Agriculture theft remains a critical problem on O'ahu, and Mayor Mufi Hannemann, City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle and the Police Department are asking farmers to help them find a solution.

You Soukaseum, who has five farms in Kahuku and Waimanalo, said yesterday he hopes the session with authorities that farmers have been invited to attend next week will help curb a problem that seems to be worsening.

This month, he said, his farms have been hit three times by brazen thieves who don't bother to hide their faces. He said they attacked his workers with knives and golf clubs and attempted to kidnap one of his female employees in the middle of the night.

"These people have become more and more violent, and more and more fearless," Soukaseum said through an interpreter at a news conference held by the mayor yesterday to announce the session.

Thieves used to be frightened away by lights or when farmhands appeared, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore, he said.

The forum is at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Mission Memorial Auditorium, next to City Hall.

"Everyone agrees that education is the best weapon in our fight against crime," Hannemann said.

Carlisle said his office recognizes the importance of the agriculture industry on O'ahu and will support farmers in any way it can. "We do not want the situation where people are taking the law in their own hands," the prosecutor said.

Kahuku farmer Khamxath Baccam, 49, is accused of firing a shotgun blast that killed Marcelino Pacheco Jr. on an isolated dirt road near Baccam's Kahuku farm in the middle of the night last September. Baccam, who says Pacheco was stealing from him and was a serious threat, was to go to trial this month but the case is expected to be delayed, said Todd Eddins, Baccam's attorney.

Dean Okimoto, president of the Hawai'i Farm Bureau and owner of Nalo Farms, said farmers are losing millions of dollars to thieves. Crops, equipment, fertilizer and chemicals are being stolen. Okimoto said he installed a $20,000 fence to deter crime at his place.

Police don't have statistics on agriculture thefts because there is no category for it in the reporting system, said Detective John McCarthy of the Kailua Police Station. He said that each district will address the problem when there are spikes in the reports but that farmers tend not to report. So far this month, there has been one report of nine 'ohi'a trees stolen. He said he had not heard about the Soukaseum case.

In Windward O'ahu, the problem is steady but random, and it's difficult to patrol and collect evidence because crops don't have identifying numbers as an automobile does. Contributing to the issue is that people buy the stolen goods, some knowingly, McCarthy suspects.

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com.