KULA — ‘Oko‘a Farms owner Ryan Earehart didn’t know how badly Hurricane Lala had damaged his crops until weeks later when they struggled to produce. 

He thought his strawberry plants had just lost their flowers and fruit but later realized the weed mat had pulled up their roots. His kale and chard bent so far over in the high winds that they’re now growing at an angle that could lift the roots right out of the soil. His cucumbers caught diseases from spores spread by the rain and winds.  

“More is revealed each week that passes,” Earehart said.

He is one of the many Maui farmers who have been working feverishly in the fields to recover what they lost in the Kona low storms in March, only to take another hit from Hurricane Lala in August. Now, they’re bracing for the approach of Hurricane Lowell and Tropical Storm Karina this week in what has been a busy and devastating year of extreme weather. 

“Farming in Hawai‘i is a tough endeavor to undertake, and when we have natural disasters that disrupt it, they can bring farmers to the breaking point,” said Christian Zuckerman, a farmer and vice president and CFO of the Hawai‘i Farmers Union Foundation that is raising funds to help farmers impacted by both the Kona lows and the hurricane.

Since March, the foundation has raised more than $1 million through its grassroots Hawai‘i Flood Response Fund. More than $700,000 has already been distributed to 162 producers from Maui, Moloka‘i, Lāna‘i, Hawai‘i island, Kaua‘i and O‘ahu, the foundation said in an Aug. 24 news release. Grants are being awarded in tiers ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 depending on the damage and impacts reported by producers. 

“Even though we know we won’t be able to make everyone whole again, it will at least begin the road to recovery,” Zuckerman said. 

Back to square one: From Kona lows to a hurricane

On Maui, many farmers were just starting to get back on their feet when Hurricane Lala barreled past the islands in mid-August. 

‘Oko‘a Farms, which grows a wide variety of fruit and vegetables on 46 acres in Kula, suffered about $250,000 in damages from the Kona low storms, Earehart estimated. The rain wiped out newly planted crops, eroded the soil, damaged the packing shed and knocked down fences that were keeping out invasive axis deer. Water got into the attic of a worker’s home and caused the ceiling to collapse.

“Certainly could have been worse, but all these things add up to a lot of stress,” said Earehart, who runs the farm with his business partner Salvador Gil Coca.

Surviving crops were so badly damaged that their yield decreased by about 75%. The farm lost about three months worth of wholesale business because it only had enough crops to sell for retail at its Makawao store. 

Workers scrambled to replant and were just starting to harvest when the hurricane arrived. Lala didn’t cause as much physical crop damage, but the winds split the 3,000-square-foot tarp roof of the temporary structure where they keep tools, supplies and equipment for washing produce and eggs. 

Since the storms, Earehart said the farm, which got organic certification in June after nearly 20 years of following organic practices, is only getting about 30% of the production it was banking on.

“Plants are still alive. That’s good,” he said. “But the only solution at this point is we’re replanting and waiting for months to get the full recovery back.”

Earehart can taste the difference in the crops that did survive. The juice from his sugar cane stalks isn’t as sweet, an indication that they were broken before they matured. During a recent harvest, off-grade carrots that split from too much rain in the hurricane had to be left behind in the dark brown soil to serve as chicken feed. 

Wholesale orders are still struggling, with orders from big distributors on other islands dropping by 50% or more. 

In nearby Olinda, Lapa‘au Farm was also battered by the storms. The torrential downpours in the Kona lows oversaturated the soil and delayed the transition from the wet spring to the dry summer when the farm makes most of its income, said Lauren Marchand, who owns the business with her husband Michael. 

The small-but-mighty operation on 2 acres churns out more than 100,000 pounds of produce a year thanks to “regenerative, biointensive” practices and a rotation of dozens of seasonal crops that include tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in the summer; broccoli and cauliflower in the winter; and oyster mushrooms year-round. 

But after the Kona lows, their cucumbers and tomatoes struggled in the moist air and caught diseases like powdery mildew faster. The Marchands switched to other crops, but then Hurricane Lala wiped them out.

About 80% of their crops in open fields were destroyed. Stalks of corn that were close to harvest toppled over halfway. An entire bean crop suffered major damage when the wind thrashed it against the trellising. 

“The amount of wind crop damage that we saw was higher than we’ve ever seen in almost eight years of farming,” Marchand said.

The entire roof of the oyster mushroom greenhouse ripped off, which had never happened before, not even during the 2023 Kula fire when wind gusts were estimated at over 80 mph. Fortunately, because they set aside August for cleaning and resetting the greenhouse, they didn’t lose any mushrooms, and the crops in their seven high tunnels also held up well.

“So even if this El Niño season brings in continued hurricanes or bad weather patterns, we’re kind of hoping to bank on that,” Marchand said.

At Hana Tropicals, a 20-acre flower farm in East Maui specializing in floral arrangements and live plant sales, Hurricane Lala worsened the damage left by the Kona lows, which wiped out about 80% of their crops, blew the roof off the nursery and flooded the warehouse, according to owner Krista Fugelstad. 

