ECO-TERRORISM? Hawaii’s Genetically Modified Papayas Attacked.

Thousands of papaya trees were chopped down on 10 acres of Big Island farmland under the cover of night last month. Hawaii County police said the destruction appeared to be done with a machete, but there are no leads and few clues beyond the tree stumps and all the fruit left to rot.

“It’s hard to imagine anybody putting that much effort into doing something like that,” said Delan Perry, vice president of the Hawaii Papaya Industry Association. “It means somebody has to have passionate reason.”

A growing theory among farmers is that the attack was an act of eco-terrorism, a violent protest against the biotechnology used in growing papayas here. Police did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The majority of papayas grown on 170 farms on Oahu and the Big Island are genetically modified.

University of Hawaii scientists developed the genetically modified fruit that’s resistant to a ring spot virus that wiped out production on Oahu in the 1950s and was detected in the Puna district on the Big Island in the 1990s.

The culprit should be confined to a desert island with nothing but non-modified papayas to eat. Hope there’s no ring spot virus outbreak . . .

UPDATE: Reader Greg Geil writes: “Isn’t it ironic how left-wingers accuse the right of being “anti-science” for being skeptical of climate change, yet when it comes to biotechnology that produces an abundance of “genetically modified” food, the left is against that science. The original ‘green revolution’ was about using science to increase crop yields, yet liberals are strongly anti-science when it comes to that green revolution. Liberals are also anti-science when if comes to food safety (irradiation).”