Meet Your Producers: David and Marinette Webb of Sunny Kapoho Citrus

Meet David and Marinette Webb and their Orchard in Puna district. Check out this music video they created in 2018 before the lava flow https://vimeo.com/149115957. The music is created by David and the video is filmed by Marinette. Most of the farm was spared during the lava flow and David and Marinette still have five acres of citrus, a refurbished acre of bananas, and a recently planted acre of young avocado trees.

David and Marinette purchased the land in 2007. Back then it was an abandoned orchard which they transformed into a certified organic orchard. At this point it was still a producing orchard, however, finding markets, learning to harvest and packing and delivering, proved to be challenging. The second biggest challenge was fruit flies and control methods to keep the sting rate below 10% of the fruit. They managed to increase the sweetness of the oranges by raising soil pH to around 7.0. As they gained experience and customers, in particular Whole Foods Market on Oahu, their production went from 10-20,000 pounds per year to 30-40,000 pounds per year.

The 2018 lava flow interrupted the operation for a few years. They have suspended the organic certification but have continued to follow organic rules and procedures so certification can easily be obtained in one of the next harvest seasons.

The orchard currently produces honey tangerines, limes, lemons, avocados, and apple bananas.

Below top right: Lava entering the Sunny Kapoho Citrus