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Cranston Pia came across intruders on the land on Oahu’s Leeward Coast where he raised his cattle. Their dogs, trained to hunt pigs, were attacking Pia’s calf in a pen.  

Ranchers like Pia know that hunters might kill their cattle to steal meat or sometimes lose control of their dogs. Pia grabbed his rifle and fired a single shot. A 17-year-old boy emerged from the bushes with a pistol and claimed the dogs were his, touching off an argument.

Such a stand-off is nightmarish but common in Hawaii’s agricultural community. Farmers and ranchers are in constant battle with trespassers, would-be cattle rustlers, vandals and thieves who largely escape punishment with law enforcement often miles away. If offenders are caught, prosecutions are rare and the penalties are feeble. 

The confrontation at Ohikilolo Ranch on Feb. 17 ended with another gunshot — a fatal shot to Pia’s temple. Honolulu’s prosecuting attorney called it an “execution-style killing,” and charged 17-year-old Chantston Pila Kokawa.

Pia’s death has brought the low-simmering issue of agricultural crime to a boil. 

After years of inaction and neglect, a handful of lawmakers and state officials now say they want to address it this legislative session. Potential responses include an agriculture-specific stand-your-ground law, allowing ranchers and farmers to defend themselves with lethal force.

By one estimate, agricultural theft and vandalism cost farmers and ranchers more than $14 million, both for the cost of crime and preventing it.

But that may be a serious undercount. In a 2019 U.S. Department of Agriculture survey, Hawaii farmers and ranchers reported almost 15,000 cases of trespass — yet just 970 cases of vandalism, theft and trespass were reported to the police. Only 8% of those reports led to an arrest.

Hawaii’s agriculture industry, worth about $670 million, with about 12,000 producers, faces a host of challenges, including the oldest workforce in the nation and challenging economic conditions.

And now farmers and ranchers say crime is on the rise, with reports of pilfered produce, rustled livestock, broken gates or fences and stolen vehicles among them. Trespassing is not as well publicized.

“You can’t talk to one rancher that hasn’t been in the same situation as Cranston,” Big Island rancher Lani Cran Petrie said. “They just didn’t get shot.”

Red-Handed, A Slap On The Wrist

Petrie has regularly faced off with trespassers on her land, and just over a year before Pia’s killing, she faced a remarkable scenario: She had the police with her when she caught trespassing hunters.

The officers, flanking Petrie and husband Bill, responded to the rancher’s call in the early evening with AR-15s and kevlar vests. As the sun set, they surrounded two hunters — armed with a crossbow and rifle — deep in the ranch’s brushy thicket.

This time, with the cops present, Petrie thought it was an open-and-shut case. The hunters – poachers as Petrie calls them – were caught in the act.

But one year later, the day before Pia’s killing, just one of the hunters was charged with a suspended sentence for five hours of community service. Petrie says it’s scant punishment for someone she alleges is a repeat offender. She is “sure we’re going to catch him again.” 

Before Pia’s death, ranchers would typically confront trespassers. In Petrie’s case on the Big Island, she says she had encountered one of the hunters before and let them off with a warning. 

“Now our farmers and ranchers are thinking twice about confrontations,” Hawaii Cattlemen’s Council director Nicole Galase said.

Part of the problem, according to both ranchers and law enforcement, is that the laws and enforcement are weak and the logistics of fighting crime in farther-flung agricultural areas are difficult.

Trespassing on agricultural land is also classified as a petty misdemeanor that comes with a maximum of 30 days in prison and a $1,000 fine, for example, which officials told lawmakers had never been imposed fully in a hearing following Piaʻs death. 

That, according to Petrie, means many poachers will treat the fine like a payment to hunt. 

“You’re playing with fire. The only thing you can get these guys on is trespass. But it’s like a spark around gasoline. It escalates. Fast,” Petrie said. “Cattle are spooked – boom – they’re through a fence. Somebody says ‘F you,’ then suddenly everybody’s looking for their weapon.”

‘I Guarantee It’s A Big Deal’

Within two weeks of Pia’s killing, ranchers and farmers arrived at the State Capitol building in droves, cramming into a conference room alongside industry advocates, to share stories with lawmakers and officials about the realities of crime in the state’s agriculture. 

Farmer-friendly lawmakers grilled officials over why they were not paying enough attention to the issue. Pia’s death was at the top of their minds.

“Hunting and trespassing in that area have just become normal,”  Dustin Griffith, rancher and friend of Pia, told lawmakers on Feb. 29. “We call to get help, the police come out and say ‘Ah, it’s just trespassers, ah it’s just hunters.’ I guarantee it’s a big deal to me and I guarantee it’s a big deal to the Pia family.”

Attorney General Anne Lopez told lawmakers that “we clearly have work to do” and that the new Department of Law Enforcement, formed in January, would play an integral role in that work. 

“Certainly the judges play a huge role in what actually happens … but that doesn’t mean that we can’t, as a group, reassess how assertive or maybe aggressive we are,” Lopez said. 

Since Pia’s death, senators Tim Richards of Big Island and Lynn DeCoite of Molokai have maintained pressure on those agencies to muscle up, which the Department of Law Enforcement has since said it is serious about. 

The department has responded positively to the call, despite not having funding for agricultural crime, because the current situation is what department deputy director Jared Redulla has called a “recipe for disaster.”

