A Hawaii resident credited with groundbreaking research to eradicate fruit flies worldwide and saving U.S. farmers tens of millions of dollars annually in crop losses has received a Congressional Gold Medal — the highest honor bestowed upon a civilian by Congress — for his service among the first black Marines.

Ernest James Harris, 88, the son of an African-American cotton farmer, was honored by U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz at Washington Place on Saturday.

“When I was picking cotton, I didn’t think of anything like this,” Harris said in an interview. “If the job I did was successful, that was recognition enough.”

Colleagues in Hawaii say the recognition is long overdue.

“I think Ernie has encountered a lot of discrimination. … He hasn’t received as much recognition as he should have. … It’s good he’s getting this recognition,” said Roger Vargas, a research supervisor who has worked with Harris at the Daniel K. Inouye Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center.

“He’s a very kind and good man.”

Harris, a resident of Kaneohe, was involved since the early 1960s in the original research that used radiation to make fruit flies sterile and prevent them from multiplying.

He also developed a method called “male annihilation” that attracted male fruit flies to eat poisoned squares of bait.

With federal support, Harris’ team of researchers was able to use these methods successfully on Rota Island in the Northern Marianas.

Millions of sterile fruit flies are introduced each year in California and Florida, using the technique developed by Harris.

He has traveled the world introducing his method of fruit fly control in more than 20 countries, including Chile, where he received an official commendation from the Chilean government in 1996.

His work enabled Chile to continue to export its fruit worldwide.

From elementary through high school, Harris started each school year more than two months late because he and his five brothers and sisters needed to help his father pick cotton on a 5-acre family farm in Little Rock, Ark.

He said a principal would drop by regularly with lessons so they would be able to keep up with their classmates. Harris attended an all-black public high school in the segregated South, graduating magna cum laude.

Harris was among the first wave of African-Americans who volunteered to become U.S. Marines at Montford Point in North Carolina.

He said he was grateful that as a result of his military service, he was able to receive financial support for a college education under the GI Bill.

Harris graduated from an all-black college in Arkansas that is now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, then eventually moved to the Midwest to earn a master’s degree in entomology at the University of Minnesota.

He remembers sending applications for jobs in research.

“Every time I’d send out inquiries, I’d never hear of anything,” he said.

Harris said he finally received a response from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service with an invitation to work on solving the infestation problem involving fruit flies in Hawaii and the Mariana Islands.

Vargas said during President John F. Kennedy’s administration, an effort was made to integrate all-white federal government agencies, such as the Agricultural Research Service, and Harris was one of the first African-Americans to become one of its researchers.

Harris trained people to combat fruit fly infestations not only in the United States, but also in other countries, including Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

Along the way, he learned enough French and Spanish to work with scientists of different nationalities.

“I was anxious to learn languages and to be effective, whatever it took,” he said.

Harris earned a doctorate in entomology at the University of Hawaii-Manoa in 1975 and has published more than 120 peer-reviewed scientific papers.

He continues to live in the same house he bought in Kaneohe in the mid-1960s.

“I was very, very happy to be here in Hawaii and to work here,” he said. “It’s been wonderful.”