Monthly Archive for July, 2010

Case boosts investment in ML&P

Published on July 31, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes.

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AOL founder could have majority stake after stock sale done

By ILIMA LOOMIS, Staff Writer

WAILUKU – AOL co-founder Steve Case added to his investment in Maui Land & Pineapple Co. this week by purchasing an additional 4.27 million shares under a rights offering by the company.

Case acquired the stock at a price of $3.85 per share, to invest another $16.5 million into the struggling company, according to a report filed with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

The sale was made under a plan by ML&P to raise cash by selling 10.4 million new shares to existing stockholders.

The company made a separate announcement this week that it had completed the sale on the New York Stock Exchange.

The proceeds will be used to retire $40 million in convertible notes, giving the company some relief from its significant debt.

Under the offering, each stockholder was offered the right to purchase a limited number of the new shares, in proportion to the size of their previous stake in the company. Case purchased all of the shares that were offered to him.

But he could have access to as many as 6.1 million additional shares if the company’s other stockholders don’t sign up for the rights offering and shares set aside for them are left unsold. The company reported that Case indicated his interest in potentially acquiring all those shares if they were available.

In its report filed with the SEC, the company said Wednesday that it had not yet determined how the unsold stock would be allocated among the investors who wished to purchase it.

With the 7.75 million shares he now owns, Case currently holds a 41.2 percent stake in ML&P, a controlling interest in the company.

But the company said that, depending on how many of the additional shares are allocated to Case, an additional purchase could increase his stake in the company to more than 50 percent.

That could give him even more decision-making power than he already has. Continue reading ‘Case boosts investment in ML&P’

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A&B earnings hit $28.9M in ‘strong second quarter’

Published on July 30, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes.

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Alexander & Baldwin Inc. said it earned $28.9 million, or 70 cents per share, in the second quarter.

President Stan Kuriyama called it “a strong second quarter” compared with the $12.6 million earned in the second quarter of 2009.

Revenue was $398.9 million, compared with $351.0 million for the year before.

On Maui, Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. made a sharp rebound after a bad 2009, which had the A&B board of directors considering whether to continue in sugar.

For the first half – a more informative period for comparison than just the second quarter – operating profit in agribusiness (which includes Kauai Coffee) rose by $13.9 million and net profit edged into the black at $700,000. Agribusiness had lost a net $13.2 million in the first half of 2009.

HC&S shut down its mill for an unusually long refit and it reorganized its plantings, which have been affected by drought for several years. Operational improvements combined with better prices for raw sugar turned losses into profits.

For the January-June period, Maui Brand specialty sugar sales were down $2 million and molasses sales were down $1.3 million, but power sales were up $1.5 million. Coffee sales increased by $1.5 million as well.

The big gains came from raw sugar, whose output was 31 percent higher, primarily from better growing conditions. Continue reading ‘A&B earnings hit $28.9M in ‘strong second quarter’’

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ML&P nears deal to pay off $40 million debt

Published on July 29, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes.

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Maui Land & Pineapple Co. has completed definitive agreements with all holders of $40 million of its debt to repurchase the notes.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday, the company said it had reached agreement with the last remaining noteholders on July 22. It had earlier stated that four-fifths of the creditors had agreed to the deal.

As a result, debt-laden ML&P hopes to retire a large chunk of its obligations that otherwise would have required it to go to financial markets to refinance the $40 million as early as next year. Considering the company’s money-losing status, refinancing would have been difficult and expensive.

Inability to replace the debt with new debt or retire it could have triggered incidents of default with other corporate loans.

In May, the board of directors authorized an additional 20 million shares to be offered to the creditors. Continue reading ‘ML&P nears deal to pay off $40 million debt’

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News : Farmworkers push for overtime pay : Half Moon Bay Review newspaper, San Mateo county, Ca

Published on July 28, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes.

HMB workers head to Sacramento to present overtime bill

By Amy Julia Harris

Fifty-one displaced workers from Nurserymen’s Exchange took up a new labor crusade last week, marching to Sacramento to hand-deliver a bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk. The bill would extend time-and-a-half pay for farmworkers after eight hours a day and lift a decades-old overtime exemption for agriculture workers. Under existing law, overtime pay for farmworkers kicks in after 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week. Farmworkers are currently the only hourly employees in the state not to receive overtime pay after eight hours a day, 40 hours a week.

