Month: September 2010

September 6, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Well offers chance to clear most of meter waiting list

WAILUKU – Maui County will be offered a chance Tuesday to buy a water well in Makawao that could make deep inroads into the Upcountry meter waiting list.

The well, known as Piiholo South, already exists, and it has been tested to produce 1.7 million gallons per day of water pure enough to drink without further treatment, according to Zachary Franks and Cynthia Warner, the developers.

But to finance the proposed $8 million price (including infrastructure), the county would likely have to find funds outside the Department of Water Supply. In the past, water source development has been paid for with department funds, not county general funds, supplemented by grants and borrowing through bond sales.

Only recently has the county budget supplemented the finances of the water department, with $1 million for a study of storage in the current budget. But until now, the department has had to pay for its own wells and reservoirs, unless it could get the state to cover the bill, as it did with the Kahakapao reservoirs.

The County Council Water Resources Committee will take up the issue during a meeting beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the Council Chambers. Panel Chairman Mike Victorino said discussion of the matter would be preliminary.

“The focus of the committee meeting will be simply to gather information,” he said. “But there is possible public use of this privately owned well, and I’m eager to explore this potential.”

Continue reading
September 4, 2010 General Ag News and Notes, Vegtables, Watermelon Post a Comment

Hawaiian farms being prosecuted for importing Thai workers

By Mark Niesse
Associated Press

HONOLULU — Two prominent, popular brothers who operate the second-largest vegetable farm in Hawaii will be sentenced in federal court this week on human trafficking charges — they pleaded guilty — but two former state governors, community groups, fellow farmers and other supporters are trying to keep them out of prison.

The brothers were convicted of shipping 44 laborers from Thailand and forcing them to work on their farm, part of a pipeline to the United States that allegedly cornered foreign field hands into low-paying jobs with few rights.

Aloun Farms may be too important to fail in an island state that once relied on pineapples and sugar cane but grows less than 15 percent of the food it consumes, according to supporters of defendants Alec and Mike Sou.

“The incarceration of Alec and Mike Sou would threaten our food security and could endanger our future sustainability on Oahu,” wrote Kioni Dudley, president of the community group Friends of Makakilo, in a letter asking U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway for leniency. “Find some method of punishment which allows them to stay in their positions at Aloun Farms.”

The Sou brothers are asking for a light sentence with little or no jail time based in part on the idea that their farm is too valuable to the islands’ food supply to let it go untended. The plea deal they agreed to in January called for up to five years imprisonment.

Continue reading
September 3, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Accused turtle smuggler charged – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

Federal authorities have charged a Japanese citizen with smuggling after customs inspectors at Honolulu airport allegedly found 42 exotic turtles in his suitcase Monday.

Hiroki Uetsuki was arraigned in U.S. District Court Tuesday on charges that he tried to smuggle the turtles through customs after arriving on a flight from Japan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Brady said.

“The interception at the airport in Honolulu is due to the continued diligence of the inspectors,” said George Phocas, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service resident agent in charge. “It’s about protecting our environment.”

Uetsuki allegedly tried to bring in three turtle species: the Indian star tortoise, white-fronted box turtle and fly river turtle.

The white-fronted box turtle has been restricted for private and commercial import to Hawaii and must be cleared with the state. All turtles or tortoises must also be approved by the state Department of Agriculture before they can be brought into the islands.

Continue reading
September 2, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Feds accuse 6 people of forcing 400 immigrants to work on Hawaii, Washington farms

A newly unsealed federal indictment accuses six people of exploiting the labor of about 400 workers from Thailand, forcing them to work on farms in Hawaii and Washington state.

The indictment unsealed today charges six people in the human trafficking conspiracy involving Los Angeles-based recruiting company Global Horizons Manpower Inc. They’re charged with five counts that come with maximum sentences reaching up to 70 years in prison.

The indictment alleges the defendants lured the workers with false promises of lucrative jobs and kept them working with threats of economic harm.

It claims the defendants confiscated the Thai workers’ passports, failed to honor their employment contracts and threatened to deport them.

Feds accuse 6 people of forcing 400 immigrants to work on Hawaii, Washington farms – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

September 2, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

A&B to study effects of proposed development

WAILUKU – Sixty years ago, when Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. was drawing up the plans for Dream City, its managers foresaw the day when Kahului would extend to what was then called Waiale Pastures.

That time is still years off, but it is close enough that A&B Properties has filed a preparatory notice with the Land Use Commission in anticipation of an environmental impact statement for reclassification of 545 acres on either side of Waiko Road.

“This will be a yearslong process before we are able to do anything physically on the property,” A&B Properties Vice President Grant Chun said Wednesday.

The proposal calls for about 2,550 dwellings, with village mixed-use, commercial and light-industrial areas, a regional park, community center, neighborhood parks, sites for a cultural preserve, a school and related infrastructure. In other words, something similar to Maui Lani, which lies along the northern boundary of the new area.

The project extends in a rough triangle, with a long frontage on Kuihelani Highway. A&B does not own a section north of Waiko Road that is being rapidly developed for light industrial uses. Its plan would include another 16 or 17 acres of light industrial in the area.

Chun describes the area as mostly flat, sandy and never cultivated. Tenants are using much of the land for cattle.

Continue reading
September 2, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Pest appears in pineapple shipment

LOS ANGELES » Federal agriculture inspectors at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have found a destructive pest in a shipment of pineapples that’s never been seen before in the United States.

The U.S. Customers and Border Protection said yesterday that the variety of leafhopper found late last month from Costa Rica can cause severe damage to crops such as grapes, potatoes, soybeans and corn.

The insect was the second first-in-the-nation pest that inspectors at the Southern California port complex have found in the last two months. Crews there found a type of aphid in late June.

Business Briefs – Hawaii Business – Staradvertiser.com

September 2, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Hawaii plant thought to be extinct found in Kohala

HONOLULU — A Hawaiian plant species thought to be extinct has been found on the Big Island.

The Nature Conservancy and Parker Ranch said Wednesday staff discovered the plant earlier this summer in an upland rainforest on the slopes of Kohala volcano.

They were surveying a rare tree snail population on the ranch when they stumbled upon a plant with greenish white flowers and dark green leaves. They couldn’t identify it so they sent photographs to Thomas Lammers, a University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh expert.

He identified the plant as Clermontia peleana singuliflora, a species last seen on the Big Island in 1909 and last collected in East Maui in 1920.

More than 30 of the plants have since been found, and the conservancy has collected seeds to propagate the species.

The Associated Press: Hawaii plant thought to be extinct found in Kohala

September 1, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Monsanto job cuts include Kauai farm

Monsanto says it is cutting about 650 to 700 more jobs as it continues to restructure its business.

In Hawaii, the agricultural and seed products company has operations on Oahu, Maui and Molokai, where it employs approximately 850 people.

Spokesman Paul Koehler told PBN that the company will “exit” its small operation in Hanapepe on Kauai — a farm that focused primarily on seed corn — during the next month, leaving four full-time employees and several other temporary employees out of work.

“We always routinely evaluate our infrastructure to ensure our needs are efficient, but Hawaii is not immune to that assessment [so] on the island of Kauai we’ve elected to go ahead and exit the operation there, and we will begin phase out over the next month,” Koehler said. “After consideration, the business operations of that size didn’t fit with our overall business plan in the state.”

Continue reading