Isle farmers vote
to eliminate papaya
marketing agency

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> Hawaii papaya growers have voted to eliminate the agency that has helped market the fruit for 31 years.

The federally authorized Papaya Administrative Committee will go out of existence in September, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Papaya growers vote every six years on whether to continue the agency. A positive vote is needed from two-thirds of the state's growers or the producers of two-thirds of the state's volume.

In May, only 49 percent of the growers representing 21 percent of the volume voted for continuation, according to the Department of Agriculture.

The reason for the death of the agency is the subject of heated dispute.

Grower Delan "Rusty" Perry said the vote was not a judgment about the value of the agency generally but rather about its value as led by committee Chairman Ernesto Tagalicud.

Under Tagalicud's leadership, "All they managed to figure out how to do was not to do anything for a year," Perry said.

Tagalicud blamed the downfall of the agency on actions by its manager, Emerson Llantero, and interference by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"Our slate was elected by majority vote of papaya growers in Big Island District 1 in April 2001, but the slate was not approved by the USDA until several months after the elections, preventing the new members from taking any effective actions on policy or budget matters," Tagalicud said.

PAC manager Virginia Aste, who preceded Llantero, said federal officials engaged in deliberate delays to satisfy papaya shippers who were not happy with growers represented by Tagalicud.

In addition to an apparent clash of personalities, controversy arose over genetically engineered "transgenic" papayas.

In the 1990s, researchers at the University of Hawaii and Cornell University in New York developed a genetically modified strain of Rainbow papaya resistant to ringspot disease.

Perry was one of the early recipients of transgenic seeds for trial plantings. Tagalicud had to wait until a later, general distribution.

Both supply and demand for the seeds has varied.

At times, few farmers wanted the seeds because more money could be made by taking chances on regular Kapoho papayas, subject to disease, but also valuable in the Japanese market, which does not accept transgenic papayas, Llantero said.

In December, farmer demand for transgenic seeds increased unexpectedly, Llantero said. The result was about a 10 percent shortage during a distribution last Friday, with recipients determined by lottery. More seeds are coming in August, Llantero said.

Llantero said this current demand for transgenic seed points to the success of his management of the PAC since 1996.

No other similar federal program has successfully commercialized a genetically engineered product, he said. Even Japan is now a short step away from accepting transgenic papayas, he said.

One of the functions of the PAC has been to charge growers mandatory assessments for research and advertising. That will stop on Aug. 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. A gradual winding down of the agency will continue for about 60 days after that.

The PAC was created in 1971 at the urging of the Hawaii Papaya Industry Association. With the death of the PAC, the association will probably assume some of the PAC's functions, such as distribution of transgenic seeds, said Perry, who is president of HPIA.

Unlike the PAC, membership in HPIA and payment of dues is voluntary, he said.