HCR227

WHEREAS, the Department of Agriculture's Plant Industry Division Plant Quarantine Branch prevents the introduction and spread of harmful pests and diseases into the State, certifies plants for export out of the State, and is also the State's primary resource for information on importing plants, insects, microorganisms, and non-domestic animals to Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Agriculture’s Plant Quarantine Program began more than one hundred years ago when, in 1888, King David Kalakaua decreed that in order to protect the coffee industry in Hawaii, new coffee plants would not be allowed into the islands, and two years later, laws were enacted to prevent the introduction of injurious insect pests and plant diseases; and

WHEREAS, the Plant Quarantine Branch is the State's first line of defense in keeping pests out of the islands by monitoring whether eggs of harmful insects hatch on imported plants or if diseases that could jeopardize the health of other plants, which may appear only after significant growth of plants imported into the State; and

WHEREAS, the quarantine process differs based on the plant being imported and procedurally, coffee germplasm and coffee plants are required to go through a one-year quarantine process to ensure that the significant and crucial coffee industry of Hawaii is protected; and

WHEREAS, the State's process for acquiring an exemption from the plant quarantine rules is a rigorous process, which is overseen by numerous experts in multiple scientific fields, and requires approval by the Board of Agriculture and the Governor; and

WHEREAS, from 2016 to 2017, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, Hawaii produced more than 36,000,000 pounds of coffee cherry, nearly 2,000,000 pounds more than in the previous year; and

WHEREAS, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Association, the value of Hawaii’s coffee crop stands at more than $62,000,000, with coffee cherry selling at $1.71 per pound; and

WHEREAS, Kona coffee is world renowned for its excellence and it is one of Hawaii’s most iconic commercial exports; and

WHEREAS, the average Kona coffee farm is less than 5 acres in size and approximately 5,000,000 trees currently comprise the entire Kona coffee industry; and

WHEREAS, Kona Hills, LLC is financed by the Atlanta-based investment company Domain Capital Advisors; and

WHEREAS, Kona Hills, LLC is seeking to establish an almost 1,900-acre coffee farm in Kealakekua on which to plant 2,000,000 trees, which would be the largest coffee farm in the Kona region of Hawaii Island; and

WHEREAS, Kona Hills, LLC plans to grow at least six varieties of coffee, five of which are not currently farmed in the Kona coffee district and would produce different flavor profiles from the heritage Kona coffee profile which has been developed by generations of Kona farmers; and

WHEREAS, Kona Hills, LLC has requested an exemption to the Department of Agriculture's mandatory one-year quarantine period to import 1,500,000 in-vitro coffee embryos from Costa Rica; and

WHEREAS, coffee rust is a prevalent agricultural disease found on Costa Rican coffee farms; and

WHEREAS, an outbreak of coffee rust could cripple the Kona coffee industry; and

WHEREAS, the import plan and quarantine exemption sought by Kona Hills, LLC could endanger the crop yields and financial security of local Kona coffee farmers; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-ninth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2018, the Senate concurring, the Senate concurring, that the Department of Agriculture is urged to reject the import plan and quarantine exemption requested by Kona Hills, LLC; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Governor, the Chairperson of the Board of Agriculture, the manager of the Department of Agriculture's Plant Quarantine Branch, and all members of the Department of Agriculture Plant Quarantine Branch Advisory Committee on Plants and Animals.

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________

Report Title:

URGING THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE TO REJECT THE IMPORT PLAN AND QUARANTINE EXEMPTION REQUESTED BY KONA HILLS, LLC.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.C.R. NO.	227
TWENTY-NINTH LEGISLATURE, 2018
STATE OF HAWAII