Two-Legged Pests

Agricultural crime is more than just ranchers taking issue with trespassers. Farmers are subject to trespassers, vandals and thieves, who often case farms for expensive equipment and prize specialty crops.

Less than two weeks ago, Big Island fruit farmer Ken Love once again found his trees stripped of valuable malama avocados, jackfruit and mamey sapote, despite the 6,000-volt fence surrounding them. 

The fence is tall enough for typical Big Island pests – feral goats or hogs – which means he now needs “a fence for two-legged pigs rather than four,” Love says. 

Fruit thieves arrive with the harvest of Hawaii’s seasonal fruits statewide, particularly for high-value crops like lychee or mangosteen — often found later in the state’s farmers markets. One thief was caught twice in June 2022, once with 150 pounds of lychee worth $1,200 and again with about $260 worth of mangosteen. He was sentenced to four years probation this year. 

But tracing stolen fruit once it makes it into the market is difficult, given they will likely be sold on as part of larger bunches. Love routinely reports thefts so that the police have agricultural crime on their minds.

Has any one of those reports resulted in anything? 

“No. Never,” said Love, president of Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers. “There are people who have caught thieves and nothing happened.”

Piecemeal state and county initiatives have focused on the farmers markets, through the vendors who knowingly or unknowingly buy the purloined fruit.  

But with deep skepticism about law enforcement’s interest in ag crime, Hawaii farmers and ranchers are spending on their own security, up from $7.4 million in 2004 to $11.2 million in 2019, according to surveys.

While the cost of security takes up much of the cost of agricultural crime, most farmers and ranchers think those numbers are very low and do not paint a full picture, partly due to a lack of reporting. In 2004, 17% of farms and ranches reported thefts or vandalism on their land — reported or not to police. That fell to 14% in 2019.

“Those numbers are grossly underrepresented,” Hawaii Farm Bureau director Brian Miyamoto said. 

The lack of reporting and enforcement sparked disagreement between the authorities and farmers, with law enforcement claiming theft is either a non-issue or their hands are tied because there’s no tangible data, while farmers and ranchers say they don’t report it because nothing will come of it. 

Authorities have toyed with tracing produce with invisible ink, detectable with ultraviolet light, akin to how ranchers brand cattle. On the Big Island, the county hired a specialized agricultural inspector to monitor the supply chain between farms and the farmers markets as part of a state pilot study into the issue. 

But the initiatives tend to be pilot projects with temporary funding, and fade quickly, fueling farmers and ranchers’ frustrations. 

Solving The Crime

Richards, the senator and a generational rancher from Kohala on the Big Island, has faced trespassers, poachers, had horses stolen, and, less than two months ago, had one of his cowboys catch three armed hunters within a few hundred yards from his home, where his children were feeding the family’s horses. 

That poses a safety risk, as an errant bullet or arrow shot towards the house could have devastating consequences — as it did with Cranston Pia.

Richards wants to figure out more appropriate trespass statutes for agriculture, laws that do not require fencing and “No Trespassing” signs, which are required to explicitly state that land is private. 

While Love’s fruit farm has a 6,000-volt fence to deter thieves, it doesn’t have placards to keep them out. “Everybody stole my no-trespassing signs. Four in the last year,” fruit grower Love said. “It’s sad but it’s funny.” 

Legislation has nevertheless been introduced for at least eight years, aimed at resolving longstanding issues between trespassers, poachers, hunters and ranchers. 

Fellow senator DeCoite pointed to each of them as a failed opportunity, saying they died because most of the Legislature’s city-dwelling lawmakers did not take it seriously. 

A 2016 bill would have made it easier to prosecute trespassing on agricultural land by removing a requirement for fencing or trespass warning signs. It failed in the Legislature after opposition from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which feared it would impinge on Native Hawaiian gathering rights. 

Those rights are enshrined in the State of Hawaii’s constitution, allowing Native Hawaiians to gather certain goods on private lands. 

“Most of you believe that’s a crock of bull,” DeCoite said last month. “As a Native Hawaiian, I don’t have a problem with anyone gathering. Just ask first.”

A 2018 pilot program report on the Big Island found that — in addition to providing better education for producers and law enforcement — a longstanding system for certifying ownership and movement forms of agriculture products was particularly effective in clamping down on the crimes, but only if there was enough enforcement of them. 

Love, the farmer on the Big Island, said the forms are still being used, though they are not very effective, despite authorities banking on them to help stem the flow of stolen produce. 

Now with the 2025 legislative session looming, Richards is mulling the creation of an agricultural crime commission, and is working with the Attorney General’s Office on a comprehensive bill to centralize and demystify laws that apply to agricultural theft, vandalism and trespass. 

The most controversial of Richards’ ideas may include a stand-your-ground law, which would allow the use of force in self defense when threatened with death. “Allow agriculture to protect itself,” he said. Stand-your-ground laws exist in about 28 states. 

Richards said he understands he will face significant pushback and does not want vigilantism to ensue.

But Pia’s death lays the issue bare, which Richards believes his fellow lawmakers and the authorities need to take seriously. 

“You’re forcing it by not enforcing the current law,” Richards said. “What is agriculture supposed to do?”

“Hawaii Grown” is funded in part by grants from the Stupski Foundation, Ulupono Fund at the Hawaii Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.