[From the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, April 7, 2000: "Big Isle papaya crops
tainted", Front Page]
Agriculture board chair Nakatani said market economics have forced the
papaya industry to rethink its much-vaunted genetically-engineered plant
strains.
The japanese market, looked to as a source of 40 percent of potential sales,
has slammed the door on transgenic fruit, Nakatani said.
'This presents an impetus... to get the [nongenetically-engineered] Kapoho
Solo variety back to its place of prominence in the Puna district,' Nakatani
said.
Meanwhile, growers said they're getting a far better price here for old
varieties.
Kapoho Solo cells for 60 cents a pound, while the genetically-altered
Rainbow papayas fetch a paltry 20 cents per pound, they said.
Durkan said Rainbow papayas have a brief shelf life before turning mushy,
and they tend to be oversized, making them more expensive to ship.
To top things off, the Rainbow variety, a hybrid, is showing signs od being
less disease-resistant than advertised, Durkan said.
'It's under considerable virus pressure,' Durkan said.
More than 250 farmers statewide are growing Rainbow and SunUp transgenic
varieties, whose seeds were released in mid-1998 as the first
genetically-engineered fruit sold in the U.S. Developed over two decades,
the seeds wre engineered to resist the ringspot virus. The virus reduced the
Big Island's yearly papaya production from a peak of 72 million pounds in
1989 to 28 million pounds in 1999.
Big Island papaya farmers produce 96% of Hawaii's papayas.