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Posted: Monday, February 18th, 2013 10:32 AM HST

Coffee industry threatened by berry borer brief

By Associated Press

A tiny bug is posing a big threat to Hawai`i’s $30 million a year Coffee Industry.In the three years since its arrival, the coffee berry borer has infested 100-percent of Kona’s coffee farms and damaged 28-percent of last year’s total harvest. Hawai`i Coffee Company President Jim Wayman said an industry that took 100 years to build could be gone in 5 to 10 years. State lawmakers are considering a bill that would spend half a million dollars to research new prevention and treatment of the borer and another $330,000 to control the damage.