Help for Hawaiʻi island’s bug battle

“Invasive species are a huge problem here in Hawaiʻi,” said Senator Gilbert Kahele, who represents Hilo. Kahele was speaking at a joint senate Agriculture (AGL), Economic Development, Government Operations and Housing (EGH), Energy and Environment (ENE) and Higher Education (HRE) hearing that took place Thursday, March 13.

Bills on a number of agriculture-related topics were discussed but, with an average rate of 24 new invasive species arriving in the state each year, it was Hawaiʻi’s bug problem that was on most people’s minds.

The discussion centered primarily around two bills that would help Hawaiʻi island farmers fight off devastating attacks from the Coffee Berry Borer Beetle, which has become a major problem for the coffee industry there, and from the Macadamia Felted Coccid, a miniscule insect that crossed the Pacific on ships from Australia in 2005 and has been destroying Hawaiʻi’s macadamia trees in Kaʻu and Puna ever since.

“Coqui frogs; the little, red fire ant; coconut beetle; it goes on and on, all day,” continued Kahele, who is vice chair for HRE. “The impact of the invasive species problem on the [agriculture] industry is huge. For us in the Legislature—we need to be serious enough to fund these programs, rather than spot treat it.”

This was the same message advocated by a number of big island stakeholders, many from Senator Russell Ruderman’s (vice chair of ENE) district 2 (Kaʻu, Puna), who flew in to show their support for HB1514 and HB1931 which appropriate funds to combat and to conduct new research on the two invasive pests, respectively.

The Coffee Berry Borer Beetle

The Coffee Berry Borer was discovered in 2010. According to Jim Wayman, the President of Hawaiʻi Coffee Company and a member of the Hawaiʻi Coffee Association, at that time, it only existed on 10 percent of the island and its impact was minimal.

“But in two and-a-half years, it’s taken over the entire big island,” said Wayman. “This past year, 28 percent of every coffee cherry we took in had Coffee Berry Borer in it. All 500 farms that we deal with had it in some way or another. What we’re advocating is a kill and contain strategy.”

In other countries affected by the beetle, such as Columbia, Wayman said they’ve managed to keep the bug under control. “At 2 percent of the coffee affected, the industry can thrive. At 28 percent of the coffee, the industry—we figure—this past year, lost $5 million in the market value of the coffee” he said.

That’s because insect damage counts against the number of defects the product is allowed to have and still be labeled with the lucrative “Kona Coffee” brand.

“And to spray the primary [bio-control agent] that kills this insect, it costs around $60 a quart,” continued Wayman. “By the time the farmer has sprayed his whole crop, which must be done multiple times, he’s spent a phenomenal amount of money.”

Wayman and the other coffee growers on Hawaiʻi believe that in order to be successful, the bio-control treatment must blanket the whole island, rather than treat only certain areas at a time. The bio-control agent the coffee growers need is a parasitic fungus that kills off insects like the beetle. They estimate that seven sprays would be needed to bring the bug population down to a containable level. Based on the average acreage of each of the affected farms, Wayman said that would cost $3 million. Through HB1514, the coffee growers are asking for a one-time $1.5 million subsidy that they will match.

John Cross is the land manager for the Edmund C. Olson Trust II, a land trust that oversees more than 13,000 acres in the Hilo, Puna and Kaʻu districts that grow both coffee and macadamia nuts. He agreed that many of the farmers they interact with have been having serious problems obtaining the fungal-based insecticide and that an island-wide treatment plan is needed.

“But I think that having the Department of Agriculture team up with the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, the Hawaiʻi Coffee Association and independent farmers like us, I think that we are going to have a formidable battle team and we will take this insect down,” said Cross.

The Macadamia Felted Coccid

“The macadamia nut industry won’t collapse right away. But if nothing is done, the future looks pretty bleak,” Randy Cabral told the Independent after the hearing.

Cabral is the senior vice president of operations at Royal Hawaiian Orchards, a macadamia nut producer on Hawaiʻi that farms roughly 6,000 acres of land, half of which is in Kaʻu, the other half in Keaʻau. They produce anywhere between 28–30 million pounds annually, and employ 250 full time and seasonal employees.

During the hearing, Sen. Ruderman asked Cabral what would happen if we lose the battle against the insect. “I think Macadamia from Kaʻu would be gone. That’s how devastating it is. It’s not only minimizing the crop, it’s actually killing the trees. We’ve got trees that have been growing since the 1960s in Kaʻu and this tiny insect is killing them. It’s just amazing when you see the damage.”

According to Cabral, 3 percent of the company’s Kaʻu orchard—amounting to approximately 500,000 pounds of wet, in-shell macadamia—has been badly damaged by the tiny invasive insect. “It’s just as ugly as the Coffee Berry Borer and just as devastating,” he said.

The insect is so small that Cross estimated that approximately 100 of them can fit in just one square-inch on the bark of a tree.

“In these 20 years since sugar cane left, I have never seen a pest so virulent, devastating and so insignificantly small, cause so much damage,” said Cross, who has worked in diversified agriculture all 20 of those years.

Though it first appeared in South Kona back in 2005, there is still a lot we don’t know about the Felted Coccid, which has since spread all the way to the north coast of the big island. HB1931 would fund research and development for methods of prevention and treatment of this highly destructive pest via the Department of Agriculture (DOA) and the University of Hawaiʻi’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR).

When the bug initially began infesting trees on Hawaiʻi, CTAHR helped farmers there spray their crops with insecticides that were successful in killing off many of the insects. At the time, the pests had settled in trees with low, open canopies, making distribution of the insecticides to the trunks relatively easy.

“The problem is that the habitat [the insects] are in now is very different, with very tall trees and a very closed canopy, so our research would focus on developing more effective ways of using biological controls with insecticide use when necessary,” said Dr. Mark Wright, the chair of the Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Science within CTAHR. “We might look at modifying the habitat to make it more attractive for bio-control agents.”

Dr. Wright is in communication with entomologists in Australia, and the department is looking at importing a species of parasitic wasp that preys on the Coccid there. Bio-control agents do take time however. The department, along with the DOA, need to run tests to make sure the agents don’t harm native species or people before they can be implemented.

“It will take a number of years for the new species the Department of Agriculture is looking at to actually be introduced,” said Wright. “However, we might—in a year and-a-half perhaps—start to see results from changing the environment so the bio-control agents that are already here can be better.”

AGL and ENE unanimously passed HB1514 with amendments. AGL, ENE and HRE recommended to include the appropriation amounts of $360,000 to the DOA and $735,000 to CTAHR for research and prevention in the language before passing HB1931 unanimously as well.

The bills now head to the Ways and Means committee, chaired by Senator David Ige.