Farmers Become Victims of Vog

Written by Tim Sakahara - tsakahara@kgmb9.com

May 16, 2008 05:46 PM

The vog is as bad as some farmers have ever seen. Flower growers on the Big Island and farmers on Oahu are seeing expensive damage from the vog and they worry it will get worse.

When sulfur dioxide from the vog gets into the plants it becomes acid and burns the leaves. It's mostly protea, roses, lilies and ornamental crops that are getting damaged. Leafy vegetables have also been hit.

"Considering there are an estimated 40 to 50 growers in that area it's a significant amount of our statewide production," said Kelvin Sewake, Flower Expert, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Flower growers are reporting 50 to 70 percent of their crops are brown, spotted or dying.

"It's going to mean they've lost several years or more in production and dollars," Sewake said.

Its graduation and wedding season and the absolute worst time of year to be victims of vog.

"Our hearts go out to the farmers themselves because they wait the entire year for this three or four week period for graduation that they can really capitalize on," said Monty Pereira, Sales and Marketing Manager at Watanabe Floral Inc.

Watanabe Floral expected 4,000 tuberose lei last week for Mother's Day but it only got 800.

"Normally this entire area right here will have all Micronesian ginger lei. We'll have it piled up high and as you can see there are no Micronesian ginger lei available right now," Pereira said.

Usually at this time of year farmers are begging for rain, but right now with all this vog, rain would be the worst thing for the crops.

"What goes on here, you start getting this curling of the leaf and the tips are burning over here," explains Dean Okimoto, Nalo Farms. "If it rained then we'd lose everything because it would bring down all the stuff in the air onto the plants and definitely burn it."

Nearly half of the leafy vegetables Nalo Farms has been growing are damaged from the sulfur dioxide in the air. It says nothing is going to the supermarkets and it’s just trying to cover their restaurant orders.

"We've got limited amounts this weekend already and next week we'll just have to see how long this vog lasts and how much worse it gets," Okimoto said.

Kelvin Sewake, the flower expert on the Big Island, is working on ways to prevent damage from vog in the future. He'll be monitoring his field trials and hope to have results soon.