Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 11, 1 Nowemapa 1993 — Keaʻau Bananas are "Eco-OK" [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Keaʻau Bananas are "Eco-OK"

Native Hawaiian farmer receives praise for environmentally-friendly product

by Patrick Johnston Modern, large-scale agriculture seems to operate with rules like: hire eheap, overwork, and rely almost exclusively on ehemieal pesticides and fertilizers to enhanee production. Big Island banana farmer Richard Ha approaches things differently. Ha has just won the "Eeo-OK" certification from the International Rainforest Allianee for his work promoting an envi-ronmentally-friendly product and safe working conditions on his Kea'au plantation.

"Through a series of measures we've put in plaee in the past seven years," explains Ha, "we've been able to minimize the use of chemicals, improve worker safety and control waste." These measures include creating a culture lab to grow their own bananas from scratch. This prevents the transfer of nematodes, a root-destroying worm, and allows Ha to avoid using pesticides to control the pest. When planting a fīeld most banana plantations transfer small banana plants into their fields, a process that ensures the new plant will continue to carry the nematode worm. "It's unusual for a farm this size to have a culture lab but in the long run it's going to save money by reducing labor costs and the use of pesticides. I am a business-

man. I don't want to be a good guy and then go broke." Ha and his staff also manually remove all flowers at the end of the bananas, preventing sugar eane moths from laying eggs and again reducing his pesticide use. To improve worker safety, Ha devised a maehine to hoist bananas from his trucks on his storage warehouse. The device is helpful because workers now no longer have to strain their backs lifting bunches of bananas from the ground up. Says Ha, "Before we started using this, our workers would go straight home after work and sleep. Now they have the energy to go out or spend some time with

their families. ... My philosophy has always been 'work smarter, not harder'." All of Ha's bananas now carry a sticker whieh reads "Eeo-OK" to verify its recent certification. Ha's banana plantation sits on abandoned sugar fields and is the largest in the state. Ha's family, along with 40 hired workers, operates the 200-acre farm whieh produces five million pounds of fruit a year, almost half of the bananas grown in Hawai'i. Because of the low cost of labor in banana-producing countries like Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico, his product is marketable only in Hawai'i. , Recently, even here he has had

trouble competing with these producers. "We've had a problem with Central and South American countries dumping their products on the Hawaiian market," says Ha. "They sell wherever they ean and in a lot of cases they do it below cost." Ha grew up on the Big Island and majored in accounting at UHMānoa in the mid-1960s. After a term of duty in Vietnam, he returned to school and in 1975 began selling ehieken manure to Big Island farmers, using whatever money he saved to buy young

banana plants and start farming. He says his experience as an officer in Vietnam taught him to "take care of his people," a philosophy that underlies not only his approach to working conditions, but also a prof-it-sharing program he carries out with his workers. Ha points out, "I'm a manager and I know that if I screw up it's going to hurt everyone. But if any of us makes a mistake we talk about it

and try to fix it. We work as a team." He attributes his success largely to hard work and a sound knowledge of his product. "Knowing your crop is the most important thing when you are a farmer. And you must constantly try to improve. As soon as you think you've learned everything that's when you've lost." Ha hopes to bring his knowledge of bananas to O'ahu in the next few years, possibly taking over some of the lands freed up by the closure of the O'ahu and Waialua sugar companies.

Environmentaliy-friendly bananas with Eeo-OK sticker.

Richard Ha at plantation in Kea'au.