Greatness

by Joni Kamiya, Hawaii Farmers Daughter, Jan 25, 2025 

Let’s take a look at the definition of greatness:

The quality or state of being great (as in size, skill, achievement, or power)

As one can see, there is an emphasis on size, skill, achievement, or power. It could be all factors combined to reflect on the definition of this word.

As we all know, there is a great divide in our communities and has been for some time. Politics are dividing us and much of it comes from slogans and an effort to push it even further. This gives me great concern for the kind of future my children will have to face.

How do we are regular citizens bridge this divide when out current leaders don’t even embody greatness to begin with?

Being divided is nothing new and we must look back on history to learn how to move forward from there. Leaders who stood for change with a vision to impact greater society taught us what was needed to move forward to become a tolerant nation. Those leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King paved the way for greatness for all people and it would be wise for us to have that share a cohesive dream.

I started this blog to speak out for the divide that I saw happening here in Hawaii with agriculture. The invasive mainland activists decided to use my home state to stir the anti-GMO pot and wreck our communities and they sure did.

Thanks to invasive, well-funded mainland groups like the Center for Food Safety and now Beyond Pesticides, they spread fear and disinformation across the state about GMO technology. When their narrative was partially crumbled that small farmers did use this technology, they switched to the pesticide issue. Their fear and repeated claims convinced out legislators to punitive regulations against farms despite any actual evidence for such rules. The legislators were soaking in all the claims of illness without any question, including the claims of activist Dustin Barca, who ran into me in clouds of cigarette smoke just before the hearing.

Thanks to the likes of Tulsi Gabbard and their ties to the organic industry and Russian disinformation bots, Hawaii lost its focus on the real problems we faced like little fire ants, coconut rhinoceros beetles, rapid ohia diseases, coffee berry borer, dengue fever, and now bird flu. The activists are nicely paid from outside entities to lobby at the capitol on the organic industry and not on the behalf of the local people. We have significant issues to deal with yet a small group of legislators with no substantiated evidence want to slam our shrinking farm community even further. WHO wants to farm when no one is listening to your side? It is disgusting to see them walk around Ag day smiling claiming to support farms and eating our products then legislating in the opposite direction from the vision.

Greatness of a community cannot happen when our leaders do not exemplify it themselves. Launching attacks in the name of ideology is the basis of suffering that too many of those who feed us have faced, whether it be farmers or fishermen. Our communities can become great when our leaders actual work to support us and not attack us with disinformation.

Disinformation against farmers caused my dad to be harassed and brother to be threatened with a knife. It led to a restraining order against this person.