California storms might mean less food shipped to Hawaii

Strawberries, sunflowers and oysters.

These are just some of the items grown or farmed in California that are expected to be in short supply following a series of storms that earlier this month damaged farms or created delays in shipments of products to Hawaii.

An estimated 85% to 90% of Hawaii’s food is imported from aboard, according to sources analyzing the state’s food security issues. A good chunk of Hawaii’s food sources, whether it be strawberries, milk, lettuce, tomatoes, pistachios or walnuts, comes from California.

For now, limited options seem to be the only impact of the California storms. But the storms drive home the reality that Hawaii remains vulnerable to climate change and weather extremes regardless of where they occur because of the state’s isolation and reliance on shipping goods in from abroad.

Strawberries from California will be harder to come by due to extensive flooding in the area that damaged crops, according to Kimo Muraki, produce buyer for D. Otani Produce. “That area is pretty much flooded,” he said. “A lot of strawberries, the sensitive items, will be sourced from somewhere else, mainly Mexico.”

Sunflower orders from California are also on hold for now, according to Monty Pereira, general manager of Watanabe Floral Inc.

“That’s one of the most well-known flowers we’re struggling with right now,” said Pereira. “We just took all sunflower arrangements off our website. For the next couple of weeks, we’re not going to bring those in.”

Pereira estimated that about 20% of flowers Watanabe Floral brings in come through California, while others come through Florida and South America.

While locally grown sunflowers used to be more abundant, California is now the main source for them, he said, and ideal because it is geographically closer so that fresh-cut flowers make it to customers sooner.

Other bouquet flowers sourced from California that will be harder to find include gladiolas, snapdragons, certain royal lilies, Gerbera daisies and miniature calla lilies that are popular for weddings and funerals.

But there are substitutes, he said, or ways to get them from other areas.

Roses, which come from South America, should still be abundant for the upcoming Valentine’s Day.

“Some of the farms have endured significant losses,” he said. “Entire fields have been destroyed. In those situations it takes 18 to 24 months to start again.”

On the other hand, some of the flowers that were grown in greenhouses and protected from high winds and rain were unable to be moved from farm to airport due to evacuations.

A spokesperson for Safeway said recent storms in California have disrupted supply routes and affected the availability of certain fruits and vegetables – such as berries and corn — to all states, including Hawaii.

“We are working with our growers to address the situation and hope to restore regular delivery schedules as soon as possible,” said Safeway in a statement.

Three of Matson’s ships delivering goods to Hawaii had to alter routes and schedules to avoid bad weather during the California storms, but two were behind schedule by 24 hours or less and the third was expected to arrive a day late, according to a spokesperson.

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that California’s oyster supply will be in short supply because water runoff and therefore potential bacteria from storms forced harvesters to stop operations. Harvesters will need to wait before they can test for bacteria levels.

Separately, there is a nationwide egg shortage due in part to an avian flu outbreak.

Rice, a Hawaii staple, should not be affected because the start of growing season is in the late spring, according to a spokeswoman for the California Rice Commission.

Rice farmers in California had actually been struggling with the ongoing drought, which had impacted the workforce, farming communities and wildlife that rely on rice fields for survival in the Sacramento Valley.

A series of major storms — in the form of atmospheric rivers carrying water vapor through the sky — pummeled California for several weeks following New Year’s Eve, causing at least $1 billion in damage.

The storms caused extensive flooding; broke the Santa Cruz pier in two; damaged homes, bridges and roads; and resulted in more than 700 landslides.

This will have implications for agriculture, given that the Golden State produces more than a third of the nation’s vegetables and three-­quarters of the nation’s fruits and nuts, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

The storms ruined thousands of acres of crops from farmlands in Salinas and Ventura County, where strawberries are grown, to walnut orchards in Sacramento County, according to AgAlert, a publication by the California Farm Bureau Federation.

Many crops exposed to floodwaters with sewage will have to be destroyed, and cleanup and replanting will take time, according to the bureau, while plantings for some vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce will have to be postponed, resulting in later harvests.

While Hawaii has for dec­ades set goals to improve food security – or reliable access to nutritious food — the reality is that it still relies mostly on what’s grown abroad.

Former Gov. David Ige initially pledged in his 2014 campaign to double local food production in Hawaii by 2020. In 2016, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress was held in Waikiki, Ige set a new target date of 2030.

According to Hawaii’s Aloha+Challenge dashboard, there’s room for improvement for local food production along with labor and land resources dedicated to agriculture.

Climate change is expected to bring more weather extremes and challenges, whether it be food security or sea level rise, for Hawaii in coming years.

“We need to prepare for increasing isolation because it’s going to grow more difficult for the southwestern states to provide us with food,” said Chip Fletcher in a recent conversation about climate change on “Spotlight Hawaii,” the Honolulu Star- Advertiser’s livestream program. “We need to prepare for declining rainfall in Hawaii and spreading drought. We need to become more independent in terms of our fuels, and we need to continue on a very strong pathway of independent energy production.”