At a time when Hawai`i is seeking ways to feed more of its own people, O`ahu’s beef and pork industries are on the verge of disaster.
Earlier this year, O`ahu’s only slaughterhouse, which processes both beef and pork, announced that it would cease slaughtering beef in July. It has since elected to continue its operations for now, but the panic over the possibility that O`ahu ranchers would have nowhere to take their cows spurred the University of Hawai`i, state agencies, and local ranchers to find an alternative.
At last month’s board meeting of the state Agribusiness Development Corporation, Alfredo Lee, the agency’s executive director, proposed that the board approve a $210,000 mobile slaughterhouse demonstration project. Mobile slaughterhouses, which can hold about 10 carcasses at a time and can be moved around with a heavy duty “dualy” pick-up truck, are used on the mainland and in Europe to accommodate small-scale ranchers.
Lee explained that the mobile facility would promote the local grass-fed industry and would also spare cattle the stress of being trucked to slaughterhouses. He added that the state Department of Agriculture, the ADC, and the University of Hawai`i’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources would contribute to the purchase of a biodigester for the facility’s waste, and that he had identified an O`ahu rancher who would be willing to operate the mobile slaughterhouse.
When asked by board members how waste from the slaughterhouse would be handled, rancher Alan Gottlieb said that depends on what each individual county allows. On the Big Island, for example, carcasses are often buried, while ranchers on O`ahu have the option of taking their waste to Island Commodities to be processed, he said.
Wastewater, however, is not so easily dealt with. According to Wayne Nishijima of CTAHR, the state Department of Health’s Wastewater Branch has said it would not grant a permit for a holding tank for the wastewater, but would allow a limited amount of wastewater to be sprayed on pasture lands so long as they weren’t near any streams. Also, a wastewater permit would likely be required for each property upon which the wastewater was sprayed, he said.
Despite the waste concerns, Gottlieb supported the idea of a mobile facility since “every island needs to have some slaughter capacity.” He seemed most concerned about Kaua`i, which has several intermittent slaughterhouses, and O`ahu, which may soon have none. Maui, however, is developing its own small, contained slaughterhouses, he said.
With regard to O`ahu’s dilemma, DOA director Sandra Lee Kunimoto explained that the slaughterhouse was built to handle 200 head of cattle a month. But with the recent demise of the last of O`ahu’s dairies, “through-put went way down,” she said. With the future of the slaughterhouse in danger, “The ADC can address that immediate void,” she said.
Slaughterhouse manager Calvin Wong, however, asked the board whether taxpayer money would be better spent helping to maintain the current USDA-certified facility than to fund a demonstration project. He said that while the facility is owned and operated by the Hawai`i Livestock Cooperative, a hog farmers’ co-op, it was built to specifications pushed for by an O`ahu cattle rancher that later went out of business. Now, the slaughterhouse has the ability to process 50 head of cattle a week, but doesn’t receive enough animals to pay off its $2 million dollar construction loan.
“It’s the biggest, newest facility….You have no idea of operating costs for the potable water, the waste treatment system….The bottom line is the whole slaughterhouse will eventually be shut down with the debt service,” which will affect the island’s entire livestock industry, he said.
When one board member asked what percent capacity the slaughterhouse was currently operating at, Wong said, “How about one percent?” Wong said that while the mobile slaughterhouse project could further reduce the number of cattle going to the co-op’s slaughterhouse, the project wouldn’t necessarily be to blame for its demise. “We’re headed in that direction anyway,” he said.
Faced with the fact that the slaughterhouse closure could devastate both O`ahus cattle and hog industries, the board, as well as members of the public, explored ways to save the facility.
To reduce refrigeration costs, Wong suggested that a smaller refrigeration unit could be built, with outside funding, of course. Taro farmer and food processor Ernest Tottori suggested that the state buy the facility for $1.5 million and lease it back to the co-op. He added that the state should buy agricultural lands, as well, and lease them back to farmers since his biggest problem as a vegetable, taro, and bean sprout processor has been a lack of supply.
“For the past 20 years, we’ve been short…That’s why I’m a taro farmer,” he said.
Wong also supported the idea. “With no debt, we can slaughter indefinitely,” he said.
North Shore Cattle Co. owner Cal Lum, however, said he still wanted to move forward with the mobile slaughterhouse, even though he too believed that the slaughterhouse’s survival depended on a state buyout.
Lum explained that he instigated the mobile project after the co-op first threatened to stop processing cattle. “The mobile slaughterhouse is a plan B,” he said.
