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David Morrell used to be a sugar plantation executive but now he's in the fields -- swinging a hoe on his 45-acre Central Maui spread, raising asparagus that he will deliver to restaurants and natural-food stores.
"There is life after sugar, even though it was tough at the time," said Morrell, 50, who lost his job as manager of McBryde Sugar Co. when the Kauai plantation folded in 1996.
Morrell is among those who are part of a growth sector in the state: truck farming. While foreign competition has laid waste to sugar and pineapple in Hawaii, truck farming has found a place under the island sun to take root and flourish.
According to the most recent state statistics, the number of vegetable and melon farms -- the traditional categories of truck farming -- nearly doubled in the past decade, from 515 in 1993 to close to 1,000 by the late 1990s. Production has increased from 71.7 million pounds in 1993 to 90.7 million pounds in 1998."In general, we feel diversified agriculture has been one of the brighter spots in the economy," said Robert L. Gerber, a state farm-development administrator.
One of the main reasons, simply, is that the shutdown of sugar and pineapple operations freed up land and water. Wayne Ogasawara leases 460 acres of former pineapple land on Oahu from Castle & Cooke Hawaii, and estimates he has seen truck farming acreage in Mililani shoot up by 25 percent during the past three years.
While the shutdowns laid off workers, they also have provided some of them with the chance to pursue the American dream. Many new farmers on the Big Island are immigrants from Vietnam, Korea and the Philippines, noted James Yamaki, a statistician for the state Agriculture Department.
Those farmers have added diversity to menus as well as the roster of the self-employed, raising exotic crops like rambutan -- a spiny red Malaysian fruit similar to lychee -- and durian, an oval fruit many consider tasty although notorious for its strong odor.
"You'll be noticing all these exotic fruits coming into the market," Yamaki said. "The farmers have been really trying out these crops."Truck farming entails risk and a lot of sweat equity, but among the rewards is independence. Warlito Tolentino, who arrived from the Philippines 30 years ago, gave up his job as a mason to become a farmer, initially in Waianae.
Now he and his brother Abad have expanded their eggplant operation in Mililani to nine acres, sometimes harvesting 1,000 pounds in a hot 11-hour day.
"I'm my own boss," declared Tolentino, whose farming income helped send his two children to Purdue University.
Brothers Alex and Mike Sou, who immigrated from Laos in 1976, have managed to expand their Aloun Farms in Central Oahu from 20 to 1,500 acres since 1995. The Sous employ about 100 workers, and grow a variety of crops, including cantaloupe, honeydew melon, lettuce and zucchini.
Farming has its vagaries, though. For the Tolentinos, moisture from January rains brought a fungus that attacked eggplant leaves and made flowers drop off.
Then there is the matter of choosing the right crop: Sanh Pham planted ginger last year on his farm in Glenwood on the Big Island, and this year is trying tomatoes. But he is having only limited success because of wet conditions.
"It's a little hard," said Pham, who came from Vietnam 20 years ago.Morrell feels the pressures, too, even though his Crossroad Farms Inc. produces about 2,000 pounds of asparagus a week and employs six to seven workers.
"Farmers are like gamblers," he said. "You fight the natural elements. You feel you have control, even if you don't."
But when the gamble pays off, consumers can share in some of the winnings, with stable and sometimes lower produce prices.
"The citizens are winning," said Larry Jefts, who has farms on Oahu and Molokai.
"In 1999, for the Memorial Day weekend, the retail price of watermelon in San Francisco was higher than Honolulu. That would not have been possible 10 years ago."
There also are less tangible benefits. Morrell, who also held executive positions with Pioneer Mill and Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co., is making less money than before but has become closer to family members, who share in his labors.
"I figure it's extremely good for their development," he said. "Plus, I really need them sometimes when I'm short of workers."
And he doesn't have to think about going to the gym for a workout or other aspects of his office incarnation.
"I'm in better shape than I've been in years," he said. "I don't have to worry about getting my clothes dirty. I get down and dirty, and enjoy the physical aspect of it as well as the mental."
