By Jon Letman
After NTBG completed its first Pacific breadfruit expedition to Kiribati, Samoa, and French Polynesia in 1977, the Garden began amassing a collection of ‘ulu (breadfruit) varieties that represented the horticultural diversity found throughout the Pacific. NTBG’s increased conservation efforts and a recognition of the importance of preserving and promoting this iconic tree led to the establishment of the Breadfruit Institute in 2003. Nearly a quarter century later, Kahanu Garden in Hāna, Maui is home to the world’s largest conservation collection of breadfruit.
With more than 300 trees planted on eleven acres, maintenance and management of the collection is a full-time job requiring a high level of environmental, scientific, and horticultural knowledge. Overseeing the conservation collection at Kahanu Garden today is breadfruit collection manager Kaitu Erasito.
Speaking from his office in Hāna, Kaitu discusses how he went from being a self-described “country boy” on the Fijian island of Viti Levu to managing the collection on Maui. Kaitu says a 2015 chance encounter with Breadfruit Institute founder and director emeritus Dr. Diane Ragone at a breadfruit summit in Hawaiʻi in 2015 led him to NTBG.
Long before breadfruit became central to his life, Kaitu grew up in the riverside town of Sigatoka on Fiji’s Coral Coast. In his youth, Kaitu and his friends passed the time by forming a sugar cane cutting gang. The work was difficult and dangerous, but the boys enjoyed the challenge of clearing sugar cane from steep slopes and plots where machines couldn’t reach. “We’d wake up early, go to the cane field and tah! tah! tah!” Kaitu recalls, making a rapid chopping sound. Their reward wasn’t the little money they earned, but the camaraderie they shared.
Growing up in a small town, Kaitu was strongly influenced by his maternal uncle, a man called Saimoni Biggs Nainoca, an agricultural science teacher from tiny Rotuma island in the north of Fiji. Occasionally Saimoni Biggs would pop up and teach Kaitu tropical farming skills — how to germinate and plant papaya seedlings, how to grow breadfruit from root suckers, air layering, and so on. For Kaitu, it was all good fun, though he did not yet know his uncle had bigger plans for him.
Kaitu’s life changed forever when he came home one day to find his parents standing beside Saimoni Biggs and a bag, already packed, ready to go. His uncle had enrolled Kaitu in a boarding school on the other side of the island.
Kaitu was speechless. Still just 13-years-old, he had never left his hometown and now he was being taken from his parents to a faraway place he didn’t even know existed until that day. By the end of the week, Kaitu and his benefactor uncle were standing in the office of the principal. The school had strict requirements and Kaitu’s grades fell just short of a passing mark, but Saimoni Biggs was mates with the principal, a fellow rugby enthusiast who was easily convinced that Kaitu’s strength as a rugby player merited admission to the school.
Suddenly the cane fields of Sigatoka felt distant and Kaitu found himself sharing a classroom with Fiji’s academic elite. For five years, Kaitu lived and studied far from his family. There were lonely days, but he says the experience taught him to be independent and study hard. Upon graduating from boarding school, Saimoni Biggs reappeared. He had a vision for Kaitu’s education and future.
Now 18-years-old, and with guidance and support from his uncle and parents, Kaitu learned he was once again bound for more schooling, this time in Samoa. After earning a bachelor’s degree in agriculture science, Kaitu returned home where he accepted his first posting as a farm manager on Taveuni, Fiji’s third largest island. The position eventually led him back to his former boarding school, this time as an agriculture science teacher.
Later, Kaitu secured a technical position working for the international development organization South Pacific Commission (now called The Pacific Community). He says it was then that breadfruit “took his hand.”
In his new post, near his hometown on west Viti Levu, Kaitu immersed himself in a project to develop commercial breadfruit orchards. The project was a partnership with Nature’s Way Cooperative Fiji, Ltd, a leading heat quarantine treatment facility for exporting fresh and frozen breadfruit, papaya, mango, etc., supplying markets in Australia and New Zealand.
Kaitu’s work included collecting, propagating, and growing local varieties of breadfruit like Uto Dina and Balekana which were shared as seedlings with co-op member farmers who grew the breadfruit for export and distribution to local markets.
For five years, Kaitu worked as an extension and research officer responsible for growing breadfruit trees for Nature’s Way, supporting Fiji’s shift from wild harvesting to establishing breadfruit orchards with the aim of reducing post-harvest loss and increasing crop yield by improving pruning and collecting techniques.
Kaitu says that today in Fiji people still value root crops like taro and sweet potato, but after a series of category 4 and 5 hurricanes since 2016, Fijians have gained a greater appreciation for the resilience and reliability of breadfruit as it is less vulnerable to flooding and root rot.
People understand that breadfruit can bear fruit just a few months after a hurricane and, Kaitu says, that because five trees can feed ten families year after year, ensuring food security, “they recognize the importance of breadfruit as a staple crop for both home consumption and business.” For Kaitu, breadfruit has become central to his career, but more than that, he says the tree represents the potential for a healthier, more self-reliant future.
In 2013, Kaitu participated in a technical knowledge exchange program at the Vanuatu Agricultural Research and Technical Centre where he gained more experience and new skills working on breadfruit characterization, identification, and the collection of breadfruit varieties found throughout Vanuatu. He says the knowledge gained there gave him the skills and experience to come to the Breadfruit Institute at Kahanu Garden. Since joining NTBG in 2023, he has been focused on pruning, care, and management of the collection.
Becoming more familiar with breadfruit grown at Kahanu Garden and Hāna’s unique coastal environment, Kaitu has been able to identify at-risk ʻulu varieties and specific trees. Through a combination of air layering, stem and root cutting duplication, and grafting, Kaitu is bolstering the vigor of Kahanu Garden’s breadfruit collection.
To date, he has successfully air layered 14 at-risk varieties and has turned his attention to developing a new two-acre planting block which will be fenced off to protect trees from feral pigs. An additional plot of land will be home to a new Regenerative Organic Breadfruit Agroforest (ROBA) similar to the one in McBryde Garden on Kaua‘i. Crops being planted for a food forest include avocado, cacao, coconut, and banana. Future plantings may include moringa, mamaki, ginger, lemon grass, cassava, edible ferns, citrus, and other tropical fruit crops.
As Hāna begins to feel more like home than a remote posting, Kaitu says the challenge of managing a large collection and taking on garden projects fuels his enthusiasm, each day yielding new findings. Building a relationship with his community and caring for the plants motivates him. “This new chapter, my faith in God, the breadfruit trees, and my family is what keeps me alive — working hard to achieve new heights and purpose in life. All of this keeps me going.”
