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The Plantation Economy. Past, Present and Future. Plantation agriculture fueled transportation and communication routes while accelerating environmental changes. Environmental change in the Pacific has been well documented since the 1880s
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The Plantation Economy Past, Present and Future
Plantation agriculture fueled transportation and communication routes while accelerating environmental changes. • Environmental change in the Pacific has been well documented since the 1880s • The first successful sugarcane plantation was started at Koloa, Kauai in 1835. Its first harvest in 1837 produced 2 tons of raw sugar, which sold for $200. Other pioneers, predominantly from the United States, soon began growing sugarcane on the islands of Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu. • Early sugar planters shared many problems: shortages of water and labor, trade barriers, and the lack of markets for their sugar. Together with Hawaii's isolated oceanic location, these problems created a spirit of cooperation among the planters that continues today.
Between 1852 and the end of World War II, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Europe, North America, and Asia. • Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawaii's unique ethnic mix. • Pioneer sugar planters solved water shortages in dry, leeward fields by building irrigation systems that included aqueducts (the first in 1856), artesian wells (the first in 1879), and tunnels and mountain wells (the first in 1898). These irrigation systems enabled the planters to grow sugarcane on more than 100,000 acres of arid land.
Major trade barriers were eliminated by the 1876 Treaty of Reciprocity between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaii. • Through the treaty, the U.S. received a coaling station at Pearl Harbor and Hawaii's sugar planters, tariff (tax) free entry into U.S. markets for their sugar. • This market was strengthened with the U.S. annexation of Hawaii in 1898 after the Spanish-American War. • By 1898, production had grown to 225,000 tons and reached one million tons by 1932. Until the mid-1980s, annual cane sugar production in Hawaii averaged one million tons.
In 1959 the combination of statehood and the introduction of passenger jet airplanes, the tourist industry began to grow rapidly. • Within a decade the tourist industry became the state's largest economic activity.
Hawaii's sugar companies were all located along the coastlines of the four largest islands and reach into the foothills and upward along mountain slopes. • The islands of Oahu and Hawaii saw their final sugarcane harvests in 1996. • By 2000, sugarcane was grown on about 70,000 acres on Kauai and Maui yielding some 340,000 tons of raw sugar.
1824 The mango tree brought to Hawaii. 1828-29 H.N. Greenwell plants first coffee plant in Kona leading to the establishment of a coffee industry for Kona. 1876 "Act for the Protection and Preservation of Woods and Forests", including watershed preservation, passed by Kingdom of Hawaii. 1878 The Waimanalo Sugar Company is founded. Rail tracks are laid out and three locomotive engines are brought in to haul cane to the mill and the wharf.1881 William H. Purvis introduces macadamia nuts to Hawaii. 1882 John Ackerman and Waldemar Muller canned pineapple commercially in Kona.
1885 Captain John Kidwell is credited as being the pioneer of the pineapple industry in Hawaii. He began crop development trials in 1885 when he planted in Manoa, Oahu. 1898 Alfred W. Eames arrives in Hawaii as one of the original "California Homesteaders" to begin pineapple cultivation. Eames first starts selling fresh pineapple in the year 1900, nearly a century ago. His company eventually became Del Monte Fresh Produce (Hawaii) Inc. 1898 Japanese coffee farmers establish the Kona Japanese Coffee Producers Association in an effort to improve processing and market a higher value product. 1900 James Drummond Dole purchases 61 acres in Wahiawa and began experimenting with pineapple 1901 James Drummond Dole incorporates the Hawaiian Pineapple Company and begins growing fruit on 60 acres in Wahiawa.
1904 Hiring of first Territorial Forester (Ralph Hosmer); creation of first forest reserves to protect upper watershed areas. Forest reserves managed by fencing, feral animal elimination, and reforestation with native and exotic tree species.1907 Establishment of the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Name changes to College of Hawaii in 1909 and to University of Hawaii in 1919. 1910 Japanese coffee farmers make-up 80% of the total farming population in Kona.1911 Introduction of the Solo papaya from Barbados and Jamaica, on Oct. 7, 1911, (accession no. 2853) by Gerritt P. Wilder (of Honolulu) resulted in the complete transformation of the Hawaiian papaya industry. This small papaya, which was named Solo in 1919, replaced the earlier large-fruited forms, and by 1936 the Solo was the only variety grown commercially.