Lum added that he had been approached to be a supplier for Whole Foods, which supports the use of mobile slaughterhouses because they put less stress on the cattle and meet the company’s compassionate care standards. The slaughterhouse, on the other hand, recently had a problem meeting those standards – during the inspection by Whole Foods, a cow had to be stunned multiple times, he said. While Lum added that such things happen and could be easily remedied, “My preference is a mobile unit,” he said.
Despite the board’s concerns over the ramifications of a slaughterhouse closure, the ADC’s Lee noted that a buyout could not and would not come from the ADC. “That is not an ADC function,” he said, adding that the agency also doesn’t have the money to buy the slaughterhouse. When it was clear that ADC had little to no ability to assist the slaughterhouse, the board unanimously approved the mobile slaughterhouse demonstration project.
“This seems like a small amount of money to help an emergency,” board member Christine Daleiden said. Lee added that if it’s not successful on O`ahu, “I believe Kaua`i could use one.”
Limited potential?
While mobile slaughterhouses may help ensure that local ranchers will always have a place to take their cattle, more slaughter facilities – mobile or not – won’t necessarily mean that Hawai`i will be able to produce all of its own beef.
Twenty years ago, when all of the beef raised in Hawai`i was sold in Hawai`i, it fulfilled only 25 percent of the state’s demand, according to Gottlieb. Today, more than 90 percent of calves produced in Hawai`i are shipped, often to Canada, and trucked to states like Texas to be “finished” for slaughter. And by all accounts, these types of cow/calf operations will always be a major part of Hawai`i’s cattle industry.
However, Gottlieb said, if the demand for local, grass-fed beef continues to grow, and he believes it will, Hawai`i may see a doubling or tripling in the number of calves that are kept here.
Lum, whose north shore ranch serves the high-end niche market, said he also believes that market is here to stay. “We are not getting close to meeting our demand,” he said.
Lum said his immediate plans for his 11,000-acre ranch are to increase his production to 400 head a year. He said he hopes to eventually grow to 600 to 800 head a year, all of which will be slaughtered on O`ahu.
According to Gottlieb, however, the rest of the state is not likely to follow his lead. “It’s still a premium to ship calves. There’s not enough land to keep calves on the land,” he said, adding that he couldn’t say whether the niche market would ever grow to more than 50 percent of the state’s overall demand.
In addition to a lack of suitable land, a 2003 CTAHR study indicates that it’s far cheaper for ranchers to ship calves than it is to finish them here. The study, by Sabry Shehata and Linda J. Cox, found that producing calves costs only $226/year/calf for small ranchers (less than 500 head), while it would cost them $475/year/cow to finish them. For large producers, the cost is $262/animal for a cow/calf operation and more than $500/animal for a finishing one.
Large producers, the study states, have no economic incentive to enter the finished beef market and would need a return of at least $0.05 more per pound to “make the market cost effective.”
Despite the obstacles, the DOA’s Kunimoto said that she hoped Hawai`i’s finished beef sector will continue to grow. With the food sustainability discussions going on now, providing more local beef makes a lot of sense, she said.
Waiahole Reservoir Lining
Encounters Dam Safety Issues
Earlier this year, ADC’s Alfredo Lee was scolded by members of the state Commission on Water Resource Management when he requested more time to line two reservoirs that provide Waiahole Ditch water to farmers in Central O`ahu. The lining, required by a contested case order, was to have been completed in July, but the ADC was waiting for enough funding to do both reservoirs at once. With hundreds of thousands of gallons of water being wasted in the meantime, the Water Commission all but ordered Lee to find a way to immediately start lining at least one reservoir.
At the ADC board’s August meeting, Lee reported that the agency did have enough money to line one reservoir and that the Army Corps of Engineers would present a revised timeline to the Water Commission soon.
There was one glitch, Lee said. An attorney for Monsanto, which recently purchased the land that contains the reservoir to be lined, had sent a letter to the ADC claiming that because the ADC has an easement for the reservoir, the ADC is not only the operator, but is also the owner, of the reservoir. Lee said he believed the letter was prompted by the fact that the reservoir is actually a dam, which makes it subject to the state’s new dam safety law and raises liability questions.
While he said that the ADC will manage the reservoir as though it is the owner, “the question is, legally, can we be the owner, because we’re not the landowner?” He added that the reservoir was on the land before the ADC got the easement.
Because the state Department of Land and Natural Resources is in charge of dam safety, board member Wayne Katayama said, “It’s the DLNR’s call whether they recognize [Monsanto’s argument].” With regard to fulfilling the requirements of the state’s dam safety law, Lee said that the ADC and Monsanto may have to do it jointly.
— Teresa Dawson
Volume 19, Number 3 October 2008
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