PAHALA — Ka‘u farmers who grow some of the world’s finest coffee bean on the slopes of Mauna Loa are putting a period of uncertainty behind them.
Farmers operating with expired land licenses have signed new 15-year agreements with the buyer of some 6,000 acres around Pahala and Naalehu, of which the Moaula coffee lands are a portion. The sale could close as early as next week, making the licenses official, said Jim McCully, local partner to the buyer.
Following months of negotiations and numerous drafts of agreements, Colorado-based Resource Land Holdings and the farmers have settled on rent that starts at $450 per acre, per year, beginning next May. The rent increases to $600 by year three, when it will be capped for the remainder of the license.
The new arrangement allows farmers to get loans they haven’t been able to acquire under old licenses that could be canceled in 120 days. Additionally, the contracts let the growers assign or sublet their orchards, said Brenda Iokepa-Moses, land manager for RLH.
“This allows them to retire and find another grower to take over, which was never allowable under the old license,” Iokepa-Moses said.
To farmers like Gloria Camba, the rent is a big increase from the $150 a year they’ve paid in the past. But Iokepa-Moses noted that the growers had historically been obligated to pay 2 percent of gross on top of the $150. However, the money was never collected as the landowner dealt with more pressing issues.
The tract was previously sugar plantation owned by C. Brewer &Co., until the plantations collapsed in the mid-1990s. Lehman Bros. acquired the property from WWK Hawaii Holdings through foreclosure in 2013. RLH has been under contract since last June to buy the collection of agricultural, shoreline and commercial and industrially zoned parcels.
Camba, who heads the Ka‘u Coffee Growers Cooperative, said the months of negotiations were stressful. Many farmers remain committed to the idea of buying the land they farm, she said. They will continue to ask lawmakers and the state Department of Agriculture to create a state agricultural park encompassing the 36 farms that make up the approximately 300 acres of coffee orchards.
RLH is willing to work with farmers, but county subdivision laws are an obstacle, McCully said. The zoning calls for 20-acre parcels, meaning the land can’t be whittled down to the scale of 3-acre farms without rezoning. But even then, mandatory road improvements and other upgrades associated with smaller parcels would be cost prohibitive, McCully said.
“We’re going to work to sell them the land to accommodate their interests,” McCully said. “We just don’t know how that will work yet.”
State purchase of the land or involvement by The Trust for Public Land are both possibilities.
“We would be willing to consider that,” McCully said. “We have 6,000 acres. We’re not farmers. People start farming the land and we’ll write them licenses.”
