THE NEW CENTURY:
RETURN TO ROOTS

Isle agriculture
ahead of the curve

Hawaii farmers buck the norm
and pursue independent farming

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By Lyn Danninger
ldanninger@starbulletin.com

While more and more acreage has become available for diversified agriculture, today's small farmer still faces remarkably similar challenges to those encountered 100 years ago by the sugar planters.

Water, suitable land, processing, control of pests, transportation and reaching desirable markets were all issues then and continue to be today.

In 1900 there were no fewer than 51 individual sugar companies and more than 100 sugar mills in Hawaii. But while sugar planters developed the infrastructure needed to sustain their growing operations, given Hawaii's isolated location, eventually they found it more cost-effective and efficient to get together on high-dollar costs encountered with labor, marketing, transport, processing and finally research.

"They became vertically integrated long before the term was ever thought of," said Stephanie Whalen, who heads the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center.

In that sense, the necessity of pooling resources put Hawaii way out in front of what was happening elsewhere where agriculture still consisted largely of small independent farms.

STAR-BULLETIN / NOVEMBER 1997 A century after plantations ruled Hawaii, small-scale farms are working on diversified crops. The challenge for Hawaii's new breed of farmers, say agriculture experts, is to identify their niche. Kona coffee, above, is one such unique, successful industry.

Since that time, farmers elsewhere learned what Hawaii farmers encountered in decades previous: that it would be more profitable to work together.

"The rest of the world is just learning in the last two decades that to cut costs and be more efficient, you have to collectively agree on such things as supplies, research and labor," she said.

But now with land once again available, Hawaii farms seem to be heading in the opposite direction, away from large-scale commodity operations pioneered here and back to small independent farms growing a diversity of crops.

The local trend could be seen as going against the grain, but the opposite is true. Once again, Hawaii is out in front, Whalen said.

Given the effects of globalization, a growing distrust of large corporations, a spate of food scandals and an emphasis on healthy, nutritious foods, Hawaii's network of small farmers is well positioned to meet the growing demand, said Paula Helfrich, executive director of the Hawaii Island Economic Development Board.

STAR-BULLETIN / APRIL 2002 On Oahu, Owen Kaneshiro is making a go with Manoa lettuce on Waianae land once used by his dad for raising hogs.

"We are going back to a quest for comfort food that's high quality, and there's an emphasis on food safety. All that is best done by small growers, so we are ideally positioned," she said.

The challenge now, say Helfrich and Whalen, is for Hawaii's new breed of farmers to identify their niche.

Because it is difficult to compete on price in a global market, local farmers, even if they are competitors, will have to learn to work together again as they once did when large-scale agriculture dominated Hawaii, whether it is getting together to fund research or marketing or improving processing, said Jim Hollyer, professor at the University of Hawaii's College of Tropical Agriculture & Human Resources.

"If you learn anything from history, it's that it repeats itself. The question is, do you learn anything from it," he said.

"What we have in our corner is the Hawaii niche name, the mystique. What we are missing is price, so the way you make up for that is customer service. We need to develop relationships. People are more interested in supporting the family farm when there is a person standing next to the product," Hollyer said.