A coalition of local farmers and environmental groups recently filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit to defend a Hawai‘i County ordinance that imposes a moratorium on the expansion of genetically engineered crops on the Big Island. Sustainable agriculture nonprofit Center for Food Safety and three Hawai‘i Island farmers asked the court permission to join as defendants in a biotech industry lawsuit challenging the County of Hawai‘i’s Ordinance 13-121. The ordinance regulates genetically engineered organisms to prevent their environmental and economic harms, such as contamination of organic and conventional crops, wild plants and the associated pesticide use. The Center for Food Safety, a national, nonprofit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture, and Earthjustice, the nation’s premier nonprofit environmental law organization, jointly represent the coalition.
