Hamakua Springs Country Farms, located on the slopes of Mauna Kea in beautiful Pepe‘ekeo on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, is run by three generations of the Ha family.

RICHARD HA is president of Hamakua Springs. These days he’s at work researching and experimenting with new products, and concentrating on the farm’s energy- and labor-efficient systems.

Richard’s farming experience goes way back. When he finished college with an accounting degree, his father asked him to come run his 40-acre chicken farm at Waiakea Uka. Richard decided to grow bananas on part of his father’s farm and he talked grocery stores into saving him banana boxes. He traded chicken manure to other farmers for banana plants.

That was 30 years ago, and that banana business took off and evolved into Kea‘au Bananas. In 2004, the company expanded to its present Pepe‘ekeo location, changed its name to Hamakua Springs Country Farms and started diversifying into additional products.

Although Richard is its president, Hamakua Springs truly is a family business. “The family members all have a vote, and I have 3⁄4 of a vote,” he laughs. “To give you an example, when we developed the cocktail tomato, I did a variety of tests. My favorite was another variety. I could have said, ‘We’re going with this one,’ because I was sure I was right. But after we discussed it, I was outvoted. And they were right. The cocktail tomato was the product that became successful and started our momentum away from bananas.”

JUNE HA, Richard’s wife, is the farm’s office manager. Richard says that June’s strengths are his weaknesses. He tends to look to the future, he says, and sometimes forgets about the present. Richard—the accounting major who admits he used to keep all his business records stuffed in a banana box—is the planner, but he explains that June manages the money. “If it wasn’t for June watching the practical, day-to-day stuff, it wouldn’t have happened,” he says. “We wouldn’t have gotten off the ground.” While Richard and son-in-law Kimo are more production-oriented, June also signs on new employees and keeps track of what they need.

And four afternoons a week, she and Richard still load trucks for their Kona deliveries. June organizes the different pallets so they are loaded for different supermarkets. “She points and I have to load them up,” says Richard. “Sometimes she points too hard in front of everybody,” he laughs.


FLORENCE HA, Richard’s mother, has worked on the farm since they planted the first banana. Now 82, she still works five days a week. “I pick her up in the morning, and if I’m late I get a scolding,” jokes Richard.

One of her jobs is taking care of banana tissue culture plants in the nursery. When tissue culture plants arrive, she takes them out of what look like poi bowls, shovels cinder so she can plant them in one-gallon pots, and then takes them out to the nursery in a wheelbarrow and lines them up to grow. In a year, she pots around 40,000 plants.

Years ago Florence packed the bananas when Richard and his three brothers operated a banana farm at Waiakea Uka. And then, when Richard simultaneously started his own banana farm at Kapoho and brought his bananas to the packing house at the end of the work day, she stayed late and packed those bananas into the evening and night.

“She works really hard,” says Richard. “When her granddaughter was 12 years old, she said, ‘Can I see your muscles?’ It kind of embarrassed her, so after that she’d wear long-sleeved shirts.”


KIMO PA, Richard’s son-in-law, manages the farm day-to-day, and TRACY PA, Richard and June’s daughter, is the computer whiz who handles some of the accounting, gives farm tours and handles special projects. Kimo and Tracy are next in line in the farm’s plan of succession.

Richard says there are several reasons he is comfortable looking forward to when Kimo and Tracy take over Hamakua Springs. "One of Kimo's best traits," he says, "is that he is fair. Everybody knows they'll be treated fairly. And he pays attention to the details; he sweats the small stuff.  Kimo maintains a good balance between positioning us toward the future while taking care of today. Like me, he feels that if you're not going forward, you're going backward."

Tracy is a natural-born organizer who masterminds supermarket demos, farm tours and other special events. Once, after taking a group of first-graders around and priming them about the farm's bananas, Tracy asked them: "Now children, when you go to the market with your mommy, which bananas are you going to buy?" In unison, they responded by shouting: "Yellow bananas!"

When it comes to working with adults, anyway, Tracy has the knack. Richard says, "She has the marketing instinct. She just shines when it comes to marketing and promotion."

“I have absolute confidence in Kimo and Tracy,” he says. “Between the two of them, they are really serious and dedicated, and really enthusiastic about the future.”