nice restaurants or enjoy expensive things.  Everything I had was earned through my own work.  I have never created funding accounts to pay for me to protest or attend anti-GMO parties.  I don’t go to concerts to protest things I don’t know anything about and spend money on expensive food.  I don’t have that luxury at all and don’t believe in earning a living that way either.  I prefer to stick to facts and live that honest life to my values taught by the hardest working person I know on this earth, my dad.

So Naomi and the rest of the anti-GMO club, you can keep reading your Natural News, World Truth, and other naturalistic fallacy websites touting “your” facts, but if plan on tearing apart farmers that actually grow food and communities that rely on agriculture, you bet I’ll continue to expose the truth about this hobby activism.

And by the way, can you please let your fellow antis know that we’d love to have these campaign signs repaired or reimbursed to Arthur Brun and Arryl Kaneshiro?  That’s the pono thing to do and I’m sure you’ll see to it that this is remedied.