Farmers on Big Island unite to fight crop thefts

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — Morton Bassan's Ka'u farm ended up looking like a fortress.

Ka'u farmer Morton Bassan says thieves built this lookout post to keep watch while stealing oranges and other fruits from his Big Island orchards. Tim Wright photo

He placed video cameras at strategic locations around the 152-acre farm and hired security guards to patrol the property — all to protect Bassan's crops of oranges, tangerines and tangelos, sold under the Ka'u Gold Orange Orchard label.

But somehow the thieves still slip in to strip his trees, and now he's planning to shut down, finally conceding the crooks have won.

"What we have to do is give up farming," Bassan said. "You can't farm if the cost of guarding crops exceeds the value of the crops."

State agriculture officials have no accurate estimates of annual crop losses from theft, but the problem is so severe in some areas that it is ruining businesses such as Bassan's farm.

In other areas of the Big Island, farmers have banded together to fight back.

Coffee growers in Kona have cut down on thefts by persuading coffee processors to scrutinize the source of the beans they purchase and to demand identification from unfamiliar sellers.

Hilo-area farmers plan to enlist volunteers for a test program this summer to check if vendors at farmers markets have agricultural certificates.

A 1999 state law requires anyone who ships or sells produce weighing more than 200 pounds or worth more than $100 to have a certificate documenting where the goods originated, making it more difficult for thieves to sell stolen produce.

In Pepe'ekeo, farmer Richard Johnson and his neighbors have joined together to watch for suspicious characters who may be trying to steal from their farms. They also developed contacts at farmers markets, where they believe most of the stolen crops end up.

Last month, those efforts paid off after someone snuck into Johnson's 44-acre Onomea Orchards and made off with about 100 pounds of rambutan worth $300. The next day, three people showed up at the Hilo Farmers Market trying to peddle rambutan from a duffel bag. They left when security guards and the market manager approached to ask for an agricultural certificate, but witnesses recorded their vehicle's license number, which may help police investigating the theft.

Morton Bassan says thieves have stolen more than 90 percent of his crops in recent years and is critical of efforts by police to apprehend the criminals. Tim Wright photo

Last May, Johnson surprised a man stealing lychee from his orchard in an encounter that turned violent.

"In this case, the guy didn't see me coming. I walked up to him and he jumped on me and we ended up rolling on the ground," Johnson said. "He kept yelling, 'No! No! No! Big mistake!' "

Johnson, 59, wasn't injured, and the suspect was charged with robbery. Johnson said he and his neighbors have put six people in jail for crop thefts.

Diane Ley, deputy to Sandra Lee Kunimoto, chairwoman of the state Board of Agriculture, said neighbors pulling together will have an impact.

"I think that's the type of message that criminals pick up on pretty quick, that there are eyes and ears out there and people aren't going to take it anymore," Ley said.

The state Department of Agriculture does not have enough staff to regularly check for agricultural certificates at farmers markets or at produce shipping and distribution hubs. That why East Hawai'i farmers will use volunteers to do their own checks.

"Basically we've got the law, but it isn't being enforced," Johnson said. "This is a way of getting it enforced."

Efforts to teach vendors at farmers markets about the required certificate may be responsible for a recent drop in agricultural theft reports, said Hawai'i County Deputy Prosecutor Mitch Roth, who helped establish the volunteer program and educate vendors about the state law.

Keith De La Cruz, manager-owner of Hilo Farmers Market, is a member of the working group that is putting the program together. The market has about 175 vendors, who must sign an agreement to obtain agricultural certificates for their produce before they can set up.

De La Cruz is not completely sold on the program, and worries the effort focuses too much on the market vendors, when stolen produce can easily be sold to restaurants or wholesalers, or even shipped off the Big Island for sale.

He also is concerned that spot checks will interfere with legitimate business at the markets, and that people who are not police officers will help enforce the law.

"I'm for some kind of anti-agricultural theft program, and what we've got here is one that has good and bad points, and still needs to be fine-tuned," he said. "If there's a way to overcome it without burdening the already hard-working farmer, then I would support it."

None of this is much consolation to orange grower Bassan, who complains that police are not doing enough to stop the thefts from his orchard. He said production has plummeted from more than 75,000 cases of fruit in 1997 to less than 5,000 this year. He attributes virtually all of the decline to theft.

"We're losing about 97 percent of our crop," he said.

Bassan, whose farm is about three miles from Na'alehu, estimated he has made 100 police reports over the years. Even more infuriating to Bassan, he believes he has spotted his fruit in West Hawai'i supermarkets.

His security guards have reported being shot at, but Bassan said authorities still are not taking the problem as seriously as they should.

Roth, the deputy prosecutor, declined to comment on Bassan's complaints other than to say police are working aggressively to solve the cases.

Roth said he has two binders' worth of information from police investigations into agricultural theft in Bassan's area, and a lot is going on with the case that people outside the department can't see.

"There's a difference between having an idea of who is responsible and being able to prove it," he said.

Bassan said at one time he employed 55 full- or part-time workers, but he has had to lay those people off. He also dismissed his security guards because the cost of trying to protect his crops had grown to be more than the value of what he can harvest, he said.

"I've been at that point for years, but I was just hoping that if I caught some people that something would happen to them. But I realize now that that's not going to happen. So what we have to do is close down and sell our other property" to stave off a bank foreclosure on his home, Bassan said.

"Basically we're out of the farming business. We can harvest what the thieves let us," he said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.