By Cindy Ellen Russell, Star-Bulletin
Ben Krause has 31 steel aquaculture tanks at Keahole
Point on the Big Island. He's staking his future on
moi, or Pacific threadfin.
Moi, once the special property
By Peter Wagner
of Hawaiian kings, appears to be
the isle aquaculture industry's
next star
Star-BulletinKEAHOLE POINT, Big Island - It doesn't seem like a good place for a farm, out on this dry lava. Those who work this land wear shorts and heavy sunscreen.
But the rugged Kona coast is fine with Ben Krause, who's growing fish.
"Those guys are basically ready for market," he said, peering into a steel tank at his Keahole Point aqua-farm. Zipping by were thousands of silvery moi - Pacific threadfin - the fish of Hawaiian kings.
Nearly gone from coastal waters, moi has long commanded a king's ransom. Steamed, fried or sashimied, it's a rare treat. Even with this new breed of farmer growing them on land, moi commands $9 a pound - head, tail and eyeball.
If you can find it.
Most of the 70,000 pounds of commercially grown moi produced in Hawaii last year were snapped up by restaurants.
That's why Krause is building the biggest moi aquaculture farm in the state. He's got 31 steel tanks on the ground and 20 in the works - as many as he can cram onto the 1-acre property he leases from the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii next door.It's a leap of faith for the former nuclear plant operator, who sold everything to get his company, Pacific Harvest Inc. Seafarms, under construction last year. But faith is something Krause has plenty of.
"The only thing I'm worried about is keeping up with the demand," he said.
It's a valid, if enviable, concern.
With his first harvest still months away - a modest 26,000 pounds - customers from as far away as Japan are already knocking on his door. Other interested parties include supermarkets, fish wholesalers, restaurants and exporters around the state.
Looking at a hungry market, Krause is gearing up for 300,000 pounds by the end of next year, targeting prices at about $5 to $7 a pound.
State officials, meanwhile, are cautiously promoting moi as a high-end export product. It won high marks last month at the Kapalua Wine and Food Festival and has done well in mainland tastings.
"We have to be careful," said Dean Toda, marketing specialist in the state's aquaculture program. "We can't overpromote it. We don't want to go full blast and tell people we can supply 5,000 pounds one week and not be able to come through the next."
Unlike other fish that Hawaii has grown - catfish, talapia and mullet - moi holds special promise, Toda said.
"Even in old Hawaii it was a high-quality fish," he said. "It's always been revered and sought after and hard to get."
Ask Sam Choy, one of Hawaii's premier chefs, who considers moi a personal favorite.
"I used to catch it when I was a young boy," he said. "That's the alii fish."
Choy's recipe - steamed moi with fresh ginger pesto - is among several featured by leading chefs in moi promotions.
"They're very clean, very easy eating," he said. "I'm very happy to see they're farm-raising them."
Moi was was once the special property of Hawaiian kings. Raised in stone ponds, it was kapu to commoners.
More recently, with prices high and supplies low, the privately funded Oceanic Institute on Oahu began looking at moi as a candidate for aquaculture. With federal grants, the Makapuu facility developed a hatchery and three years ago began distributing thousands of fingerlings to whomever wanted them.
It was the start of an industry.
"It's one of the most amenable species we have," said institute biologist Anthony Ostrowski, the driving force behind the project. "I believe it's the marine fin fish of the future."
Survival rates are high, and moi can be grown year round, Ostrowski said. And with production costs of about $3.50 per fish, profit margins can be wide.
The four commercial farms now growing moi on Oahu and the Big Island last year grossed $355,000 - a speck in the state's $500 million agriculture industry. But that was 25 percent of the $1.4 million value of all commercially grown fish in Hawaii last year - including catfish, tilapia and milkfish.
Moreover, the 70,000 pounds of moi produced last year was a fourfold increase over 17,000 pounds the year before. And projections indicate a doubling this year as the 300,000 fingerlings distributed by the institute last year come to market.
In the space of three years, moi has became a player in Hawaii aquaculture. And as markets develop, particularly export markets in Europe and Asia, it could dominate, experts say.
