Ka‘ū News Briefs, Sunday, Feb. 6, 2022

To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see www.facebook.com/kaucalendar/. See latest print edition at www.kaucalendar.com. See February events and Kaʻū Calendar newspaper sponsors at http://kaunewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2022/02/events-of-february-2022.html

KA`U COFFEE FARMERS GRAB LAND - AND CONTROL OF THEIR FUTURES is the headline of a Honolulu Civil Beat article published during the past week. It is written by Civil Beat agriculture writer Thomas Heaton from New Zealand, who was on the ground recently in Kaʻū to talk with food, tea and coffee farmers, ranchers and other community members for a series of stories.
   The Kaʻū Coffee story notes that among the coffee growers, "Many are former sugarcane plantation workers who, when their employer went bust, started one of the most renowned coffee regions of the world."
    The story reports the coffee lands are being sold by Resource Land Holdings, which less than six years ago, paid $1,666.66 an acre for a 6,000 acre, $10 million purchase in Kaʻū. The coffee lands are about 300 acres within the large tracts of ranch and coastal lands, forested hillsides and gulches that Resource Land Holdings purchased. The coffee farms were started under licensing to growers by the former sugar plantation that shut down and later sold the lands.
   

Delvin Navarro, right, with his Ka'u Coffee being photographed for a 2019 cover story in Japan Airlines magazine, plans  to purchase his farm. He talked to Civil Beat for its story published this past week on the sale of Ka'u Coffee farms. See https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/02/kau-coffee-farmers-grab-land-and-control-of-their-futures/ Photo by Julia Neal

  The Civil Beat story reports RLH's subsidiary Kaʻū Mahi's representative Jim McCully saying the coffee farms have been valued, for sale to the farmers, between $12,000 to $21,000 an acre. 

    Using those prices, that means that the approximately 300 acres of coffee lands owned by RLH at the Pear Tree and Moa'ula coffee farms, selling for an average of $17,000 an acre, would provide the company with more than $5 million - more than half of the $10 million it paid for the entire 6,000 acres in 2016.

     RLH expenses to hold the coffee lands have included its management of farmers renting it, the cost of subdividing the land, any financing it may have, and putting in paved roads to the some of the farms. 
    McCully told Civil Beat that when RLH bought the property, "it was still zoned in such a way it would have been classified as a 'luxury ag subdivision' which would have priced the farmers out entirely." The Civil Beat story reports McClully saying that "he worked with the Hawai'i County’s planning department to lower the prices and reclassify the lands as purely agricultural."
    The story says that dozens - nearly half the coffee farmers - are going for the purchase. Some told The Kaʻū Calendar they have no choice but to try to buy, as they fear other people will gobble up the properties. A few coffee growers are paying cash and others are going for low interest government and private loans. Some farmers said that they hope the loan payments will cost them only a little more than the rent they pay to Kaʻū Mahi for using the land.

Moa'ula is included in a Civil Beat story about Kaʻū Coffee lands being sold, with first option to farmers. See https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/02/kau-coffee-farmers-grab-land-and-control-of-their-futures/ Photo by Julia Neal

    Some Kaʻū Coffee Growers Cooperative representatives told The Kaʻū Calendar that prices to the farmers might have been lower if Kaʻū Mahi offered the farmers "a first right of refusal," instead of "right of first offer," meaning that the market would have set the price rather than Kaʻū Mahi setting a take-it-or leave it price for the farmers with a deadline.

     Whether the properties would go fast to outsiders, given that there is no potable water and that most lots are tied up with licenses to rent the land to the existing farmers, is still to be seen, said the advisors. They also said that the risk of Coffee Leaf Rust, the devastating disease that has wiped out coffee in other regions, has come to Kaʻū and should be disclosed by the seller in any real estate negotiation for the coffee lands. According to some of the farmers applying for loans, most are waiting to find out if they are approved and the subdivision is in the final stages of being finalized.

     The Civil Beat story quotes Kaʻū Coffee Mill manager Lou Daniele, saying some farmers on Kaʻū Mahi lands are talking to him about leasing, but there is not enough land for everyone. A number of coffee farmers spread their risk by renting property on the Coffee Mill lands, owned by Olson Trust, years ago.
    Read the Civil Beat story with more quotes from the Kaʻū Mahi representative and coffee farmers Delvin Navarro and John Ah San. The story also quotes Chris Manfredi, a former Moa'ula and Pear Tree coffee land owners' representative, who is now a coffee broker, Hawai'i Coffee Association President, and an organizer of Kaʻū Coffee Festival.

     See the story at https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/02/kau-coffee-farmers-grab-land-and-control-of-their-futures/

To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see www.facebook.com/kaucalendar/. See latest print edition at www.kaucalendar.com. See February events and Kaʻū Calendar newspaper sponsors at http://kaunewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2022/02/events-of-february-2022.html

LOCALICIOUS HAWAI'I ART & VIDEO CONTEST for students K-12 is open for submissions through Feb. 28. Sponsored by the Hawai'i Agricultural Foundation, the competition is entitled Producing More than Produce. It is presented by Hawai'i 
Gas.
Students are invited to submit entries of original artwork or video to support Hawai'i's agricultural industry. "The contest challenges students to use their creativity to showcase the importance of our local farmers, ranchers, and fishermen to our community," says the call for submissions.

Hawai'i Agricultural Foundation's 2020-2021 Overall Art Winner, Aileen Kang's Hawaiian Poke Bowl

    New this year, the contest incorporates video content and extends the opportunity to secondary students. Art and videos are judged separately. The art contest is open to students in grades K-5, with poster entries incorporating the theme: Hawai'i Agriculture: Producing More Than Produce. The video contest is open to students in grades 6-12 with a 30 second Public Service Announcement (PSA) on HAF's mission to promote agriculture and farming. There will be four prizes per contest, with awarded gift cards as follows: 1st place - $200, 2nd place - $150, 3rd place - $100, 4th place - $50.
    All submissions must be exclusively student-created and cannot incorporate anything, in whole or in part, that is owned or created by any third party. The eight winning entries will be part of a special 
stationery set featuring the winning pieces of art and PSAs.
    To find out more and to enter see https://www.hawaiiagfoundation.org/localicious-hawai%CA%BBi-art-and-video-contest/