Big Island farmer
hails ag theft law

Paperwork trail discourages
thieves from taking produce

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> Until recently, one of the largest supermarket chains in the state was regularly selling oranges, limes and tangelos stolen from the orchards of Big Island citrus grower Morton Bassan, Bassan told fellow farmers this week.

A law requiring a paperwork trail when buying and selling agricultural products is bringing that to a halt, Bassan said.

Bassan said the supermarket chain, which went unnamed, "doesn't want to handle stolen fruit anymore."

"(The law) is actually working," he said.

Bassan endorsed the law at a meeting Wednesday night of the Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers Association, held to educate farmers about its existence.

Agricultural theft is a major problem, said state Sen. Jan Buen (D, West Maui-Molokai-Lanai), chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

"It's a huge, huge problem statewide," she said.

A Senate resolution setting up a committee to study the problem put the losses in the millions every year.

Hawaii County Deputy Prosecutor Mitchell Roth said the Legislature passed a law two years ago requiring a bill of sale for any commodity worth more than $100 or any amount more than 200 pounds. The law requires the name of the seller, the origin of the commodity and its destination.

Prosecutors did not even know about the law until two months ago, Roth said.

"We found it by dumb luck," he said.

Prosecutors normally go by a one-volume compilation of criminal laws, he said. The agricultural theft law was in a separate book on agricultural regulations.

Except for Bassan, many farmers in the audience were skeptical about the value of the law.

One asked, "What's to stop me from filling out fraudulent information? You're dependent on the good will of the thief."

Police officer Stan Haanio, who set up a successful Farm Watch to stop coffee thefts in Kona, said he heard the same skepticism when he started working with coffee farmers.

When coffee thieves could not prove the source of stolen beans, they could not sell them and had to dump them, he said. Thefts went down.

Bassan, however, said he had identified a loophole in the law: Airlines are not required to check paperwork on commodities shipped interisland.

Buen said her committee will look into the problem.