A tiny beetle is threatening coffee growers in Hawaii's Kona
region. More than 600 farmers on the west side of Hawaii's Big
Island are preparing to coat their fields with a suffocating
fungus and are taking other measures. They're confident they can
limit the damage, while acknowledging they face a long fight
against a beetle that will almost certainly reduce harvests and
force costly chemical treatments. The beetle is native to Africa
but has spread to most coffee-growing areas in the world. It
bores into the coffee bean and lays eggs, ruining the bean.
Grower Tommy Greenwell says about 25 percent of farms in the
Kona region are infected. Farmers have lost roughly 2 percent of
the crop this year. Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights
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