Alice Schere of Hawaii Island’s Adaptations Inc. received the William K. Trask Chefs Award at the 32nd Annual Hawaii International Tropical Fruit Conference, held at the Royal Kona Resort.
The award is named after the late Chef Trask, a Maui native who advocated for locally grown food in Hawaii cuisine.
“Through her many years at Adaptations, Alice has taught growers what they need to do to compete in the real world of fruit marketing,” Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers (HTFG) Executive Director Ken Love in a release. “Alice has continuously taken what we grow while educating our island chefs on how to best utilize our local produce.”
The annual awards recognize individuals who use research, education and practice to advance the use of tropical fruits to support the local food industry in a sustainable way. This year’s accolades also included service awards chosen by each island chapter, as well as the “Dirty Fingers” Awards.
A new award format allows each island chapter to offer recognition to someone who has dedicated themselves to the HTFG mission of promoting all aspects of growing and marketing tropical fruit in Hawaii.
“The Dirty Fingers certificates are for those who, week after week, have performed hard farm work to insure HTFG has healthy propagation material for repositories around the state,” Love said in the release.
Dara Stockton received the Roger Vargas Research Award for lace bug and fruit fly investigation, the release said. Although new to Hawaii, Stockton has extensive research in how growers can better combat lace bugs, fruit flies and other pests plaguing fruit growers. The Roger Vargas Award honors the late renowned expert in the biological control of fruit flies; he served as a research entomologist at the Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center.
The recipient of the new Dayday Hopkins Award was Nicolas Rowser for his agriculture enrichment in Hawaii County.
“Nicolas is dedicated to keeping the HTFG mother repository in Kona in shape, interacting with customers, taking care of propagation, contributing on the HTFG Facebook page, and a host of other activities that promote tropical fruit,” Love said.
The Hawaii Island Lesley Hill Service Award went to author Michael Hemmat for his assistance at the HTFG Kona repository.
The Dirty Fingers Award recipients were Kona residents Julie Cambe, Brian Lievens, David Norris, Romeo Fahl, Shinobu Douchette and Alicia Ameden.
The HTFG conference is made possible by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture, County of Hawaii, and HTFG members from across the state. For more information, visit htfg.org.