"Cyanotech has been our big aquaculture star, exporting all over the world," said Toda. "Moi has the potential to be like that."
By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Alison Arak, a research technician at the
Oceanic Institute, prepares a moi for an
examination of its eggs.
Cyanotech Corp., just down the road from Krause's moi farm, makes food and medical products from microalgae bred in ponds.Scarce at the retail level, moi is hardly meeting wholesale demand as hotels and restaurants line up for what they can get. At Garden and Valley Isle Seafood Inc., a leading Honolulu fish wholesaler, 200 pounds of moi are sold to restaurants each week.
"We could use 500 pounds a week," said owner Robert Fram. "This fish is really in a class of its own."
Tamashiro Market, by contrast, is less interested in the pricey moi.
"It doesn't sell as well in Hawaii's economic situation," said Guy Tamashiro, vice president of the Kalihi company. "It's the less expensive ones that sell these days."
Retail prices are at about $9 a pound for a whole moi. With more than half of the fish in its head and tail, you pay about $20 a pound for what's left.
Meanwhile, the Oceanic Institute next year plans to wean farmers away from their free ride by charging 7 cents apiece for fingerlings - a third of what it costs to hatch them.
The idea is to get farmers to build their own hatcheries, something Krause is already doing.
But if moi is a rising star in the state's aquaculture industry, it's not without problems.
At the Kahuku Shrimp Co., the biggest moi producer in the state, owner Bruce Smith has the look of a battler.
"It's not a slam dunk," he said, still smarting from a recent blight that took 10,000 of his 60,000 moi. "A dog you can roughhouse. This one you have to treat gingerly."
Moi is a sideline for Smith, who is using long, narrow "runways" designed for shrimp to raise moi.
He is also facing the highest production costs among current moi farmers: about $4 a pound. Costs include labor - moving the fish frequently to keep the narrow tanks clean - electricity to keep water circulating, and special food brought in from Canada.
While Smith grossed about $1 million last year - $750,000 in shrimp and $250,000 in moi sales - the company didn't make a profit. There have been few profitable years, he acknowledged.
Just down the coast, in Heeia, Mary Brooks is raising moi at far less the cost - $2.87 a pound - in a 500-year-old fishpond. Years of hard work have gone into repairing the pond to make it functional again. But with natural seawater replenishment, there is no need to pump water. Food is provided by crustaceans and other small animals that live in the pond.
"It's 500-year-old aquaculture," said Brooks. "The health of the fish is good because they are in a natural system."
Brooks found a flaw in her system last year, however, when thousands of moi were stolen from the open pond. Security, she learned, goes beyond birds and barracuda. And market demands - the need for a steady supply of 12-ounce fish - proved difficult.
"I'm trying to fit an ancient system into a modern economy," she said.
By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Moi prepared for delivery to market.
Moi market
Farms: Four
Researcher looks into
By Peter Wagner
other top-dollar fish
Star-BulletinThat big one cruising by is a "kahala" - amberjack - its yellow stripe barely visible through the shallow water.
Forty pounds of fish from the deep, way up here in a 20-foot tank.
"This one is another big winner," said Anthony Ostrowski, a research scientist at the Oceanic Institute at Makapuu, who hopes kahala will become his next success story.
Ostrowski, whose work with moi has led to a fledgling industry, knows the difficulty of mixing science and economics. His earlier research on mahimahi showed it could be grown commercially - but not profitably.
"The economics were not there," he said. "Mahi is one of the more difficult species to raise, because of water quality and facility design requirements."
Still, Ostrowski has big plans for an aquaculture industry that will include some of Hawaii's most desirable fish.
"With the success we've had with moi and other species, we believe we can find ways for commercial development," he said.
There's a lot more meat on a kahala than a moi. But making them comfortable on land won't be easy. Unlike the tough little moi, a coastal fish that has taken well to aquaculture, kahala knows only a vast, pristine wild.
In nearby tanks, Ostrowski and other scientists are also studying opakapaka, uku and the sleek, beautiful omilu - bluefin trevally. Such top-dollar fish are hard to catch, but grow them within reach and you've got something.
But how?
Ostrowski is trying to figure that out.
