Agricultural theft is a big problem in Hawaii and many small farms are robbed on a regular basis. It has been a struggle to get law enforcement to do anything about this problem, and you certainly never hear about it in the national media. So why is this incident receiving so much attention? Well, the folks who were robbed have a little sway over the media, they are the federal government. This was a USDA research station which was robbed. For whatever reason they don’t want to mention this in the media coverage. They grow a lot of other fruit there and as far as I know it all rots on the ground. I guess the durian trees are one thing the employees actually take the time to harvest and sell. When I was there on a tour last year they said their avocado grove is also a target of thieves and has security cameras all round it. I do not wish to make light of this offense but it’s a bit annoying to have so much agricultural theft ignored by the police and the media, except when USDA is the target.