By JOHN BURNETT Tribune-Herald staff writer ADVERTISING Hawaii’s papaya industry is now exporting the genetically engineered Rainbow papaya to Japan after the Japanese government approved commercial shipment of the fruit on Dec. 1. “The first shipment went out maybe two
By JOHN BURNETT
Tribune-Herald staff writer
Hawaii’s papaya industry is now exporting the genetically engineered Rainbow papaya to Japan after the Japanese government approved commercial shipment of the fruit on Dec. 1.
“The first shipment went out maybe two weeks or so ago,” said Delan “Rusty” Perry, vice president of the Hawaii Papaya Industry Association.
Perry said the first shipment totaled 2,500 pounds of Rainbow papaya, which is modified to be resistant to the papaya ringspot virus.
“For the industry, being able to ship Rainbow papaya to Japan after working on the project for 13 years is really, really big,” Perry said. “There seems to be a lot of planting going on right now. The Rainbow seed seems to be in high demand. As a matter of fact, demand, at least last month, outdistanced supply, and we’re working to catch up on that. In general, farmers are hopeful that it’s going to be helpful for them.”
The Rainbow variety was approved by the USDA in 1998. The papaya ringspot virus, which is transmitted by aphids, had cut Hawaii’s papaya production by 40 percent earlier in the decade.
Dennis Gonsalves, director of the USDA’s Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, said the effort to deregulate the Rainbow papaya in Japan took more than a decade because studies needed to be done to prove the transgenic papayas are no different chemically from the unmodified papayas already approved for export.
“We had to develop data and we had very little funding so the manpower that I could put on the project was fairly limited,” said Gonsalves, a retired Cornell University virologist who helped to develop the Rainbow papaya with University of Hawaii and USDA scientists. “Japan did not do things to hold us up. The plus on this approach is that it really was a grass-roots approach by some lowly scientists as us working with (the Hawaii Papaya Industry Association). And it is a breakthrough case. This is very distinct from large, well-funded efforts of large companies.”
USDA Under Secretary Michael Scuse said in a statement that Japan’s approval of transgenic papaya is great news for American agricultural exports in general.
“This announcement will ensure that Hawaii’s papaya producers help to drive our agricultural economy by expanding exports, creating jobs and strengthening our nation’s competitiveness,” Scuse said.
Puna grows 95 percent of the state’s papayas, and growers have regained access to a country that was once a major market. In 1996, annual sales of Hawaii papayas in Japan totaled about $15 million. That figure dropped to $1 million by 2010 as U.S. exporters waited for Japan to approve the genetically enhanced fruit.
Perry said the effort to market the Rainbow in Japan is at “the very beginning.” One step in that process is the 46th Supermarket Trade Show, which will be held Feb. 1-3 in Tokyo.
“We’re going to be talking to supermarkets in Japan directly,” he said. “It’s opening a gateway to Japan, but I think there’s a lot of other export markets that have been watching this and are intrigued. Japan has, if not the best, then one of the best food-safety programs in the world. What they say and what they do goes beyond what happens in Japan, and I think that’s going to be big in the future, too.”
One distinct possibility for a new export market is China, the world’s most populous country with more than 1.3 billion people. According to Gonsalves, efforts to deregulate the Rainbow there are ongoing.
“I think it is going to be faster, given the vast amount of data we accumulated in the U.S. and Japan cases,” he said. “The market could be very large in China. (It) should really help the Hawaiian papaya industry.”
The Associated Press contributed.
Email John Burnett at
jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
