(note if you can’t open a link, please use try a browser like Chrome)
Contents
2022 KCFA Candidate Survey
How are Your CLR Management Plans Going?
FedEx Discount for KCFA Members
How Businesses Stole the Hawaii Brand
Class Action Coffee Settlement Letter
USDA Funds for Transport Support Available
Researchers, yet again, Link Coffee to Longer Life
Coffee Processors Turning to Moldy Beans
Invasive Pest Virtual Mini-Conference
Mexico’s Battle with CLR
How Coffee Can Boost Sport Performance
How Does Ageing Cold Brew Coffee Affect Flavour
Photo Based Analysis App for Roast Levels
Burlap Bags & GrainPro Bags are Available
Salute to Business Member – ASHE Industries LLC
Recipe: Banana Nut Bread
Editor – Clare Wilson
2022 KCFA Candidate Survey
You’ve likely received your ballot for the Primary Election. But have you checked out our Candidate Surveys to see where each candidate stands on coffee and agriculture issues?
KCFA sent out surveys to all candidates in Hawaii Island races, from Congressional District 2 on through the County Council races. Each race is vitally important to agriculture and we asked them questions specific to Kona coffee and our issues.
Please check out their responses, then go vote!
KCFA is non-partisan. We do not endorse candidates, and these responses are for voter education only.
–Submitted by Franz Weber
How are your CLR Management Plans Going?
Perspective
Last year the invasion of coffee leaf rust (CLR) was a surprise and added another element to management that was unwanted. There was an assortment of impacts experienced by Kona Coffee Farmers. Some farmers faced no ill effects while others had severe defoliation and tree death. It is difficult to pinpoint the variability between farms causing such an extreme range in responses to the infection. The KCFA Protection Committee was asked to assemble highlights of management practices that can influence the extent of CLR symptoms that occurs on farms in the Kona District. At the time of this writing, there is not a definitive Pest Management Plan available for farmers to use for sustainable production in the presence of CLR. Therefore, the concepts discussed here should be thought of as a menu outline that can be selected from for further exploration for application on your farm.
KCFA is pleased to offer a new benefit to Voting Members. Discounted FedEx pricing is available and interested members should open an account at https://www.fedex.com/register/#/contact and then call Stacey Bullyan at (808) 286-7874 who will walk you through the pricing based on your specific shipping needs. –Submitted by KCFA Membership Committee
How Businesses Stole the Hawaii Brand
On July 19, 2022, SFGate (the digital portal of the San Francisco Chronicle) published a very interesting article with the headline “How Businesses Stole the Hawaii Brand.”. The article opens with the following paragraph:
“Determining whether something is actually made in Hawaii has become harder over the years, with an increasing number of businesses cashing in on the Hawaii brand. Simply slapping a Hawaiian word on a package that’s been decorated to look like it’s from Hawaii is often enough to fool consumers.”
The article then provides a series of examples of the “theft” of the Hawaii brand in the marketing of products with contents having little or no connection to Hawaii: two lines of mainland-produced potato chips made with non-Hawaii grown potatoes but carrying Hawaii names and images; mainland-brewed beer labeled with Hawaii place names but with no Hawaii produced ingredients; Hawaiian sweet rolls baked in Georgia; “Hawaiian Sea Salt” packages containing salt not from Hawaii. To read the full article, here is a link: https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/hawaii-products-not-from-islands-17312415.php
As interesting as the article is, it does not address the question of why this theft is happening—and happening with increasing frequency.
For farmers, the question is why is Hawaii not providing stronger protections against deceptive misuse of Hawaii names and images in the marketing of agricultural products not grown in Hawaii? Other states effectively address misuse of their geographic brands. Why not Hawaii?
The SFGate article also references the Kona coffee farmers’ federal lawsuit against coffee counterfeiters and the $15.3 million in settlement payments agreed to by defendants so far. The question raised, but not answered, with respect to this litigation is: Why should farmers have to bring a lawsuit? Why does Hawaii not provide the types of protections Idaho gives to its potato growers, or Vermont to its maple syrup producers, Georgia to its Vidalia onion farmers, or California and France give to their growers of wine grapes? Why for more than 30 years has Hawaii been the only region anywhere in the world to authorize by law the use of its regional names on labels for a specialty agricultural product (coffee) with only 10% of the contents grown in the named region?
Hopefully, Hawaii media will address these questions left open by the SFGate article. –Submitted by Bruce Corker
Class Action Coffee Settlement Letter
If you have not submitted a claim form for the prior settlement, please follow these instructions to be included in the latest settlement.
