Heavy rains in Hawai'i and California have driven up produce prices over the past few weeks, but at least one major supplier says the worst may be over.

Hawai'i's record rainfall took its toll on farms and damaged a wide range of local crops, increasing prices for shoppers and forcing wholesalers and others to ship in produce from the Mainland.

But Northern California suffered the same rainy weather that struck Hawai'i and destroyed crops in March, said Matthew Loke, administrator of the state agricultural development division. As a result, consumers saw higher prices — reflecting the cost of shipping in produce as well as shorter supplies of West Coast fruit and vegetables.

Some local residents such as Doris Ruiz have cut back a bit on buying fresh produce because of the price increases.

"I notice the lettuce is higher, bananas are higher, papayas are higher," the 80-year-old retired waitress said. "Cucumbers I just bought and tomatoes, they're all higher."

Ruiz estimated she was spending 15 cents to 20 cents more per pound for some of the produce she's purchased. But she said given the drenching the Islands took, higher prices were not surprising.

"It happens. It's nobody's fault. It's Mother Nature," she said. "At least it's not wiped out. We can still buy."

The short supplies have driven up prices for apple bananas and papayas by about 30 cents a pound at Daiei, said Rene Sanchez, produce manager at the Kaheka store. The price for lettuce the store normally gets from California also increased by about 40 cents a pound, he said.

Produce such as Japanese cucumbers, tomatoes, watercress and Chinese parsley had to be brought in from the Mainland "because the local ones got kind of wiped out," Sanchez said. "And the Mainland was raining, too, so the prices went up."

Armstrong Produce also reported farmers were charging higher prices.

"I would say if you had to compare prices this year to a normal year you're looking at maybe 5 to 10 cents a pound more on tomatoes," said David Kunisaki, director of purchasing for Armstrong Produce. Local green onion and Japanese cucumber farmers charged as much as 50 cents more a pound, he said.

Higher costs were passed along to Armstrong's customers, which include markets.

Kunisaki said some of the higher costs resulted from increased fuel prices, but "more than anything, it's weather-related."

"Everything is based on supply and demand, so with the rains that we just recently had, a lot of the farmers' ... crops were really decimated, for lack of a better word," he said.

The West Coast, which supplies Armstrong with most of its lettuce and citrus fruits, also experienced the storms, Kunisaki said.

"They may have had a day or two reprieve, but they didn't have enough time for the ground to dry out and so what that does is it ultimately impacts the quality and the yield of all the crops," he said.

Armstrong had to fly in produce such as cucumbers and green onions from the Mainland to fill in supply gaps while also bringing in produce via container ship, Kunisaki said.

It's natural for farmers to raise prices when they have less product to sell, said Dean Okimoto, president of the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation and owner of Nalo Farms. Nalo Farms' entire baby greens crop was nearly wiped out by flooding in March, with losses estimated at $100,000. Despite this, Okimoto did not foresee raising the price of his greens, which are sold primarily to restaurants.

"Being a farmer, we've been through this before," Okimoto said. "So we do try to keep money in the bank for a rainy day — literally in this case."

The good news is prices may be easing. Within the past week Kunisaki has noticed some prices declining as farms are rebounding.

"We're starting to see items like green onions (and Japanese cucumbers) starting to bounce back in production," he said. "They're starting to come back to a more normal price level. Prices haven't dropped dramatically, but we're starting to see more and more farmers having product available, so that's a positive sign."

Sanchez said while Daiei is still getting green onions and Chinese parsley from the Mainland, Japanese cucumbers and tomatoes are "coming back a little bit" locally. Prices should improve within a month, he said.

At watercress grower Sumida Farm in 'Aiea, production returned to about one-third of normal levels as of yesterday, said owner David Sumida, who estimated crop losses at the state's largest watercress producer amounted to about $53,000.

"It's getting better," he said, though he doesn't expect a return to normal production until May.

Sumida said that even though his watercress prices have not increased, the cost of local watercress still has gone up because supermarkets have been selling more Mainland watercress.

"They can't have two prices for local and Mainland watercress because that's just not going to work," he said.

Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com and Sean Hao at shao@honoluluadvertiser.com.