Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, 1 September 1982 — PAPAYA FARM HELPED BY OHA [ARTICLE]

PAPAYA FARM HELPED BY OHA

The Puna Hui Ohana, a Hawaiian-only, community umbrella organization based in Pahoa, Hawaii, recently received final approval for $1 15,000 in low interest loans to help finance their 180-acre papaya farm. Incorporated as Mikana II ine., the farm will be entirely-owned by the Puna Hui Ohana, a tax exempt, non-profit organization. Mikana II President Charles Hoopai, Vice President Daniel Elia and Secretary-Treasurer Peter Hauanio expressed their sincere appreciation, on behalf of the Puna Hawaiian community, for the precedent making decision by the Department of Agriculture for a three year, 12% interest loan of 5100,000 and by OH A for three year deferred payment 11% interest loan of $15,000. Hoopai also warmly commended Sonny Kinney, the project planner, "who spent several months preparing the proposal as well as the loan, land lease, incorporation,marketing agreements, and making public presentations to our people. He also monitored and followed the project through the various agencies in seeking its final approval. To be planted in six 30-acre increments, with a full production module of 90 acres, the farm is expected to produce approximately 2,250,000 pounds of papaya annually. All Grade A fruit and the culls will be processed by Amfac Tropical Fruit for the first fruit and puree market. Peter Hauanio, a successful and well-known Puna papaya farmer himself, will over see the project. Thirty acres had already been planted while waiting for DOAOHA approval. Sonny Kinney, Puna Hui planner/coordinator who had developed the project's structural and innovative capitalization whieh program allows a "community to negotiate a level of self-sufficiency by investing in a eapital project," was pleased with the decision. "The outeome," he said, "extends the opportunity for a Hawaiian group, having an intense desire to manage its own affairs, to own a revenue-producing project eapahle of supporting the community's social and eeonomie goals. Under the guidance of Peter Hauanio the project will succeed," he noted.