One of Hawaii’s most prized and pricey crops, Kona coffee, mainly grows on small farms. But one company’s bold plan to break that mold is spooking other farmers by asking to import seeds from Central America, where a disease has decimated the industry.

The company with the big ambition, Kona Hills LLC, recently sought state permission to import 1.5 million coffee seed embryos from Costa Rica as part of an effort to establish what would be the largest Kona coffee farm in history.

Kona Hills, which is backed by a $4 billion investment management firm, also proposes building and operating a quarantine facility on its 2,000-acre farm site because state facilities are inadequate.

So far, a state Department of Agriculture advisory committee has expressed concerns over the proposal.

Kona Hills insists its plan is prudent, and some local scientists agree. But other farmers are scared and fear the project could ruin their livelihoods because a disease called coffee rust is prevalent in Costa Rica.

“This is really dangerous,” Suzanne Shriner, president of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association, told the advisory committee at a meeting this month.

Roger Kaiwi, owner of a 12-acre Kona coffee farm and general manager of a mill for major processor Hawaii Coffee Co., called the Kona Hills plan crazy.

“This is my sole source of income,” he told the committee. “There is no way I would roll the dice on this protocol.”

Kona Hills has been working on its plan for more than a year and has already invested $13.5 million just to acquire land: 1,893 acres of Hokukano Ranch in Keala­kekua.

The company is backed by Atlanta-based Domain Capital Advisors and is led by former Starbucks executive Willard “Dub” Hay as board chairman. Another principal is Dave Bateman, owner of Kona coffee farm Heavenly Hawaiian Farms.

The company’s goal is to sell large volumes of 100 percent Kona coffee to the six biggest global buyers of Kona coffee, a market to which Kona Hills said fewer than five of the industry’s roughly 900 farms sell.

“Kona Hills does not view itself as a competitor to the local coffee community,” the company said in its permit request.

The average Kona coffee farm is less than 5 acres, and around 5 million trees comprise the industry, according to the Kona Coffee Farmers Association.

Kona Hills aims to plant 2 million trees, representing a 40 percent expansion. But getting those trees domestically has been a problem.

Under Hawaii law that protects against introducing plant pests and diseases, import permits may be issued for “a limited quantity” of plants or seeds, though “limited” isn’t defined.

Ferrell Daste, a Kona Hills senior vice president, told the committee that the company obtained 500,000 coffee plants locally and to date has planted about 60 acres, or around 60,000 plants.

Another 1.5 million seeds are sought from Costa Rica. However, these would be different varieties from what dominates in Kona, and this also raises concerns.

Most Kona coffee farms grow a variety called typica. The 1.5 million plants sought by Kona Hills would be six other varieties, including five not farmed in the Kona district, which is 2 miles wide and 22 miles long.

Kaiwi of Hawaii Coffee Co. said more varieties could alter what most people know as Kona coffee.

Kona Hills said its selected varieties — Geisha G3, San Isidro 48 and Victoria 1, 2, 4 and 14 — have excellent flavor and are conducive to conditions in Kona.

The six varieties also were selected because they resist coffee rust.

Kona Hills said it will take sufficient precaution so that no coffee rust spreads to Hawaii. The procedure would involve having seeds cleaned, treated with fungicides and sterilized by two companies in Costa Rica where they would spend four to six weeks in jars.

Prior to shipping, Kona Hills would arrange for state Department of Agriculture officials to inspect each shipment of around 100,000 seed embryos in Costa Rica, and then inspect each shipment upon Hawaii arrival.

Quarantine facilities would be built by Kona Hills on its farm, which is more than a mile from the nearest Kona coffee farm. Typically, state inspectors would check quarantined plants in state facilities daily. Kona Hills proposes to have its own staff do daily inspections supplemented by state officials at least once a week.

Another difference in the proposed plan is to keep seedlings in quarantine for six months so that they can be planted when ready, instead of the normal one year.

Jonathan Ho, acting manager of the Agriculture Department’s Plant Quarantine Branch, told the advisory committee that the proposed quarantine program includes safeguards such as sampling for viruses that go beyond standard state procedures given the requested deviations. He also said facility specifications and procedures acceptable to the state can be conditioned on approving a permit.

Still, committee members and a few members of a scientific review panel were wary.

Ten review panel members recommended and one opposed an import permit, while eight favored and three opposed a shortened quarantine.

“Although that’s a lot of plants, precautions for import seem to be more than adequate,” commented panel member George Wong, a University of Hawaii botany professor.

Mann Ko, a Department of Agriculture plant pathologist and panel member, disagreed. Ko raised the possibility that new varieties imported to Hawaii could elevate problems with pests or diseases already here if the varieties are very susceptible to them.

Another panel member, UH microbiology professor Hongwei Li, noted that a safer but more costly procedure to grow plants by cloning tissues from the same plant would reduce the risk of a diseased plant being imported.

The advisory committee reviewed the scientific panel’s comments and deferred making any recommendation to the ultimate decision maker, the state Board of Agriculture.

Committee member Ken Matsui with Pets Pacifica echoed Li’s concern about 1.5 million seeds elevating the risk of disease. Sarah Park, state Health Department epidemiologist, said she was nervous about reducing the quarantine term. And Maria Haws, a UH aquaculture professor and committee member, was against the plan because it lacked scientific documentation.

“I guess I’m starting to see this as a fairly large experiment that, as one person said, is in the heart of the Kona coffee area,” Haws said. “The result of a failure would be devastation to coffee farmers.”

The committee’s deferral on Feb. 13 gives Kona Hills a chance to address concerns and amend its proposal.