Rising Fruits: Hawai'i's 12 Trees Project
The Mysore raspberry hails from Coorg in Karnataka, India. Dismissed as a thorny wild weed, no one would ever dream of cultivating it there. You would be laughed at if you had the temerity to make such a suggestion. But in picturesque Hawai‘i, the Mysore raspberry earns an income for small farmers and has a loyal fan following.
“It was the number one choice of 54 chefs here,” says Ken Love, president of the Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers (HTFG) and the moving force behind the 12 Trees Project, an agricultural programme launched in 2005 which has boosted the income of small farmers.
Farmers in Hawai‘i’s Kona region grow one of the most expensive coffees in the world called Kona. It is their main crop but they hardly make any money out of it. Many farmers were abandoning their coffee farms, migrating to cities and selling their fields to developers. The 12 Trees Project sought to reverse this trend. It helped farmers diversify by growing unusual fruits which would find favour with buyers, chefs and consumers.
The outcome has been a range of nutritious fruits which have quietly invaded markets, restaurants and homely dining tables 365 days of the year. Hawai‘i is a tourist hotspot. Chefs tickled tastebuds by conjuring up irresistible recipes with exotic fruits like cherimoya, loquat, Surinam cherry, and the tropical apricot.
Included in this list are fruits of Indian origin that have won Hawaiian hearts. The Mysore raspberry, though a controversial plant, is made into jam, dunked into smoothies or converted into a gooey syrup for pancakes. The Rangapur lime, Mysore banana and Mysore peach have their share of followers. The Malabar chestnut, whose seeds can be roasted and eaten like cashew nuts, is also relished.
The 12 Trees Project
"If we don’t make farming profitable, there won’t be any farms left after a couple of decades,” says Love, a journalist who became a farmer. “I lost two of my sons to the city. I don’t want the city to grab my grandchildren now.”
He made up his mind to draw up strategies which would help farmers stay out of the red. With the help of the University of Hawai‘i and friends, he formulated the 12 Trees Project to enhance the income of coffee farms.
After consulting 54 of Hawaii’s chefs, fruit buyers and growers, Love and his team identified a dozen fruit trees which could be grown on coffee farms. Priority was given to seasonality and harvesting time while choosing trees so that fruit could be supplied through the year to local markets and farmers would not need to hire labour. A husband and wife team would be able to harvest different fruits at different times of the year all by themselves.
“If you have 10 acres would you prefer to harvest all of that within two months or would you prefer to harvest one acre a month?” asks Love.
The fruit varieties selected were: Cherimoya, fig, grumichama, kumquat, loquat, Mysore raspberry, Poha (Cape gooseberry), pomegranate, Rangapur (Kona) lime, Surinam cherry, tree tomato (tamarillo) and tropical apricot. Every farm can’t grow all these fruits. It is up to the farmer to choose what works best for him or her. “Figs and loquat are just two examples of fruits that are more profitable than coffee,” says Love. “These fruits have higher value. Based only on fresh fruit sales one can make five to ten times more money.”
Love says the Mysore raspberry is a controversial fruit. It is listed as a noxious weed, as an undesirable invasive plant. “It is illegal to plant it outside the Big Island,” explains Love who feels it is really a misunderstood plant species. “The main problem is its thorns, which can make it extremely painful to harvest. The fruit tastes very good, chefs like it. I hope in the future a thorn-less strain can be developed.”
Hawai‘i’s economy is predominantly tourism-driven. So instead of selling a whole lot of a single fruit it is easier to sell a little of different fruits. As a result of the 12 Trees Project, fruits are available throughout the year. You can get jaboticaba for 10 months and mangosteen for eight months. Rambutan takes a break only for a few months. Different varieties of mangoes are grown at different levels, so you can buy mangoes through much of the year.
Another advantage in Hawai‘i is its tremendous biodiversity. Kona has 200 varieties of avocados, 200 types of mangoes and 100 kinds of bananas!
Teach and earn
Selling this basket of curious fruits to consumers needed inventiveness. Love says information proved to be critical. Informing consumers and buyers about the quality and seasonality of fruit helps in sales. To help farmers explain their new offerings, Love painstakingly created posters with full information about the fruit. These are downloadable from his website: www.hawaiifruit.net. Such posters are now displayed in many stores and farmers markets.
“With some of our rare Hawaiian bananas, we found giving chefs and grocery stores their fruit history on a poster helped increase its value. Once growers are educated about what they have to sell, they in turn educate their customers.” Some Hawaiian bananas are very rare and perhaps only 600 trees are left. Once buyers knew this, they were prepared to pay more.
Another strategy Love emphasizes is farmer-chef relations. He found most chefs didn’t know when figs would be available or which month they could expect lychees. So he designed seasonal fruit charts which showed which fruits would be available in which months.
“Chefs are always looking for something new to try. Hotels seek that competitive edge. As farmers we can provide that. It is a tool we should use to become more sustainable,” explains Love.
Chefs too pass on information to their customers. Love recalls a funny incident. “To inform customers how a banana looks in its original form, we got one chef to put an entire bunch of bananas on the buffet table. Their customers rushed to get their pictures taken with the bananas.
”It was hard to get to the food, actually. When other hotels heard about this, they too started placing bunches of bananas on the buffet table.” More restaurants now source local fruits directly from farmers. Restaurants at Four Seasons, The Fairmont and Mona Kea are using Surinam cherry, fresh figs and Hawaiian bananas. Four Seasons, a popular Hawaiian resort, buys 25 per cent of its fruit locally.
Another advantage for Hawaii’s farmers is their strong local farmers’ markets. Though coffee is their main crop, many farmers grow at least four or five minor fruits and make products with them. To stay in the profession they love, these small farmers are striving hard by diversifying with value-added products and earning that extra money by selling them at farmers’ markets.
Love and his wife Marguerite produce an unbelievable 150 products from a range of minor fruits. Interestingly, they are able to market more than 50 per cent of their products through the Internet to the mainland. Their glass bottles, nicely wrapped in bubble wrap and packed neatly in boxes are sent through the postal department. Many small farmers have websites and sell a portion of their products directly through the Internet via mail order.
But Hawaiian farmers have their problems as well. The biggest one is the ban on sending fresh fruits to the mainland. Another growing headache is fruit imports. Hawai‘i grows and sells several thousand pounds of avocado. Yet, over a million avocados are imported every year. This results in locally grown avocados rotting. Big business often takes advantage of local farmers.
As a result of ‘buy local, eat local’ campaigns stores do keep local fruits but sometimes tuck them away in some dark corner. Says a Kona farmer, “Though our fruits are far tastier, many stores price local fruits exactly half of imported ones. Some other stores hoodwink customers by passing off imported fruits as local.” But stores that genuinely showcase local fruits have seen good sales.
The most recent burning issue in Hawai‘i is the government’s proposed move to make third party certification mandatory for farmers to sell their produce even in farmers’ market. While the government argues this is a step to ensure food safety, farmers suspect big companies are behind this move. They want to diminish the popularity of farmers markets and subsequently bring small farmers under corporate control.
Shree Padre is a farmer, water journalist, and rainwater harvesting expert and “evangelist” based in Kerala, India. He is the author of eight books, including Rainwater Harvesting. Shree visited Kona for the in September 2011 Hawai'i Tropical Fruit Growers Conference. This report is an adapted excerpt originally published by Umesh Anand in its news service Civil Society Online.