Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Consortium
hopes to temper
Amfac crisis

---

By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

LIHUE -- A consortium of Kauai agriculture companies is negotiating with the state to take over all 27,000 acres of public land in West Kauai now being leased to Amfac/JMB, Tim Johns, Department of Land and Natural Resources chairman, told the Kauai County Council last night.

And state and county agencies have banded together to provide job training and counseling to the estimated 400 sugar workers who will begin to be laid off on Nov. 17. The first sessions are scheduled for next week, and a major job fair is slated for next month.

Amfac announced Sept. 15 that it is shutting down both its Lihue Plantation and the Kekaha Sugar Co., resulting in the largest agricultural layoff in Kauai history.

The company plans to sell its east-side sugar land. But it leases 27,000 acres in Kekaha and an additional 6,500 acres in East Kauai from the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Johns said the "exit plan" for Amfac is still being negotiated, but it is clear there is a demand for the Kekaha property from a group consisting of Gay & Robinson (the island's sole surviving sugar company and already the largest landowner on Kauai), Ceatech (which raises shrimp), Pioneer Hi-Bred (a corn seed company), Novartis seeds (also a seed company) and a diversified agriculture group. Ceatech, Pioneer and Novartis already are subleasing state land from Amfac.

Together, they would provide 353 new full- and part-time jobs. In addition, it may head off the annual furloughs Gay & Robinson has instituted for each of the past three years.

Johns cautioned that the new operations will not be able to provide work for all the displaced Amfac workers.

"We shouldn't create the impression that every Amfac worker is going to be employed," he said.

But he believes leasing agreements can be worked out with all the companies that have expressed an interest.

"I'm confident we're going to get these guys on the land. We don't have a lot of other options," Johns said.

Alan Kennett, president of Gay & Robinson and spokesman for the consortium, said many details still must be worked out, both between his group and the state and between Amfac and the state.

Gay & Robinson is also negotiating to take over the power-generating facilities at Amfac's Lihue Plantation, which sells electricity to Kauai Electric and provides about 10 percent of the island's power. It has yet to work out an agreement with Amfac, which owns the terminal at Nawiliwili Harbor that both companies used to ship raw sugar to the mainland.