Eight huge ficus benjamina trees about 40 feet tall and 14 to 16 feet in diameter at the base toppled over, taking out their landlines, internet and electric service, and smashing through the home of the farm manager, who was standing next to the refrigerator when the entire house crashed down around her.

“It’s an amazing blessing that she’s even alive,” Fugelstad said.  

It cost the farm about $53,000 to remove the trees. Because FedEx couldn’t access the farm for deliveries, they were out of business for two weeks. To this day, their landline still hasn’t been restored, making it difficult for their older customer base to reach them. 

The March storms set the farm back before one of their busiest times of the year. Usually, the farm sells about 250 boxes of flowers for Mother’s Day, but this year they only had enough for 50.

“It’s really hard because that’s the money that gets us through the year,” Fugelstad said.

With no heavy equipment, Fugelstad and her workers went through the fields by hand, pulling out dead plants and trying to coax life out of whatever was left. They’d gotten through about 50% of the fields when Lala blew through and knocked down the flowers they’d replanted, sprung more leaks on already-damaged buildings and washed out the farm’s gravel roads. 

“It just exacerbated problems … that were created by the Kona lows and we’ve been trying desperately to fix, but we can’t fix everything at once,” Fugelstad said. 

Salvage the season or swallow the loss?

After losing a large chunk of its crops, Lapa‘au Farm shifted to an emergency plan. Fortunately, its diversity is like a built-in insurance policy that allows it to lean on certain crops when others are wiped out, Marchand said. 

In addition to the surviving crops, they turned to sales of cut flowers and salad greens that do well in different temperatures and rainfall. Last week, they put quick-turnover crops into the ground such as arugula, okra and turnips, as well as root crops that could grow in 30 to 40 days and handle more rainfall in the coming months. 

“It is fortunate that we’re farming this way, but it definitely is still a big loss,” Marchand said. 

The farm delivers to restaurants like Flatbread Company in Pā‘ia and Lineage in Wailea, and grocery stores like Mana Foods and Down to Earth, but until it can get production back on track, twice-weekly deliveries have been cut to once a week. Marchand expects to lose thousands of dollars in revenue.

The farm also sells directly to residents through the Community Supported Agriculture Program and plans on prioritizing those orders because customers paid upfront for a July through December membership. 

Lapa‘au Farm received aid from the farmers union that helped somewhat with repairs, but Marchand said it’s hard to fully calculate the full scale of the losses that included the extra labor for cleanup and the delays in getting their summer crops going. 

In June, ‘Oko‘a Farms received a $10,000 grant from the farmers union to help with damage and losses from the Kona lows. 

With more storms ahead, Earehart has to make tough decisions about whether to solve his needs now or for the long term. He would like to turn the farm’s temporary hub into a permanent facility with sturdier materials, but he doesn’t have the time and funding it would take to get permits and build it. They’ve already patched it once only to have it damaged again last week. 

“It’s unfortunate to have to spend money just to get back to something that’s still not adequate,” he said. “We want to make it better so we can be more resilient to these types of challenges in the future. So it’s kind of hard to make those choices right now.” 

A repair that has to take a backseat while he deals with other problems is the netting that protects the blackberry patch from hungry birds and was torn up by Hurricane Lala. He wants to repair it now so the birds don’t make a habit of stopping by, but because the blackberries aren’t fruiting at the moment, it’s a lower priority.

For now, he’s replanting and harvesting whatever he can. He’s also hoping to get federal aid, but he has to find time to fill out the paperwork in between his busy farming operations. 

“It’s only charity that can really get us through at this point,” he said.

Hana Tropicals also got some assistance from the farmers union, and Fugelstad said she is trying to get federal aid as well, but she agrees it’s hard to juggle paperwork with running the farm. She said something that farmers like her need but can’t afford are “really solid generators” for when the power goes out.

Fugelstad said the farm will just have to absorb the losses from the storms. While it also has a fruit orchard, moringa, loofahs and bees that occasionally produce black honey, the other crops aren’t enough to offset the sales from the flowers, which are sold to hotels, landscaping contractors and customers on the Mainland. 

The goal, however, is to one day make enough money from the flowers that the farm can transition to food crops to feed the community, said Fugelstad, who purchased the farm with her late husband, “an English eccentric,” when it was going under in 2005. He passed away before Thanksgiving last year, and she’s determined to carry on their dream.

“I’m happier when my hands are in the dirt, to be honest,” Fugelstad said. “I gave up corporate America on purpose, and I got rid of my 100 business suits and my 13 briefcases on purpose. And now I wear the funniest clothes. … They have to be bought at Goodwill, or I won’t buy them because they’re gonna get wrecked.”

The challenges of farming in Hawai‘i during a busy hurricane season are also worth enduring for the Marchands, who see value in feeding their community with “really nutrient-rich foods” and teaching their 1-year-old daughter how to steward the land.

“The dream was always to have a family close to the land and being outside and just knowing where our food comes from and sharing that with the community,” Marchand said. 

For more information about the farmers union fund or to donate, visit hawaiifarmers.org.