Plans to revitalize the papaya industry on Kaua‘i got a boost recently with the award of a contract to refurbish the old fruit fly disinfestation plant on Ahukini Road. Officials say the contract could more than quadruple papaya production revenues
Plans to revitalize the papaya industry on Kaua‘i got a boost recently with the award of a contract to refurbish the old fruit fly disinfestation plant on Ahukini Road. Officials say the contract could more than quadruple papaya production revenues by summer 2009.
According to a press release from the County Office of Economic Development, the $100,000 award was made to Lord’s Electric by the Agribusiness Development Corporation.
Construction is scheduled to begin this fall and is expected to be completed within six months.
The plant should be operational by early summer 2007, the release states.
“We’ve been working with a number of partners to jump-start the local papaya industry,” Mayor Bryan Baptiste said in the release. “After 12 months of meetings, we’re seeing real progress.”
The news should bolster an agriculture economy that has declined in recent years. While papayas have remained a strong food product no Kaua‘i, the major commercial agriculture on the island lies predominantly in sugar cane, taro and coffee.
“We have the chance to expand the variety and increase the volume of Hawai‘i-grown papaya available on the global market,” said Wayne Katayama in the release. Katayama sits on the board of both the Agribusiness Development Corporation and the Kaua‘i Farm Bureau Development Corporation, both major partners of the OED.
“There’s an untapped demand out there that Kaua‘i can fulfill and certainly the state as a whole will benefit from this,” Katayama said.
In addition to the refurbishment of the plant, efforts are ongoing between the University of Hawai‘i College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and Kaua‘i Economic Opportunity — two more partners — to train farmers and get them into production. The two entities recently celebrated the graduation of nine participants in an agriculture training program that focused on papaya growing, the release states.
KEO was also instrumental in securing a $250,000 grant-in-aid from the 2006 state Legislature to purchase equipment for the plant and train managers and workers to operate it.
Last week, KFBDC received a commitment from Grove Farm to provide land for papaya production.
“The reasonably-priced land offered by Grove Farm will allow farmers to get into production while keeping overhead down,” KFBDC president Roy Oyama said in the release.
Oyama pointed out that one of the biggest challenges that lies ahead is recruiting more farmers for papaya production. He encourages anyone interested in becoming a papaya farmer to give him a call at 332-9426 or Kaua‘i County Agricultural Specialist Bill Spitz at 241-6396.
In 2003, revenue from papaya production on Kaua‘i was estimated at $258,000, the release states. Once the plant is fully operational within two years, the value of papaya production is expected to reach $1.2 million annually, officials said.
