Fruit growers push
for irradiation facility
‘If we can't ship our products,
By Rod Thompson
there's no future here’
Star-BulletinHILO -- Exotic fruits thrive on Brian Paxton's farm on the Hamakua Coast, where he has planted 4 acres of rambutans, 3 acres of lychees and longans, 2 acres of mangosteens and an acre of durians. But, with the local market for the fruit about to become saturated in a few years, he fears he'll have to close his farm and move unless an irradiation facility is developed to treat the fruit for mainland export.
"This (irradiator) is make or break it for agriculture in the state," he said. "If we can't ship our products, there's no future here."
While farmers like Paxton have been quietly seeking an irradiator for what could become a multimillion-dollar fruit industry, critics say irradiation creates chemicals in food that cause cancer.
Mayor Stephen Yamashiro is asking the Hawaii County Council for $2 million for irradiation. A hearing by the County Council Finance Committee is scheduled for 8 a.m. Thursday.
State agriculture official Lyle Wong says the state has sought an irradiator on Oahu but one on the Big Island would be beneficial too. "The cost to ship fruit from Kauai to the Big Island is not that much more than from Kauai to Oahu."
With an irradiator, fruit would be exposed to radiation for 15 to 20 minutes to sterilize any fruit flies.
Supporters say they have tried and failed to find alternative treatments.
Critic Kathy Dorn of Puna replied, "The alternative may be to not export rambutan and starfruit."
Maybe they just made a bad marketing decision, she said.
Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers Cooperative member Eric Weinert listed the failed treatments.
A cold treatment has been developed for starfruit, but it makes the fruit look ugly, Weinert said.
A vapor treatment for atemoya looked promising until a cold pocket was discovered behind the seed where larvae could hide.
Vapor has been tried on lychees and rambutans, but the treatment turns the red fruit black.
Paxton, an Australia native who moved to the Big Island in 1990 to grow exotic fruits for export, has been telling the 20 other farmers he advises not to plant too many of the exotics like rambutans, lychees and mangosteens until a treatment for fruit flies, such as irradiation, is available.
The local rambutan market will be saturated in two years, he said. Other crops will be saturated a few years after that.
If irradiation doesn't go through, farmers will continue to grow guava, taro and ginger, he said. With it, they'll switch to higher-valued fruit orchards. "The sky's the limit," he said.
Hamakua farmer Tom Menezes says he has a good local market for his 25 acres of mixed crops, but an irradiator would bring economic stability and a healthy fruit industry that would also preserve the Big Island's rural lifestyle. "We're planting more trees. We're not planting more asphalt."
Calvin Hayashi of the Hawaii Anthurium Industry Association said his group supports irradiation because more fruit exports would mean more cargo planes coming to Hilo. Transportation for flower growers is currently a "major stumbling block," he said.
Mike Strong of Kahili Farms on Kauai has accompanied shipments of his fruit to Chicago, where the state Department of Agriculture has had them irradiated and test-marketed for two years.
Consumer acceptance in Chicago has been high, Strong said.
Weinert agreed: "It works. The quality is high."
Fruit and vegetable store owner Jim Corrigan, who marketed the treated fruit at his Carrot Top store near Chicago, said his customers are "definitely picky" and they loved the fruit. By law, it was labeled "Treated by irradiation."
Tropical fruits are potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Corrigan said.
"There are 25,000 supermarkets on the mainland."
The fruits were irradiated in Chicago at a medical irradiator run by Isomedix of New Jersey.
Isomedix president George Dietz said his company is willing to build a Big Island facility without a county subsidy.
Dietz said the $2 million requested by Yamashiro might be used for market development and testing of new fruit varieties.
But to Michael Colby, executive director of Vermont-based Food and Water Inc., food irradiation means cancer and environmental degradation.
Opponents don't claim the food itself becomes radioactive. But irradiation creates chemicals in food that cause cancer, Colby says.
His group's supporters have mailed more than 7,000 postcards to Mayor Yamashiro opposing irradiation. Colby has threatened a general boycott of Hawaii products. And he has pressured mainland companies such as Hormel Foods, Marsh supermarkets and Frieda's distributors not to use or sell irradiated products.
Most scientists reject Colby's cancer claims.
No unique chemicals have been found in 30 years of study of irradiated food, the Iowa-based Council for Agricultural Science and Technology reported in 1986.
In a 1996 report, the Iowa group noted the American Medical Association, other national and international groups and about 40 countries approve of irradiation.
Dorn, who also fought irradiation in 1986-89, proved right on one major prediction in the 1980s: that radioactive, water-soluble cesium-137 could create a disaster. In 1988, cesium dissolved in the water used to shield an irradiator in Georgia exposed 10 workers. It took four years and $47 million to clean up.
Water-shielded cesium facilities are no longer permitted, although the state Department of Agriculture has an option to buy a new "transportable" cesium irradiator, planned by Gray*Star of New Jersey, that does not use water.
An Isomedix irradiator would use cobalt-60 instead of cesium-137. Some consider cobalt safer because it doesn't dissolve in water, but Gray*Star president Martin Stein says part of the supply has to be changed every year, while the cesium supply can go 20-30 years without a change.
