Help protect Hawaii coffee, don’t pick up beans as keepsake
Kona coffee is world-renowned. Local farmers have rightfully earned an outstanding reputation for producing a top quality product. This helps attract thousands of tourists annually; farm tours (in addition to wholesale and retail coffee sales) all contribute substantially to West Hawaii’s economy.
It is less well known that more than half the coffee acreage in the state is on other islands — Kauai, Maui, Molokai and Oahu. While Big Island growers work hard to manage the damaging invasive beetle called the coffee berry borer, all the other islands so far remain free from this pest.
Visiting tourists are naturally curious to see how coffee is grown, and often stop to take photos and touch, smell and sometimes pick coffee berries from the tree or from the ground. A casually picked coffee berry may harbor unseen, tiny beetles inside its seeds — if the berry or even a single seed is then — deliberately or inadvertently — carried away, the coffee berry borer infestation can spread. A short plane ride could place these pests in close proximity to pest-free coffee farms because beetles can live happily inside seeds for months at a time. Most entomologists agree that this is probably the manner by which the coffee berry borer will eventually reach the other islands.
We all want visitors to enjoy their farm tours, and to appreciate the fine coffee that is grown in the islands. But, please, try to dissuade visitors from touching, handling or picking coffee berries in the field. Help protect your neighbors and coffee farms on the other islands from this damaging invasive species.
Russell Messing
Entomologist
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Kauai Agricultural Research Center