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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-07-14 Arturo Ballar, Generations Kona Coffee Support Testimony From: Arturo Ballar To: Planning LPC Testimony Cc: Subject: Kona coffee Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2026 2:49:44 PM Attachments: Arturo Ballar Testimony.docx Aloha to you Please, attached, you can see my testimony Mahalo Arturo Ballar Ortiz Generations Kona Coffee Aloha Commissioners: I am a seventh-generation farmer. My name is Arturo Ballar, a proud coffee farmer, a Biologist researching soil biology, plant nutrition, pest and disease control, cultural practices, safety, and environmental care. On my own land and on the dozens of farms I've helped with. Because we are all Kona coffee — I have watched more coffee families leave than I can easily count. Berry coffee borer took some. Leaf rust took more. Labor and land prices took the rest. Most of them were good farmers. Being good was not enough. I am writing about one of the few people who came the other direction. I met Jason Eisert shortly after he bought his overgrown farm. He was reaching out to people in the community, asking for assistance with farming. He had zero experience with farming. He asked me to come out and show him how to properly manage his farm and how to get it back to the beautiful farm that it once was. With passion, humble to listen, and the willingness to do all right. From the moment I met Jason, I never had to guess whether he was serious about farming. I have sold him many coffee trees, over 1,300 saplings from my nursery, and I have watched them go into the ground and get taken care of. And the road runs both directions: when landowners came to him for more help than he could take on, he sent them to me, and I work with multiple of those farms today. That is not how a man behaves when he is only building for himself. At the same time, I watched his farm grow into something this community uses: a place where visitors learn what real Kona coffee takes, a mill that handles coffee for small farms across this belt, and many local people on his team working year-round in agriculture — field crews, coffee processors, mill workers, roasters, guides who teach about coffee, etc. Jason’s crews also care for the farms of elderly landowners who can no longer work their own land. In a district that loses farm jobs every year, that is not a small thing. Here is what I want the Commission to understand from someone whose family has done this for seven generations: heritage does not keep a farm alive. Income does. My generation's children are walking away because the numbers do not work. The only farms I see making it are the ones that found honest income tied to the land itself. That is not tourism replacing agriculture. That is agriculture paying for its own survival. Kona coffee does not need more people who admire it. It needs people who invest in it and pull others up with them. Jason is one of them — I know because I am one of the people he pulled. I ask you to approve PL-SPP-2025-000109. I am available if the Commission has questions. I truly believe we need more people like Jason to keep pushing back all the world coffee competition Respectfully, Arturo Ballar Generations Kona Coffee 83-5474 Middle Keei Rd, Captain Cook 96704 8084306355 arturo@generationskonacoffee.com