1920Hawaiian Homes Act established. Federal government set aside 200,000 acres of land state wide for homesteading by Hawaiians with 50% or more native blood. • Author of the bill was Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole, Hawaii delegate to Congress. First homestead area settled was in Kalamaula on Molokai. Agricultural lots were established in Hoolehua, Molokai.
1925 Ernest Van Tassel leases 75 acres on Round Top in Honolulu (Nut Ridge) and begins a macadamia nut orchard, Hawaii's first macadamia nut farm.1929 Depression leads to coffee bust; many debt-ridden coffee farmers declare bankruptcy. 1929 Ernest Van Tassel negotiates with Bishop Estate to obtain 100 acres of land in Keahoe Mauka for planting more than 7000 macadamia nut trees resulting in the first macadamia nut farm on the island of Hawaii.
1930 Nine million cases of pineapple packed by eight canneries.1931 Twenty-five percent of the area of Hawaii in established Forest Reserves, both public and private lands.1933 Sugar production peaks with 254,563 acres planted.1934-1941 Civilian Conservation Corps reforestation efforts plant an average of two million trees per year in the forest reserves.1947 Newly organized unionized pineapple workers conducts their first labors strike.1947 Oahu farmers meet in October for the first time leading to the creation of the Hawaii Farm Bureau that was incorporated in December 1950.
1953 Mid 1950s-Castle and Cooke adds a new brand of macadamia nuts called "Royal Hawaiian," which is credited with popularizing the nuts in the U.S.1955 Pineapple production peaks with 76,700 acres planted.1957 USDA Forest Service experiment station established for forestry research in Hawaii; eventually becomes the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry.1957-58 The coffee industry peaks in production with 15 million pounds of green coffee beans.1959 With statehood, federal funds became available for the development and growth of Hawaii's agricultural industries with funding for programs such as farm credit, natural resources, and statistical services.
1960s (early) Hawaii pineapple growers supply over 80% of the world's output of canned pineapple. • 1961-1968 Plantations of potential commercial timber species established in Waiakea forest reserve and Laupahoehoe forest reserve on the island of Hawaii.1960s (mid) Kona Farmers Cooperative, previously known as Sunset and Pacific Coffee Cooperatives gets Superior Coffees in Chicago to purchase its entire crop at a premium price resulting in the construction of a roasting plant in Honolulu.1966 Pineapple production begins to decline.1966 Peak sugar production with 1,234,121 tons of raw sugar.
Genetic Engineering in Hawaii • 1968 Trojan Seed Company establishes a corn research farm at Kihei, Maui, which evolved through ownership by Pfizer Genetics, and DeKalb to its present Monsanto Global Seeds business.1968 Pioneer Hi-Bred, International establishes a corn research farm on west Kauai.
1974 Visions to become largest producer of macadamia nuts leads C. Brewer & Company, Ltd. to purchase Castle & Cooke's operation at Keaau. • 1975 The establishment of the state's first agricultural park at Pahoa. • 1976 Del Monte expands into the produce business with national distribution of fresh Hawaiian pineapple. This transition is accomplished with a focus on direct airfreight, or Jet Fresh, shipments.1982 Formulation of the Ginger Commodity Group Association. • 1982 Ginger industry hits 100 acres of production for the first time, raising 3.6 million pounds at a record high price.
1983 Del Monte Corp. folds Hawaii pineapple canning operations (September 3). • 1983 C. Brewer & Company, Ltd., becomes largest producer of macadamia nuts in the world. • 1986 CTAHR begins a state-wide coffee variety trail or experiment launching a new era in Hawaii's Coffee Industry,the next year one of the cooperators Kauai Coffee (A&B) begins planting the largest irrigated mechanized coffee plantation in the world.1992 Dole Packaged Foods Co. closes Lanai plantation (October). • 1992 Dole shuts Iwilei Cannery (December).
1992 Hawaii Tropical Forest Recovery (Federal ) Act enacted resulting in the development of a detailed action plan that brings the complexity of forestry into a comprehensive and coordinated planning process 1994 Hamakua Sugar Co. harvests last crop 1995 Hilo Sugar closes.1995 Oahu Sugar closes (April 9).1995 First shipment of foliage potted plants to Japan 1996 Ka'u Sugar closes (March 27).1996 Waialua Sugar closes (October 4).
1997 Farm value of diversified agriculture surpasses $300 million mark for first time.1997 Private, commercial eucalyptus plantations begin on former cane lands in Hamakua, Hawaii Island.1998 Debut of transgenic papayas -- Rainbow and SunUp -- resistant to the Papaya Ringspot Virus (May 1).1998 Ginger industry records a record year with production of 18 million pounds.1998 Hawaii's banana production reaches a record breaking 21 million pounds; a 53% increase from the previous year. • 1999 Last sugar harvest in Lahaina, Maui (September 12).
