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divided into two distinct groups. The sugar plantations grow sugar on 

 approximately 60,000 acres. These plantations gross more than the 2 

 million dollar income limitation for the disaster programs and are 

 ineligible for assistance. The second group in agriculture on Kauai 

 are the 300 full and part-time farmers and ranchers that are the group 

 that the disaster assistance programs are designed to help. 



I farm 100 acres in 10 different crops, papaya, banana, pineapple, 

 limes, lychee, avocado, atemoya, mangosteen, durian and rambutan. In 

 addition my wife and I own a fruit tree nursery that produces trees 

 for our farm, the wholesale market in Honolulu and the other islands. 

 I am Chairman for the Disaster Assistance Committee for the Kauai 

 County Farm Bureau. 



On September 11, 1992 Hurricane Iniki struck Kauai with sustained 

 winds of 130 mph and gusts recorded as high as 200 mph. The storm was 

 the worst natural disaster to occur in the history of the state of 

 Hawaii. The numbers tell part, of the story, insurance losses were in 

 excess of 2.5 billion dollars. The affect on the lives of the people 

 of Kauai and the industries in which they work was devastating. A year 

 after the hurricane only 40% of the hotel rooms have reopened and some 

 hotels are not going to open until 1995. The lack of tourists has 

 meant the closing of most small businesses that support the tourist 

 industry such as tour operators, restaurants, clothing stores, etc. 

 The sugar plantations have suffered greatly reduced yields and this 

 may lead to the closing of marginal operations and additional 

 unempl oyment . 



FEMA came to Kauai and set up Disaster Assistance Centers with various 

 state and federal agencies represented at each center to help Kauai 

 residents cope with the disaster. Farmers found they were not eligible 

 for most benefits available to the general public. The SBA does not 

 make agricultural loans. The SBA had 30 field appraisers that went to 

 businesses in the community while each FEMA center was completely 

 staffed with trained personnel that processed emergency loans. Farmers 

 had to make due with FmHA loans that were administered by loan 

 officers from other islands that rotated from week to week on Kauai. 

 The FMHA loan program automatically disqualified anyone with more than 

 3 employees which eliminated most of the full time operations from 

 eligibility. There was no continuity to the process as the loan 

 officers changed from week to week. Six weeks after the hurricane the 

 SBA had processed in excess of 90 million dollars in loans and the 

 FMHA had taken only 11 loan applications and had acted on none. In 

 addition to their inability to receive loans most farmers were 

 ineligible for emergency self employed unemployment benefits due to 

 the inflexible nature of the program. Some farms are incorporated 

 which makes the farmer ineligible, other framers had made too little 

 profit in the last 3 quarters as they were investing heavily in 

 planting or operation expansion, these farmers were also ineligible 

 for unemployment benefits. The growers on Kauai have never been 

 offered Federal Crop insurance so there is no hope for income from 

 that source to offset the 100% loss of production suffered by most 

 farms . 



95% of the farmers on Kauai did not receive any FmHA loan or emergency 

 unemployment benefits. No farmer on Kauai received any Federal Crop 

 Insurance payments. 



The USDA utilized ASCS and SCS staff from other islands as well as 

 University of Hawaii agricultural extension agents to go out in field 



