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State allows farm
consortium to take
over sugar land

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By Anthony Sommer
Kauai correspondent

LIHUE -- State land now being used to grow sugar and other crops will not go fallow after Amfac/JMB closes its sugar operations on Kauai, under an agreement approved by the state Board of Land and Natural Resources.

The board issued temporary permits yesterday to a consortium of farm companies that will allow them to take control of 27,000 acres of state land that Amfac/JMB had been leasing.

If the land is not taken care of, the unharvested sugar crop will die, the complex irrigation system on the land will go unmaintained and the pumps and drainage ditches that provide flood control for Waimea, Kekaha and the Navy's Pacific Missile Range will deteriorate, the board was told.

Keeping the land in farming will also create about 200 new jobs, the board was told.

The consortium includes Controlled Environment Aquaculture Technology Inc. (which raises shrimp), Novartis Seeds and Pioneer Hi-Bred International (both grow large quantities of seed corn), sugar company Gay & Robinson Inc. and alfalfa farmer Wally Johnson.

All but Gay & Robinson already are on the land as tenants of Amfac.

The state, which owns the property, will be their new landlord when Amfac departs and will negotiate new leases.

Allen Kennett, president and general manager of Gay & Robinson said the company wants to take over a portion of the Amfac sugar land if it can. It has cancelled plans to furlough many of its employees when harvesting ends Nov. 6 in anticipation of putting them to work on the Amfac crop.

Tim Johns, land board chairman and director of the Department of Land and Natural Resources said the new tenants likely will receive reduced rent in exchange for maintaining the irrigation and drainage systems.