Exotic fruit flies have been devastating toHawaiian agriculture, forcing growers to resortto almost weekly sprayings with chemicalpesticides—or even to abandon growing somecrops altogether. Estimates are that exotic fruitflies are costing Hawaii more than $300million each year in lost markets for locallygrown produce. That amount does not includepotentially high value export markets thatHawaii has foregone as a result of fruit flyquarantine.A team from the U.S. Pacific Basin AgriculturalResearch Center has developed the firstsuccessful area-wide control program for fourexotic fruit fly species in Hawaii. In addition todeveloping many of the techniques used in theprogram, the team has led and funded apartnership with the Hawaiian Department ofAgriculture and the University of Hawaii tocreate the Hawaii Area-Wide Fruit FlyIntegrated Pest Management Program (HAW-FLYPM), which has carried out extensiveefforts to get Hawaiian growers to adopt thenew technology.The depth of cooperation involved in bringingthe technology to Hawaiian growers has beenremarkable. The program works primarilythrough a combination of field sanitation,protein bait applications, male annihilation, andreleases of sterile flies and parasites. The goalwas to create a simple, effective, inexpensiveprogram that growers would continue to useafter the Center’s involvement ended. Growerseducated in the program have already beenable to cut organophosphate pesticide use by75% to 90%. By using the integrated pestmanagement program rather than chemicalpesticides, growers have still reduced fruit flyinfestation from 30% to 40% to less than 5%.The area-wide program is also moreenvironmentally friendly than conventionalpesticide use. In addition to growers, theprogram is now also being taught to homegardeners, whose gardens are major reservoirsfor fruit flies. In the long term, area-wide fruitfly approaches in some cases will allow forincreased production of organic fruits andvegetables, as well as the production of newfruits previously decimated by fruit flies.