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Under the Sun Cynthia Oi |
Agriculture lands aren’t
best for growing homesA RECENT assignment stirred me to take the trusty Toyota far from our usual haunts. I pumped in a full tank of gas, packed the Igloo with ice, water and some apples and cruised areas of Oahu I seldom get to see in my routine drives.
Once in awhile, I'll head out to Makapuu or the Leeward side, just to get away from the honks and hustle of urban Honolulu, just to run my eyes over the shoreline and the few spaces left on this island without human footprint. Even then, though, I ordinarily stick to the main roads. This time I ventured deep into valleys and up hillsides, touring the grid of roads mauka, makai and in between.
I was aware in the abstract that housing development had nudged into areas left vacant when big agriculture abandoned Hawaii. But the breadth of residential cultivation is truly amazing.
Those who grew up on Oahu and are about my age or older may remember when there were no freeways, when Farrington and Kamehameha highways were the main thoroughfares that curved through miles of fields gentled by waving sugar cane and spiked with the hard points of stubby plants redolent with golden pineapples. Traveling across the Leilehua plateau, the rich red soil was set off by the green backdrops of the Koolaus on one side and the Waianae range on the other.
The plateau now is edged by Mililani, a baffling maze of streets and so-called parkways ushering a monotone of beige houses and other residential structures, and by Kunia, another sprawl of tedious suburbia where ubiquitous shopping malls and convenience stores blur demarcations. Farther south and west, the Ewa plain fights a bipolar future between newer agricultural enterprises and the aims of government to contrive a "second city" upon its flats. In Hawaii Kai, nurseries have surrendered to the devouring desire for houses and the ribbons of concrete and asphalt that are needed to get to them.
Most of the urban land on Oahu that can be adapted for housing already has undergone the transformation. What's left has been designated for conservation or agriculture or is held by the military. Even politicians recognize that conservation lands cannot be exploited for development and there's no way the military will let loose grip of its holdings. That leaves agricultural lands vulnerable. And developers are hungry for them.
In that effort, they have a champion in a governor who recently declared that the 2 million acres in Hawaii earmarked for agriculture needn't be, that some of it is marginal and should be used to grow houses instead. While it may be that some of the acreage isn't what's called "prime" agricultural land, much of the Ewa plain -- where sugar reigned supreme in the last century -- also was thought to be useless for cultivation until wells were drilled.
Right now, our economy hinges on tourism and little else. Yet we have land good enough to grow a lot of food we now import and that can be exported so that not all our revenue eggs are in one basket.
Naysayers denigrate the viability of agriculture, but a recent report showed that last year, diversified products brought in a record $370.9 million in sales, rising 2 percent to an 11-year high. Even pineapple and sugar, thought to be a part of the past, increased sales 4 and 11 percent, respectively.
If government coddled agriculture as it does tourism, growing our own tomatoes instead of importing the hard-as-tennis-ball pretenders from Mexico, would surely be a flourishing enterprise. We may not be able to raise as much as we consume, but there's something to be said for having some home-grown food sources.
OK, there's something to be said for owning a home, too, but building on ag lands away from the urban core generates sprawl, which increasingly taxes infrastructure.
Near the end of my tour, I stopped to nosh on an apple, which was mealy and dry, living up to only half of its name, Red Delicious. A chilled slice of plateau-cultivated pineapple would have been sweeter to taste buds and soul.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Cynthia Oi has been on the staff of the Star-Bulletin since 1976. She can be reached at: coi@starbulletin.com.