Schwarzenegger has 12 days to respond to the bill, which has already passed through the state Senate and Assembly. If signed, the new overtime law takes effect Jan. 1, and could spell big changes for some of the 329 farms in San Mateo County. Continue reading ‘News : Farmworkers push for overtime pay : Half Moon Bay Review newspaper, San Mateo county, Ca’

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Summary of MAUI LAND & PINEAPPLE CO INC | Form 8-K

Published on July 27, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes.


Form 8-K for MAUI LAND & PINEAPPLE CO INC27-Jul-2010

Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement

Item 1.01 – Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement

Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc. (the “Company”) issued senior secured convertible notes in the aggregate principal amount of $40 million in July 2008 (the “Notes”). The Notes mature on July 15, 2013, bear interest at 5.875% per annum and are currently convertible into common stock of the Company at a conversion price of $30 per share.

As previously announced, the Company entered into Convertible Note Purchase Agreements, pursuant to which the Company has agreed to repurchase the Notes, with holders of Notes who hold, in the aggregate, $32.5 million of the principal amount of the Notes, or approximately 81% of all of the Notes currently outstanding.

On July 22, 2010, the Company entered into Convertible Note Purchase Agreements with the holders of the remaining outstanding Notes on the same terms. In total, the Company has entered into Convertible Note Purchase Agreements with the holders of Notes who hold, in the aggregate, 100% of all of the Notes currently outstanding.

Summary of MAUI LAND & PINEAPPLE CO INC – Yahoo! Finance

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UH gets grant to study irrigation, human health

Published on July 27, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Water.


A University of Hawaii professor has been awarded a $120,000 grant to jointly study irrigation and human health with an Israeli researcher.

Assistant Professor Tao Yan and his Israeli colleague Cytryn Eddie received the grant from the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation.

Their two-year research project is expected to study how human activities like irrigating fields with reused wastewater affects the development of antibiotic resistance in soil.

They’re also due to study how irrigating with reused wastewater may affect human health.

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Chairman C.S. Papacostas said Monday people need to understand these issues to find ways to their ecological footprint.

UH gets grant to study irrigation, human health – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

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Exploring Algae as Fuel

Published on July 26, 2010 in Biofuels, General Ag News and Notes and Sustainability.


SAN DIEGO — In a laboratory where almost all the test tubes look green, the tools of modern biotechnology are being applied to lowly pond scum.

Foreign genes are being spliced into algae and native genes are being tweaked.

Different strains of algae are pitted against one another in survival-of-the-fittest contests in an effort to accelerate the evolution of fast-growing, hardy strains.

The goal is nothing less than to create superalgae, highly efficient at converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into lipids and oils that can be sent to a refinery and made into diesel or jet fuel.

“We’ve probably engineered over 4,000 strains,” said Mike Mendez, a co-founder and vice president for technology at Sapphire Energy, the owner of the laboratory. “My whole goal here at Sapphire is to domesticate algae, to make it a crop.”

Continue reading ‘Exploring Algae as Fuel’

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Field Day–Evaluating Low Rates of Roundup Promax on Goosegrass Control

Published on July 26, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes.

To: Golf Course & Landscape Industries
From: Norman M. Nagata, Extension Agent

An herbicide test using low rates of Roundup Promax was conducted on goosegrass that exhibited resistance to Revolver, MSMS, and Sencor at Waiehu Municipal Golf Course. You are invited to a field day to see these results at 13 weeks after treatment.

Date: July 30, 2010 (Friday)
Time: 10:45 am to 12:00 pm
Place: Meet at Waiehu Golf Course “Service Entrance” (6th tee) next to Waiehu Beach Park & Baseball Field located at the end of “Lower Waiehu Beach Road” at 10:45 am. We will then car-pool to the test site at the 17th tee.

Program

  • 11:00 – 11:15 am Overview of goosegrass control
  • 11:15 – 11:35 Roundup Promax & experimental protocol
  • 11:35 – 12:00 pm Observe & discuss Roundup results on goosegrass & common bermudagrass

Recertification credits will be offered for:

  • Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture Pesticide categories 1a, 3, 6 & 10
  • Golf Course Superintendents Assoc. of America

Deadline to register (and to apply for recertification credits) is July 29 (Thursday).