Dear Settlement Class Member,
Following the Hearing on June 3, 2022, the Court granted final approval to the new Settlements with The Kroger Co. (“Kroger”), Safeway Inc. and Albertsons Companies Inc. (“Safeway/Albertsons”), and Hawaiian Isles Kona Coffee Co., Ltd. (“HIKC”) in the class action Corker, et al., v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, et al. Case No 2:19-cv-00290-RSL (W.D. Wash.)
If you previously submitted a valid Claim Form for the prior Settlements, you do not need to submit a new Claim Form. The Settlement Administrator will use the information already on file to determine your settlement award.
If you did not previously submit a Claim Form and you would like to be eligible for a settlement award, you must submit a claim online at www.KonaCoffeeSettlement.com . For more information about the Settlements, please visit the website at www.KonaCoffeeSettlement.com.
$3 million allocated to help offset transport costs for farmers and ranchers outside the contiguous U.S.
The Reimbursement Transportation Cost Payment Program (RTCP) has additional funds for farmers in Hawai`i to offset transportation costs of agriculture inputs or commodities.
The enrollment period began on 7/11 and will run through 9/2. Farmers can apply for reimbursement of their transportation costs for fiscal year 2022. For more information about how to apply for transportation reimbursement from the USDA, click here! –Submitted by Carolyn Witcover
Researchers, yet again, Link Coffee to Longer Life
On May 30 a respected medical journal (The Annals of Internal Medicine) published a scientific study linking lower mortality to coffee consumption. The study, which covered more than 170,000 people over a period of 7 years, found that those who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups of coffee a day were 30% less likely to die during the study period than those who didn’t drink coffee. Commenting on the study results, Dr. Christina Wee of the Harvard Medical School said, “It’s huge. There are very few things that reduce your mortality by 30 percent.”
This scientific study joins many others published during the last two decades that link coffee drinking to human health and well-being. See, for example, the article in May’s Independent Voice about three recent studies on coffee consumption and health.
A twist on these studies recognized by many Kona coffee growers arises from the fact that longevity in Hawaii is greater than in any other state. We believe that enjoying the rich, smooth, and floral flavors of 100% Kona Coffee (and other 100% Hawaii-grown coffees) contributes to the long life and happiness of the people of Hawaii. –Submitted by Bruce Corker
Coffee Processers Turning to Moldy Beans
“Chefs generally want to keep mold out of their kitchens, but they make an exception for koji. For around a decade, the fungus has been a secret weapon for trailblazing chefs like Rene Redzepi at Noma in Copenhagen, used to ferment grains, cure proteins and impart umami to dishes both sweet and savory.
Now, the culinary world’s most popular mold is poised to become the biggest trend in the specialty coffee world. Enterprising producers believe the multipurpose ingredient can improve on mediocre coffee beans, and produce a better- tasting caffeinated cup.
It’s an opportune time to maximize coffee bean quality. The price of Arabica beans, the most popular in the world, has more than doubled in the past year and a half.
“The biggest thing that makes koji great is the potential to grow sweetness in coffees that are lacking, or to enhance a coffee to a higher grade,” says Mason Salisbury, co-founder of Nevada-based Luminous Coffee, one of the country’s first koji coffee adopters. Salisbury started selling his fermented beans this spring; a 200-gram bag goes for $30.”
Read the article here: https://tinyurl.com/2p9wbnun –Submitted by Barbara Anderson Editor’s Note: This process seems similar to using yeast in processing coffee cherry. Eight of the top 10 winners in the 2022 HCA Cupping Competition used yeast.
INVASIVE PEST VIRTUAL MINI-CONFERENCE
From Andrea Kawabata, CTAHR
Aloha everyone,
All set for 08/10/22 Virtual Pest Mini—Conference on August 10, 2022 (Wednesday @ 9:30 am HST) which will focus on updates from the invasive species committees throughout the state.
“Indigenous Mixe farmers in Mexico’s Sierra Norte highlands are testing dozens of coffee varieties and developing agroforestry systems in order to combat coffee leaf rust, a fungal disease that spread to the region and devastated coffee production.” “The project tests the resistance of over 27 different varieties of coffee within a shaded agroforestry system that helps decrease temperatures and create drier conditions – reducing the fungi’s spread.” -Submitted by Chet Gardiner
______________________________________________________________________ Isic Experts Explain How Coffee Can Boost Sport Performance https://www.comunicaffe.com/isic-experts-explain-how-coffee-can-boost-sport-performance/
“MILAN – The Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC) has reviewed the latest research on the impact that coffee, through its bioactive compounds such as caffeine, may have on sport performance. Caffeine ingestion has well-established beneficial effects for resistance exercise performance. Caffeine is recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as one of five dietary supplements with good to strong evidence that it can improve exercise capacity and performance.