1999 5,500 farms in Hawaii. Up from 3,700 in 1954 with more than 40 crops commercially compared to only 28 grown commercially in 1954. • Pioneer expands and establishes a seed processing plant at Waialua, Oahu. • The genetically engineered seed business has grown since 1966 to a $27 million industry which is still growing and ranks seventh among diversified agricultural industries. In addition to corn, crops now include soybeans, sunflower, and sorghum.
Hawaii's macadamia nut industry is the second largest in the world with 45% of the world's production. • Hawaii continues to be the only state in the nation to grow coffee. Hawaii produces 7.6 million pounds of green coffee annually with production on the islands of Hawaii, Kauai, Maui, Molokai, and Oahu.
Sugar cane agriculture in Hawai`i required that only enough nutrients to get the plant to about 14-16 months of age were to be applied to the field. • When the plant began to be under nutrient stress, it would then convert its carbohydrates into sugars. • When the cane was harvested the nutrients that had been applied went with the plants to the mill and from there wherever the waste ended up. • When the last harvest was made the fields were left devoid of most nutrients. • The topsoil that remained after a century of sugar cultivation was lost when mechanical harvesting began in the years following World War II
The constant tilling, fertilizing, and herbicide applications effectively reduced all soil organisms to very primitive forms. • There were no earthworms in sugar cane fields and in most cases they are still absent. • Few plants do well under extreme acid conditions; pineapple is one of them. • Pineapple plantations deliberately reduced the soil pH to control pests
Sediments produced by erosion can and have damaged the marine environment of Hawai`i. • Soil erosion has been associated with global warming. • Soil gives off large amounts of carbon dioxide. • When human activity causes erosion or soil loss, the soil is no longer rich enough to store carbon, and carbon dioxide is either released into the atmosphere or carried directly to the sea
In the early 1900s, pineapple began to play a significant role in the islands' economy. • In pineapple fields, erosion hazards come mainly from the access roads that make up a high percentage of field area. • According to a number of scientific reports most soil erosion runoff originates on roads. Frequent traffic accelerates the process • Once Hawai`i became a state in 1959 construction activities of all types increased and accelerated soil erosion. • Kane`ohe Bay and Pearl Harbor on O`ahu became receiving basins for soil lost from these activities
In the 2,000 households of the leeward O’ahu town of Village Park, parents have become alarmed over what they say is a suspiciously high number of children in their community that have birth defects and learning disabilities.
Village Park has had a history of contaminated drinking water supplies. • In addition, the boundary of the Del Monte Superfund site lies barely a mile to the north and upslope of their town, and many people believe that soil contaminated with EDB and DBCP - two pineapple pesticides banned by the Environmental Protection Agency more than a decade ago - was used as fill during Village Park's development.
DBCP, or 1,2-dibromo-3-chloro-propane, is a pesticide once used by Hawai'i's pineapple growers to control pests • Farmers in 49 states had to stop using it in 1979 because the Environmental Protection Agency had identified it as a health hazard, but pineapple growers in Hawai'i were allowed to continue using it until 1985. • In 1981, the state found DBCP in drinking water wells in Central O'ahu, including the Kunia Wells II, which provide Village Park's water. • The chemical TCP (1,2,3-trichloropropane), a pesticide byproduct, was also found in these wells.
Five miles from Village Park, in Kunia, lies the heart of the Del Monte pineapple plantation. • Near a well in Kunia used by the camp for drinking water, a massive spill of ethylene dibromide occurred in 1977. • Like DBCP, EDB is a fumigant that was used to control pests. • Since proposing that the site be added to the National Priorities List (the Superfund list), the EPA has discovered that the plantation is also littered with at least 22 sites where DBCP or DBCP-contaminated wastes were buried. • Well in the water at Kunia Camp showed EDB present at levels thousands of times the Department of Health's maximum contaminant level (MCL), while levels of DBCP were hundreds of times the state's MCL.
The site was formally included on the Superfund list on December 16, 1994. • Today, Del Monte is in the first stages of the Superfund process - preparation of the remedial investigation/ feasibility study (RI/FS).
