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In just 30 days, two fierce storms have pummeled Hawaii, severely impacting the state’s agricultural sector—including coffee farms.
Kona lows are seasonal cyclones that can affect the Hawaiian islands between October and May. This year brought back-to-back storms that caused major damage to the Big Island, where the majority of the state’s coffee is grown.
In particular, the storms devastated Greenwell Farms, a 176-year-old coffee farm. Tom Greenwell told Big Island Now’s Tiffany DeMasters that the farm will likely lose half its crop because of the storm and an estimated $10 million in damages.
Floodwater inundated Greenwell Farms’ properties and deposited debris everywhere—employees are still working to clear it all. The storm even harmed the farm’s ability to plant and rebuild for the future. “We lost about 24,000 trees in our nursery,” Greenwell said. “That’s our future planting that is gone, and trees that I grow and give to farmers to grow.”
Early estimates put the damage to Hawaii’s agricultural sector at as much as $15 million. Organizations like the Hawaiian Council and the Hawaii Foodbank launched fundraisers to support those impacted. For farmers, the Hawaiian Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity launched an emergency relief program.
As Civil Beat reports, this help is especially crucial in a state where just 3% of farmers have federal crop insurance. Most are too small to qualify, and due to the expense and difficulty of finding coverage, many don’t have any insurance at all.
Read the full story on how storms devastated Hawaiian coffee farms from Big Island Now here.
Photo by Jimmy Conover on Unsplash