A substantial body of meta-analytical data shows that acute caffeine intake, at doses of 3–6 mg/kg body mass (BM), exerts an ergogenic effect in exercises performed over a wide range of durations and intensities, which explains why approximately 76% of athletes consume it for competition1…” –Submitted by Cecelia Smith
“There are several ways of making cold brew, but all methods typically involve immersing coarse coffee grounds in cold or room temperature water. Because of the lower temperatures, the soluble flavour compounds extract much more slowly than in coffee brewed with hot water.
When properly prepared, cold brew is smoother, sweeter, and far less acidic than a typical hot coffee. It’s usually made in large quantities, often as a concentrate, and takes between 12 to 24 hours to brew.
For many consumers, this is the product they know and enjoy. However, much like how a hot cup of coffee’s flavour evolves as it cools down, the flavours in cold brew coffee actually change significantly over time.
Andrew Harris is the owner of The DripLab, currently based in Noosa, Australia, where he’s been experimenting with cold brew for many years. During this period, he’s extensively documented how flavours change over time.
“There’s a bit of a shift that happens when you make cold brew,” he explains. “The next day after you have extracted the coffee, it is quite light and thin. There’s not a lot of body to it.”
However, he adds that if you let it rest for a few days to a week, it thickens considerably and the structure changes…”
Image showing four different levels of roasted coffee from the paper “Coffee Roast Intelligence.” Image licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
“A new study from researchers in Thailand presents a future in which precise roast levels may be obtained in real time through the snap of a smartphone photo.
For the research project, a team at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi in Bangkok created an Android app that relies on a deep learning model involving a convolutional neural network (CNN).
CNN models have been used in real-world applications such as facial recognition, medical imagery analysis, object detection within images, and more…”
KCFA Burlap Bags and GrainPro Bags are Available
Harvest Season is NEAR – and you can Support your KCFA too
It’s almost harvesting time-yay.
Do you need high quality burlap bags to keep your precious crop? KCFA has them for 4.95$ each. Prefer GrainPro to keep all moisture out? KCFA has them for 5.95$ each.
Log inand then go to the brand new KCFA Store and buy a bunch. (No need for a 2ndLog in now!)
ASHE Industries LLC is a long-time supporter of KCFA. ASHE began with the goal of producing a simple 10 lb capacity fluid bed coffee roaster for use on small estate coffee farms in the Kona Coffee. The founding partner, Ken Sheppard, owned and operated Dragon’s Lair Farm in south Kona for over 10 years. It is there where Ken developed the prototype ASHE Air Roasters between 1995 and 2004. All of the early prototype roasters are still in operation in the Kona coffee district and serviced by ASHE.
In 2005, ASHE began commercial production of its signature fluid bed coffee roaster. Since 2005, it has continued to advance the art of Fluid Bed coffee Roasting which now includes its newest AIRPRO 11 lb (5kg) standard roaster and AIRPRO 22 lb (10 kg) high capacity roaster. ASHE also provides a purpose-built chaff collection system for use with in-door roasting operations and specialty roasters for Cacao and Hazelnuts. MAHALO for your support! –Submitted by Membership Committee
Recipe: Banana Nut Bread by Judy Frazier-the best!
1+ ½ cup flour
1 t salt
1 t soda
1 t baking powder
________________________Sift together and set aside
1 block butter
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
______________________Creamed
½ cup nuts
1 full cup mashed bananas (2 or 3 large bananas)
½ cup milk
___________________Add to above
Bake for 1 hour at 350 Degrees
Makes 1 large loaf or 2 small. Makes muffins also.
Recipes Wanted! If any of you have recipes that you would like to share, please submit them to the editor: clarewilson98@gmail.com
LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK! >> Write to us. We welcome Letters to the Editor up to 150 words. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Include your name and email address >> Email: info@KonaCoffeeFarmers.org with SUBJECT: Commentary.
Suggestion Box
Let us know what you would like to see in our newsletter. Suggestions on what to include or not. What could we do better. Let us know. Clarewilson98@gmail.com