Spread Of Pest Threatens Coffee Crops
By Jill Kuramoto
KITV 4 News
October 25, 2010
The coffee berry borer is a tiny beetle, smaller than the size of a sesame seed. It gets its name by how it bores into the coffee bean to lay its eggs.
The coffee berry borer beetle lays its eggs in the coffee "cherry" that contains the bean. The larvae feed on the coffee bean and reduce the bean's size and quality, agriculture officials said.
State agriculture officials have found 21 areas in South Kona that have been infested by the bug and deemed a quarantine is necessary to keep it from spreading.
The quarantine would require green, non-roasted coffee beans to be treated with heat or insecticide before they're shipped off the island.
A meeting held last week on the issue on the Big Island had to be rescheduled when it was found that not enough notice was given about the hearing.
That's just given Kona coffee farmers more time to contemplate how to fight the quarantine they said would be devastating to the industry.
"Depending on how it comes out, the effects of the quarantine could be disasterous for those of us who grow Kona coffee," said Bruce Corker, president of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association.
Those who would be most severely impacted is the organic Kona coffee farmers.
They don't yet know how much a quarantine would cost them, but Kona coffee farmers said the state is moving too quickly without first answering two questions.
"How did the coffee berry borer get into Hawaii in the first place and two, why did the Hawaii Department of Agriculture protections not prevent the introduction of that particular pest," said Corker.
The Kona Coffee Farmers Association is calling for a ban on the import of all foreign green coffee beans into Hawaii, because they believe that's how the bug got here.
But Jim Wayman, whose Hawaii Coffee Co. is the largest processor of Kona coffee in the world, said the state is not moving quickly enough.
"The longer it goes on without efforts in place to stop to eradicate it, the more populous it becomes," said Wayman.
Wayman said a quarantine would be an added cost to an already expensive product.
"I'm estimating at this point, that would cost our company $50,000 to $60,000 a year," said Wayman.
Wayman said the majority of the state's 800 coffee farmers support a quarantine to protect their crops.
The meeting with the Department of Agriculture's advisory committee has not yet been scheduled.
A quarantine would be imposed only after it's approved by the full Board of Agriculture.
The insect has devastated crops in Africa, Central America and South America. A UH-CTAHR coffee specialist has urged coffee growers to cut down shade, remove coffee cherries from the ground and destroy infested cherries by burning, deep burying or rapid drying.
If Hawaii coffee growers suspects the coffee berry borer has turned up in their plants, they can call the HDOA Plant Pest Control Branch on Oahu at (808) 973-9522 or e-mail: hdoa.ppc@hawaii.gov.
Coffee shops are not the same as they use to be in the day. They have small tables and want you to barely fit the dessert on it. Then they hope you'll leave and create a fast turn around.
ReplyDeleteThere should still be coffee shops that have large tables and working areas. Those were the treasure of our times and it would be neat to see them back. I love them.
From Ashra