As the remnants of the former Tropical Storm Moke push westward beyond the islands, Ka‘u coffee growers continue to survey extensive damage to their farms caused by flooding and winds from Hurricane Lala.

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As the remnants of the former Tropical Storm Moke push westward beyond the islands, Ka‘u coffee growers continue to survey extensive damage to their farms caused by flooding and winds from Hurricane Lala.

Gloria Camba, president of the Ka‘u Coffee Growers Cooperative, highlighted Moa‘ula in the Pahala foothills — with widespread damage to farms in Wood Valley, Pear Tree and Cloud Rest, prime Ka‘u coffee-growing areas.

“It’s going to be a big loss for everyone in these areas, because the trees are lying on the ground,” Camba told the Tribune-Herald on Friday.

“It’s really bad. It’s really devastating for the farmers,” added Andrea Kawabata, a county agent for the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience. “You know, the roads are gone. I know the county and everybody is doing their best to re-do the roads into certain areas, like Wood Valley. But all the major roads were gone into a lot of the Pahala farm areas, like Wood Valley and Pear Tree — Cloud Rest, especially. And some folks don’t have access in and out of their farms and their homes near the farms.

“The rivers have widened and taken some parts of the farms that border the river areas and the streams that go downhill,” Kawabata continued. “And so, the trees are wiped out. They’ve got exposed ground now. Some farms have lost rows and rows of trees. They’re just gone. The crop is likely on the ground. Trees are fallen over. There’s a ton of damage out there. I don’t know if they’ll have the ability to harvest this year, at all, and save any kind of crop.”

The storm hit about a month before peak harvest time in Ka‘u, farmers said. The statewide Hawaii coffee crop for the 2024-2025 season was valued at approximately $46.4 million.

Alla Kostenkos, owner of A Coffee Farm in Pahala and a Hawaii Coffee Association board member, said road damage from Lala’s flooding delayed her survey of damage to her property, which she described as “pretty extensive, and it’s pretty bad.”

“The road to Cloud Rest was damaged so badly, we’re not able to drive there,” Kostenkos said. “We could only go there by foot. The culvert to our farm was washed out. The structures were OK, but the trees were badly damaged. Some of the trees were almost on the ground. They’re tilted so badly, they’ll likely not survive because of root damage from which it’s almost impossible to recover.

“You know, we were hit pretty extensively earlier by Kona lows, and we thought that was bad. But once we got out, we realized how extensively some of our fields were damaged. Most significant is the loss of trees. We have several lots around Ka‘u and some of these lots have lost 50 to 60% of trees. Some of the trees we planted just three or four years ago, and the younger trees didn’t stand a chance.

“It’s incredibly sad to see the losses of the trees that we didn’t even get to harvest from. And now we have to replace them,” Kostenkos said.

Miranda’s Farms — which has acreage both in Pahala and near Na‘alehu next to the Kahuku Unit of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park — took first-place in the Hawaii Coffee Association’s statewide cupping competition just three weeks prior to Lala. The family-owned concern also has a coffee shop at the entrance to the Na‘alehu farm.

“It’s a miracle that our shop didn’t sustain major damages. You know, a little scratch here and there,” said Maria Miranda, adult daughter of Miranda’s Farms founders José and Berta Miranda. “But the damage our farms sustained was significant. Many trees fell on our property. We lost infrastructure, like greenhouses. We lost fencing for livestock.

“We lost a lot of crop, a lot of trees. The devastation goes far beyond Miranda’s Farms. Families in Ka‘u dealing with fallen trees, damaged properties, blocked access.”

Miranda’s coffee shop has generator power but has been without water since Lala. The Mirandas have, however, been opening it daily as a resilience hub through the nonprofit Vibrant Hawaii, providing water and other necessities to help storm-stricken neighbors.

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“Although Miranda’s Farms sustained damage … we felt strongly that we could not focus only on ourselves,” Miranda said. “We have been working to help coordinate relief efforts and connect our community with resources, including water, food, emergency supplies, water storage containers, debris removal, chainsaw assistance, heavy equipment and other cleanup support.

“Ka‘u is an incredibly strong and resilient community, but resilience does not mean people should have to recover alone. There are still families who need help, and recovery will take time. Our hope is that Miranda’s Farms can continue to serve as a place of support and connection while our community works together to rebuild and recover.”

Suzanne Shriner, longtime Kona coffee farmer and HCA vice president, said coffee trees “won’t survive the stress of being uprooted.”

“Trees that are still standing are also at risk of dying from ‘shaken tree syndrome’ where the wind causes cracks in the root,” Shriner said. “This damage allows fungal infections to move into the tree and potentially kill them in the coming months.

“I’m happy to see that there is still some coffee crop on the upright trees, but we don’t know yet if it will develop into mature cherry or just die back.”

According to Shriner, many farms “have lost significant acreage, as well as soil.”

“Soil is infrastructure to a farmer and cannot be replaced as simply as rebuilding a barn or building,” she said. “You can see that many growers kept grass between their rows to minimize erosion lost, as well as keep the soil healthy. It saved a number of farms from outright destruction, but the watershed overflow took away centuries worth of soil buildup that cannot be repaired.”

Shriner encouraged affected growers to call the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency “to report damage in preparation for relief programs that will open up soon.”

Shriner added that macadamia nut fields, common in Ka‘u, “also took extensive damage.”

“There’s extensive acreage in Pahala on both sides of the highway,” she said. “Growers report that nuts on the ground that were ready for harvest were swept away. Younger nuts on the trees were also stripped off, further limiting the upcoming harvest.”

Some Kona coffee farms also were damaged by Lala, but it was mostly wind-related and not the level of destruction experienced in Ka‘u.

Bill Myers, president of Heavenly Hawaiian Kona Coffee Farm, said most of the damage to Kona coffee trees was “secondary effects” of the wind blowing broken branches of other, larger trees onto the coffee trees.

“Coffee trees survive winds really well. The trees are really bushes, so they bend more than they break, unless they’re really old,” Myers said. “It’s still in the early days, so we haven’t collected all the data yet — but it doesn’t seem to be significant enough to change the harvest.

“We’re aiming at a really good harvest this year.”

Myers said one has to go “pretty far to the south to get to where trees suffered really serious damage.” He noted that for Kona coffee farms, the worst damage occurred between Kealakekua and Milolii — and added that Kona farms “didn’t experience anything close to what happened to those poor folks in Ka‘u.

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Email John Burnett at [email protected].