Excerpt from hawaiibusiness.com
Making agriculture a viable industry in today’s Hawai‘i is a daunting task. Biosecurity, agricultural crimes, infrastructure, land availability, an aging workforce, limited markets and few food processing centers are among the barriers facing this comparatively small segment of the state’s economy.
But the state is planning and building a new network of opportunities and support intended to reinvigorate Hawai‘i’s agricultural sector.
“It was generally thought that when sugar and pineapple plantations shut down, former plantation crop land would be cultivated with numerous smaller crops,” wrote UH economists Sumner La Croix and James Mak in 2021. “Instead, much of it lies fallow.”
So true, but after decades of decline and stagnation, conditions may be ripe for a rebound in diversified agriculture.