"And with concentrated land ownership, people have felt left out of their own futures." "Monocropping of sugar has diverted water from streams - water that should flow from the top of the mountain to the sea," said Ashley Lukens, Director of the Hawaii Center for Food Safety, a branch of the nonprofit Center for Food Safety based in Washington, D.C. Sugarcane is a notoriously thirsty crop, and A&B has long diverted millions of gallons of water daily from streams to quench it. The practice of burning sugarcane to remove excess leaves before harvesting creates clouds of smoke that darkens skies and affects breathing of residents living downwind.īeyond pollution from burning, and pesticides for monoculture cultivation that get absorbed into the aquifers, is the impact on the island's water. ![]() Sustainable farming advocates point out the impacts of massive sugar plantations. ![]() "Fruit trees, taro, biomass, papayas, avocados and much more have gone through trial testing - leaving us very confident that while sugarcane is dead, agriculture will remain very much alive here," he said in a statement. The closure of Maui's last sugar mill brought with it an end to big agriculture dominance, islanders hope Image: cc by Forest and Kim Starr 2.0 When the last sugar plantation closed, Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa expressed sympathy about workers who lost their jobs - but said the change was inevitable. With the slow fadeout of agriculture giants, a new generation of land stewards is coming up not only with a replacement for sugar, but also a new agricultural model for the next century. Sugar monocultures have also had a tremendous environmental impact. Others see them as usurpers of the land - there was no concept of land ownership before missionary families arrived - and a living symbol of Hawaii's colonized past. The closure of the last sugar mill on the second-largest island Maui in December 2016 marked the end of an era of big agriculture there.Ī&B was one of the handful of companies controlling sugar and associated businesses, commonly known as the "big five." Established by missionaries or descendents of missionaries in the 1800s, they have dominated Hawaii's economy, land and politics for more than 150 years. Only a few years ago, Hawaii produced more than a million tons of sugar a year - or 20 percent of all sugar produced in the United States.
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