Kona coffee farmers top 600

Howard Dicus

Total acreage devoted to growing Kona coffee has also grown, part of a larger trend that has seen Big Island coffee acreage increase almost to 4,000 acres while statewide acreage is now double that.

Big Island coffee farming at a glance:

• 2002-2003: 580 Kona coffee farms, 3,100 acres; 100 other Big Island coffee growers, 400 acres devoted to coffee.
  
• 2003-2004: 585 Kona coffee farms, 3,150 acres; 105 other Big Island coffee growers, 450 acres devoted to coffee.
  
• 2004-2005: 595 Kona coffee farms, 3,300 acres; 115 other Big Island coffee growers, 450 acres devoted to coffee.
  
• 2004-2005: 630 Kona coffee farms, 3,450 acres; 115 other Big Island coffee growers, 450 acres devoted to coffee.

There are three reasons for so many Kona coffee farmers, according to members of the Hawaii Coffee Association:

• Scores of affluent West Coast business people, many with no previous agriculture experience, have relocated to Kona to build a new life for themselves. Some don’t like it as much as they think they will and move back, some stay but hire employees to help with the work, and some buy into the new lifestyle utterly.
  
• Hundreds of small family farms grow a variety of crops but almost every farm in the Kona districts have at least some coffee trees. These growers often don’t join coffee trade associations, content to sell their beans to a larger grower nearby for roasting.
  
• The Kona terrain makes automatic picking impractical, and hand-picking makes Kona coffee farming less attractive to larger agricultural interests that might otherwise create bigger farms.

The same report counts 45 coffee farms on other Hawaiian islands, five more than last year and 20 more than the year before that, with 4,100 coffee acres on other islands. Kauai Coffee Co., a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin, operates the nation’s largest coffee plantation. Dole Food Co. has reopened the Waialua coffee operation, originally operated by others on land leased from Dole. A substantial West Maui coffee operation has partially reopened in recent years. And there is a large coffee plantation on Molokai.

Reach Howard Dicus at hdicus@bizjournals.com