Hurricane Lowell has complicated issues that Kauaʻi farmers have been facing for years.
There are about 520 farmers on the island, as of the 2022 Census of Agriculture, and about 60% of them are under 10 acres in size.
The nonprofit Mālama Kauaʻi, which aims to improve local food production and access, has connections with about 400 farmers on the island.
Executive Director Megan Fox said Hurricane Lowell has highlighted some of those farmers’ long-standing issues.
One is invasive species, which have long-plagued farmers not just on Kauaʻi but around the state. When Lowell arrived, winds knocked down many invasive trees, damaging crops, property and infrastructure.
“All those invasive trees — albizia (trees), the African tulip — they're just not meant to grow here, so they topple real easy,” Fox said. “A lot of the damage has been tree-related. A lot of the access and water issues are related to tree damage, like giant trees falling.”
That water damage includes destroyed waterways, which Fox said is another decades-long problem, as they haven’t been maintained in decades.
“We've had really severely deferred maintenance on our water system since the plantations moved out in the '60s and '70s, and since then there hasn’t been good management of a lot of these main water systems a lot of farmers use,” she said.
Many Kauaʻi farmers grow fruits and vegetables, but the island’s agricultural history also includes ranching — which wasn’t spared from hurricane damage.
Waylon Brun, a rancher and the President of the Kauaʻi Cattlemen's Association, said many ranchers are dealing with tree-damaged fences that keep cattle from wandering off.
"Every rancher has fallen trees on their fence. We had cattle out … across the island,” Brun said.
He said cargo ships are also prioritizing resources for recovery over the next few weeks. That could be a problem for ranchers, who might not be able to sell their cattle to off-island buyers, such as in cow-calf operations in which local farmers raise calves to be sold.
The island does have small slaughterhouses that ranchers can sell to, but they’re already at capacity, Brun said.
“A majority of the cattle on the island gets shipped out to the mainland because we don't have capacity to finish everything,” he said. “Now Young Brothers, Matson, they're (saying) it's going to be three weeks to a month before the priority isn't the storm.”
Fox said at this point, money is among the most important resources for struggling producers to recoup their losses.
Mālama Kauaʻi and other groups have set up an online form so farmers can report their damages, and get directed to potential resources.
To help others or find resources in the wake of Hurricane Lowell, click here.
