Marching Forth:Battling the Coffee Berry Borer in Hawaii

摘要

Coffee farmers on the Big Island are battling the coffee industry's most infamous pest, the Coffee Berry Borer.Just three years ago, Hawaii's coffee industry could call itself blissfully free from the notorious coffee berry borer, which had invaded coffee crops worldwide. This tiny beetle, known as la broca in Spanish, is capable of causing major damage. As the bean hardens, the beetle drills into it and harms a large amount of producers' harvest.But Hawaii's free-and-clear status changed in August 2010, when the beetle was positively identified on farms in Kona and, later, in parts of the Big Island's Ka'u district. All Kona coffee farms are now infested, though cherry infestations can range from under 1 percent to nearly 100 percent. No one knows how the beetle arrived in Kona, but given the ease of global shipping and travel, its arrival was inevitable.