As part of the Superfund listing process, on January 25 and 26, 1994, the EPA held a public meeting in Wahiawa to which nearby residents were invited. • The meeting's purpose was to give residents a chance to obtain information and ask questions of officials about health risks resulting from the contamination. • All chemicals were identified as carcinogens causing infertility, liver damage, gastrointestinal system and adrenal glands destruction, male reproductive organs deformation, liver and kidney failure, and is a mutagen causing birth defects.
Residents were informed that trucks operated by Horita Construction (the developer) used water from contaminated wells to spray for dust control and used loads of dirt from areas near Kunia to sculpt the subdivision's “view lots."
After the EDB spill in 1977, Del Monte began an enormous excavation project in a crude attempt to deal with the contamination. • More than 18,000 tons of EDB-contaminated soil and rock were removed from the area around the plantation's pesticide storage and mixing area. Most of the soil was spread over a 20-acre field so that the chemical could volatilize. • Del Monte's contaminated soil and water was sold and used in the construction of their town Village Park.
The wells had been known to be contaminated since 1981, when the state screened drinking-water wells on O’ahu and Maui for the presence of DBCP and were found above the maximum contaminant level. • Not until 1983 were the wells taken out of service, however. • For at least two years - and probably much longer -Village Park residents had been drinking and bathing in contaminated water.
From 1983 to 1986, Village Park's water was taken from the Ho'ae’ae wells. • These wells were also contaminated - with TCP and atrazine, a herbicide used in Hawai’i on sugar.
By 1984, the Kunia well was one of several O`ahu wells that the state of Hawai`i had proposed to the EPA for consideration as possible Superfund sites, under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, better known as the Superfund law). • The other wells had become contaminated through the routine and legal use of pesticides. Under the interpretation of Reagan administration officials, this source of contamination made the wells ineligible for cleanup under the Superfund protocols. • Only the Kunia well could be shown to have been contaminated by a spill; for this reason, it alone among the contaminated O`ahu wells became the subject of further investigation by the EPA.
Del Monte disclosed to the EPA that in 1980, it buried 43.5 pounds of methyl bromide in a field adjoining the plantation's northern boundary with the Army's Schofield Barracks installation. • It disclosed also that before 1980, it had buried empty drums used for fumigant storage at 22 different sites, of which 17 could be located.
In September 1990, Ecology and Environment, Inc., submitted to the EPA its preliminary site inspection report. • In 1992, the EPA completed a hazard ranking process, and on May 7, 1993, the EPA announced it was proposing to add the Del Monte plantation to the roster of sites on its National Priorities List (Superfund).
In July 1983, a well in Waipahu was the first to be closed after EDB was found in the water at concentrations above the maximum contaminant level. By late July, eight wells, serving parts of Maui, Waipahu Mililani, and Waialua, were found to be seriously contaminated- and Hawai'i's 1983 water crisis was in full swing. • Chemicals of concern were no longer just EDB and DBCP, but now included trichloropropane, or TCP - used industrially as a cleaning solvent and also present as a contaminant in some pesticide formulations and the list was to grow later. • Honolulu City Council and neighborhood boards to the governor's office, were besieged with questions from worried residents about the source of the pollutants, their health effects, and possible ways of dealing with the problem.
Soon after EDB and TCP contamination in the groundwater was confirmed in 1983, the Governor's Task Force on Water Contamination began looking for sources of the chemicals other than the pineapple plantations. • The U.S. military, with its large presence at Schofield Barracks and Pearl Harbor, was identified as dumping petroleum wastes in pits and gulches of central O'ahu. • Since the pre-World War II installation of the military's Petroleum-Oil-Lubricant pipeline, extending from Pearl Harbor to Schofield Barracks, many leaks and spills of petroleum products were known to have occurred.
On August 23, 1983, Governor Ariyoshi wrote Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, asking Weinberger's assistance in "making available to us any information the Department of Defense may have that would clarify such suspicions on the possibility of military fuel installations as a source of water contamination on O'ahu."
The Air Force identified 10 major leaks of fuel along the 16-mile pipeline connecting the Waikakalaua and Kipapa storage facilities in Central O'ahu to Hickam Air Force Base at Pearl Harbor. • In 1954, 300,000 gallons of aviation gas leaked into Pearl Harbor from the pipeline. In 1978, 50,000 gallons of jet fuel soaked into the ground. • Of the 10 leaks, nine involved aviation gas, which contained EDB as an additive.
Seven of those nine, involving a total of 516,000 gallons of spilled aviation gasoline, were up gradient or within 1.5 miles of EDB-contaminated wells. • Two leaks in which a total of 386,000 gallons of aviation gas were lost occurred within half a mile of a contaminated well.
