Hawaii's Final Sugar Cargo Departs Maui Aboard 'Moku Pahu'
gcaptain.com
gcaptain.com
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• Energy crops: “HC&S has initiated crop trials to evaluate potential sources of feedstock for anaerobic conversion to biogas,” stated the company’s press release. The statement added that HC&S has entered into “preliminary, but confidential, discussions with other bioenergy industry players to explore additional crop-to-energy opportunities.”
• Cattle: As noted above, HC&S is “working with Maui Cattle Company to conduct a grass-finishing pasture trial in 2016.”
• Food crops: “A&B plans to establish an agriculture park on former sugar lands in order to provide opportunities for farmers to access these agricultural lands and support the cultivation of food crops on Maui.” Former company employees would get preference in leasing lots.
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[0] http://mauitime.com/news/business/as-the-sun-sets-on-maui-su...
Now it's fifth, IIRC.
Also interesting, the paniolos were the first US cowboys AND they have unique rodeo sports (including my favorite - ranch mugging).
At least on Kauai you can often find local beef, pork, and chicken, though it's still more expensive than meat from the mainland.
Would never have thought that, but there it is. There is an old western movie about the first Hawaiian cattle ranch, can't remember the name of it, but I know my parents have it on VHS.
I used to be of the mind that food should fit under the standard economic principles of other markets (e.g., produce food where it's cheapest/best/most efficient). However, after seeing what happens during natural disasters/blights/global warming etc, I'm thinking that diversified food production is a national hedge, and wondering if government subsidies towards continuing local production is prudent here.
I'm reminded of a documentary on Jamaica, and the effects of forced open trade agreements as part of IMF loan conditions : http://www.lifeanddebt.org/
Clearly, Hawaii is not Jamaica wrt international trade, but it does have some of the same themes :
1. Open trade is not really fair, since subsidies are almost always involved for competing farms as well.
2. The loss of large amounts of easy low paying jobs can be devastating to local economies, which carries additional costs
3. Once gone, agricultural industry is difficult/impossible to restart (requiring large amounts of land, irrigation infrastructure, logistics, etc.)
Simple example: we all benefit from not getting hit by asteroids, but good luck trying to build a profitable business based on that fact.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/01/us/florida-algae-pollution/
> "The algae outbreaks are triggered by fertilizer sewage and manure pollution that the state has failed to properly regulate. It's like adding miracle grow to the water and it triggers massive algae outbreaks,"
But I didn't get a chance to ask any Hawaiians about it.
This stuff is hard to get rid of; I've had it in my yards here and the roots are thick.
[1] http://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/info/invasive-species-profiles/g...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_and_Hawaiian_Sugar_...
Dang you, now I've got an earworm.
Anyway, I'm glad I got to see the fields of cane growing out of the bright red dirt on either side of the highway from Kahului to Wailea. I even made a wrong turn and ended up in the parking lot of that sugar plant-it was about the most industrial thing I saw on Maui.
I forwarded the OP to my friend from Global Manna. His opinion about the effects of cane on the Island biome were less fond.
Had they modernized their equipment and methods years ago when profits were good, they very likely could have continued to operate at a profit and with the support of the community.
Instead, they kept the field burning, the impossibly ancient mill equipment, and didn't adapt to the dropping price of the sugar to focus on more secondary goods like rum, organic sugar, etc.
By the time they realized they'd either have to change or go out of business they were too ingrained to change and didn't have the profits to invest in changing anyways.
It's a bittersweet change for Maui. The real fear is that all of this ag land will increasingly be converted to inefficient subdivisions as has happened on O'ahu and is happening at Maui Lani and up in Kula.
Sugar production in Hawaii peaked 40 years ago but even then had already been in decline for decades, there were no surprises for any of these companies and I'm skeptical they could have turned that train around.
> kept the field burning
Not burning the fields was certainly not going to help the bottom line, there's a reason these companies fight it.
> the impossibly ancient mill equipment
New mill equipment wasn't going to fix the real problem, that third generation kids didn't want to work in the fields for low pay.
> focus on more secondary goods like rum, organic sugar
It's called secondary market for a reason, it's small. Puerto Rico has (had?) ~70% of the US rum market but only employs ~700 people directly. That's the same number of people that HC&S just let go on Maui but that only produced 4% of cane sugar sold in the US.
Inefficient in what sense?
Edit: Thanks for the reply.
I will admit, from a certain economic standpoint, ag land in Hawaii is much less efficient than low-density housing. I do believe that the negative externalities not included in that point of view should be considered (e.g. environmental cost, harm to the tourist industry, the ever nebulous quality of life, etc.).
The economic pressures to build subdivisions are huge as the cost of housing is way out of proportion to the incomes of locals, but demand continues to outstrip supply and with as limited of land as we have, we're just not going to be able to ever reduce costs by trying to supply demand with subdivisions. Unfortunately, we also tend to pass laws limiting height and density and don't have enough mixed zoning areas.
Interestingly, Maui has one of the lowest levels of unemployment in the country at around 4%
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanjul_brothers
If you are a small household cook you may not know this but you should buy all of your white sugar in the fall when the Montana beet crop comes in and drops the price (though commodity options trading may have smoothened that out a bit in recent years)
The 2000s were marked by consumer trends increasingly rejecting HFCS so several products were reformulated with crystalline sucrose, often sourced from sugarcane and shown on packaging as 'cane sugar'. The trend was so acute that in 2010 the Corn Refiners Association petitioned the FDA to change the designation 'corn sugar' to be usable to refer to HFCS [1] (which was ultimately denied).
But then in 2013, due to "consumer indifference", many mass-market products switched back to HFCS while sugar prices where high. So what gives? Has sugar crashed since then?
[1] http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/OfficeofFoods/CFS... [2] http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Markets/HFCS-free-The-trend...
India is also a large producer.