A letter drafted by all four members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday to release federal funding to support farmers in the state affected by natural disasters.
The letter, signed by Sens. Mazie K. Hirono and Brian Schatz and Reps. Tulsi Gabbard and Colleen Hanabusa, cites a number of natural disasters that struck the state this year, from the Kilauea eruption in lower Puna to the heavy flooding on Oahu and Kauai in April and the flooding caused by Hurricane Lane in August.
The eruption alone, the letter says, buried or isolated more than 1,600 acres of Puna-area farms, while the Kauai flooding impacted more than a third of the state’s taro crop.
“The dire situation that our farmers and producers are currently experiencing as a result of recent disasters cannot be overstated,” the letter reads. “We are already hearing reports of farmers, who employed multiple families and had millions invested in their agricultural business, having to lay off all of their employees and completely walk away from the agricultural industry because they lost all of their assets and cannot qualify for new loans to start over.”
Randy Cabral, president of the Hawaii Farm Bureau, said the papaya and nursery businesses have been the hardest-affected agricultural industries this year. The vast majority of papaya grown in the state is grown in Puna, where lava buried more than 700 homes and hundreds of acres of papaya farmland.
Cabral said new lands would have to be cleared to start new papaya farms and nurseries, which many farmers cannot afford.
Although the letter does not specify how much money the USDA should allocate to Hawaii farmers, the letter cites a 2017 case wherein the USDA allocated $12 million to support Puerto Rico farmers after the widespread destruction caused by Hurricane Maria, as well as a recent announcement that the USDA would provide up to $12 billion to relieve American farmers “negatively impacted by retaliatory tariffs resulting from recent trade negotiations.”
“We would absolutely support anything to get farmers back on their feet,” Cabral said.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.