HILO » Dennis Gonsalves, the head of the federal Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, says a pending county law banning genetic engineering of coffee and taro is so poorly written that it would ban conventional plant breeding.

Gonsalves' center is doing genetic engineering on anthuriums and pineapples, not coffee or taro. It is also doing follow-up work on genetically engineered papayas, work done in the 1980s by Gonsalves at Cornell University that is widely credited with saving the Hawaii papaya industry from ringspot virus disease.

The taro and coffee engineering ban, introduced by mayoral candidate Angel Pilago and passed Oct. 8 by the County Council in a 9-0 vote, is now on the desk of Mayor Harry Kim, who has to decide whether he will let it become law or veto it.

Kim spoke against the bill earlier and said he wants Hawaii to aid world food production.

  An informal opinion from county attorney Lincoln Ashida says the bill would not ban conventional plant breeding. The bill itself clearly says that in one place but is less clear in another place.

Some scientists and farmers are nervous anyway.

Gonsalves says he started genetic engineering of papayas in 1984, knowing that ringspot disease destroyed the papaya industry on Oahu and could move to the Big Island. He needed 14 years to get engineered papaya seeds ready for distribution in 1998.

By then, the virus had reduced Big Island papaya production from 68.5 million pounds in 1992 to 31 million pounds in 1997. With engineered papaya, production rose again to 43 million pounds in 2001. But it has since declined steadily.

Eden Peart, owner of a small Hamakua farm with mixed crops, supports the ban on genetic engineering and says it did the papaya industry no good.

Puna papaya grower Rusty Perry says bad weather for four years, plus three new insects and a new fungus, forced production back down.

Gonsalves disputes reasons given for a ban.

Opponents say it is “;unnatural.”; Gonsalves' team uses a bacterium designed by nature to insert genes in other organisms. He admits the artificial part of the process is scientists deciding which genes to insert — rather than the bacterium deciding.

Some opponents claim engineered food causes allergies. Gonsalves says tough proteins that refuse to break down in the stomach cause allergies. Testing easily identifies them for elimination, he says.

University of Hawaii researcher Susan Miyasaka has completed engineering Chinese taro to help Kauai taro farmers, who regularly lose half their crop to fungus. The uproar against engineered food is so great, she will probably have to destroy her work, she said.