By Dean Sensui, Star-Bulletin
Dean Pao, a seasonal worker for Dole, installs a
stake to help support a mango tree sapling in Mokuleia.
The amount of land in commercial mango production
in Hawaii has nearly tripled since 1995.

---

Isle firms are taking
mangoes commercial

Dole and C.Brewer believe
the Hawaii market is ripe to take
the fruit beyond backyard production

By Jerry Tune
Star-Bulletin

Dole Food Co. Hawaii is testing mango production on about 55 acres of former sugar lands in Mokuleia on Oahu's North Shore and the company hopes to bring lower mango costs to local consumers within three years.

"The local market should be able to absorb it (the Hawaii mango crop) if you have the right timing and different varieties," said Jerry Vriesenga, president of Dole Food Co. Hawaii.

Consumers who go into markets now pay about $2.69 a pound for imported mangoes but Vriesenga hopes to get the price down to 50 cents or 75 cents a mango using the local crop.

"In L.A., you can get two or three mangoes for $1 (using imports mostly from Mexico)," he said.

For Hawaii, mango is a new corporate crop.

Dole has the most acreage planted -- with about a half dozen different varieties -- but it takes three years to get fruit. The first trees were planted about a year ago. Dole expects a few mangoes by 1999 and a sizable crop by 2000.

Dole will use its distribution network and deal with wholesalers and the supermarkets, Vriesenga said.

Hawaii is seeing more mango trees planted for commercial harvesting. The state has 7,400 mango trees planted but only 1,200 are old enough to bear fruit, according to the Hawaii State Agricultural Statistics Service.

Land for mangoes increased to 100 acres last year from 35 acres planted in 1995.

C. Brewer & Co., through its subsidiary Kau Agribusiness Co., is testing mangoes on seven acres at Pahala on the Big Island.

Don Martin, state agricultural statistician said there is demand for mangoes and the imports are increasing.

Tropical fruit production in Hawaii for 1996 was 1 million pounds, 21 percent less than the previous year. The value at the farm level was $871,000, which was 12 percent less than the 1995 value, according to the Hawaii Agricultural Statistics Service.

Growers devoted 580 acres to tropical specialty fruit, 40 percent more than in 1995.

However, many of the trees were not mature enough to bear fruit last year, Martin said.

Production of star fruit, lychee and specialty pineapple declined last year. Star fruit, most of which is processed into juice, accounted for 28 percent of these sales, Martin said. Increased production came in atemoya, mango, rambutan and cherimoya.