Few issues around Hawaii have been as contentious over the last few years as genetically modified foods, aka GMOs.

The conventional wisdom in our community is that genetic modification is something creepy or even sinister. It’s no wonder people have concerns about the safety of food.

Readers should know that one of the most successful GMO products on the market was created specifically for Hawaii farmers. I thought it would be useful for readers to revisit the genesis of Hawaii’s GMO papaya and how Dennis Gonsalves, a scientist from Kohala, saved this crop.

Hawaii’s papaya growers produce about 28 million pounds per year with a value of $20 million to $26 million. Over on the Big Island, where most papaya is grown, you can see rows of healthy trees.

This wasn’t always the case. In the 1950s on Oahu, and later in the early 1990s on Hawaii island, the papaya crop was hit with the ringspot virus. In both instances the harvests were decimated.

Fortunately Hawaii had a homegrown silver bullet, developed by Big Island native Gonsalves, a plant pathologist and University of Hawaii-Hilo grad who ended up at Cornell University. Gonsalves was well aware of Hawaii’s vulnerability to pathogens prior to the 1990s outbreak. With great prescience he teamed up with top scientists at Cornell to create genetically modified papaya that would be resistant to the ringspot virus. He did so by inserting a snippet of viral DNA into the papaya genome.

This is roughly akin to a human getting a vaccination. However, producing a genetically modified fruit was only one step in the process. He had to get approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration. This meant a raft of toxicity and other studies, among other tests, to ascertain that the papayas were safe for consumption and the environment. By 1997 all three agencies gave him the thumbs-up, and by 1998 the papaya was being planted on the Big Island.

And not a moment too soon. By 1998, production was down by around 50 percent, and most trees were infected.

Gonsalves’ GMO papaya was introduced in time to revitalize the crop, and he is credited for saving the papaya industry in our state. Although current production is well below pre-virus levels, the belief among scientists is that there wouldn’t be much of an industry at all without it.

But is it safe to eat?

According to Lorie Farrell, a spokeswoman for Hawaii Farmers & Ranchers United on the Big Island, the papaya passed rigorous tests before USDA approval. Since then the industry organization successfully has navigated the Japanese system, which took 12 years and more than 100 ministries to document its safety. This included feeding and pollination studies.

Farrell says there have been 6.3 billion pounds of papaya consumed since the rainbow papaya was deregulated, and not one instance of health issues has been attributed to a genetically improved product.

As far as concerns about contamination or cross-fertilization of a GMO papaya with non-GMO plants, she says there is not a single documented case that a certified organic papaya farmer has lost certification due to contamination.

Thanks to a humble local boy from Kohala, Hawaii farmers still have a vibrant papaya market that continues to grow.

I’m not a geneticist, but I the next time I eat GMO papaya, I won’t lose sleep over any safety concerns. There are other things to worry about!

Mike Meyer, formerly Internet general manager at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, is now chief information officer at Honolulu Community College. Reach him at mmeyer@hawaii.edu.