You can register by contacting nagatan@ctahr.hawaii.edu or by calling the Cooperative Extension Service at 244-3242 x230. Please provide your name, company & telephone number should there be any changes on this field day.

This project was partially supported by Monsanto Company and the County of Maui.

Mahalo to Ron Kubo, Superintendent at Waiehu Golf Course for making this test possible.

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Dry conditions leave isle farms parched

Published on July 26, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Water.


Michelle Galimba has been moving her livestock across her 10,000-acre Kuahiwi Ranch to higher elevation in Kau on the Big Island in hopes of finding better pastures during a drought that is causing her business and others hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.

“It’s pretty severe,” she said. “I’d say half of the pastures on our ranch is unusable or going to be unusable very shortly.

“They’re literally turning to dust. The soil’s drying up and blowing away.”

Galimba said South Point received 1.76 inches of rain from January through mid-July, compared with its usual 12 inches.

The National Weather Service said 2010 is bringing the worst drought on record for ranchers and farmers in some parts of the state, including Kau.

“If they don’t have more rainfall at a higher rate in the second half, it could be the driest year on record,” said Kevin Kodama, senior hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Honolulu. Continue reading ‘Dry conditions leave isle farms parched’

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Botanical Gardens Are Turning Away From Flowers

Published on July 26, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Sustainability.


For the last quarter century, the Cleveland Botanical Garden went all out for its biennial Flower Show, the largest outdoor garden show in North America. With themed gardens harking back to the Roman empire, or an 18th-century English estate, the event would draw 25,000 to 30,000 visitors.

But in 2009, the Flower Show was postponed and then abandoned when the botanical garden could not find sponsors. This year, the garden has different plans. From Sept. 24 to 26, it is inaugurating the ‘RIPE! Food & Garden Festival,’ which celebrates the trend of locally grown food — and is supported in part by the Cleveland Clinic and Heinen’s, a supermarket chain.

‘The Flower Show may come back someday, but it’s not where people are these days,’ says Natalie Ronayne, the garden’s executive director. ‘Food is an easier sell.’

So it is across the country. Botanical gardens are experiencing an identity crisis, with chrysanthemum contests, horticultural lectures and garden-club ladies, once their main constituency, going the way of manual lawn mowers. Among the long-term factors diminishing their traditional appeal are fewer women at home and less interest in flower-gardening among younger fickle, multitasking generations.

Forced to rethink and rebrand, gardens are appealing to visitors’ interests in nature, sustainability, cooking, health, family and the arts. Some are emphasizing their social role, erecting model green buildings, promoting wellness and staying open at night so people can mingle over cocktails like the Pollinator (green tea liqueur, soda water and Sprite). A few are even inviting in dogs (and their walkers) free or, as in Cleveland, with a canine admission charge ($2). Continue reading ‘Botanical Gardens Are Turning Away From Flowers’

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Deadly Nightshades

Published on July 22, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Invasive Species.


By Glenn I. Teves, County Extension Agent, UH College of Tropical Agriculture

The recent deaths of horses, mules and cattle on the island believed to be caused by consuming poisonous plants mixed in hay brings attention to the many poisonous plants we have on the island. The most obvious suspect is one of the deadly nightshades, Jimson Weed or Datura stramonium, seen throughout Ho`olehua. It is known by many names, including Stink Weed, Devil’s Apple, Thorn Apple, and Moonflower. This plant resembles the Apple of Peru, Nycandra physalodes, a common weed in Ho`olehua, and one in which animals eat without any negative effects. It has a similar flower and leaf shape, which could cause animals to eat Jimson Weed by mistake.

A member of the tomato family, or Solanaceae, the poisonous nightshades caused edible members of this family, especially tomatoes, to be viewed for generations with apprehension because people thought they were poisonous. Jimson weed or Jamestown Weed has a reputation that goes back centuries. Its scientific name, stramonium, means ‘mad nightshade’ due to its reputation for making people delirious or mad.

Its common name originated from Jamestown, Virginia where, in 1676, the British were sent to crush a rebellion, called the Bacon’s Rebellion. The British made a boiled salad from the Jimson Weed leaves, and were delirious for 11 days. When they came to their senses, they couldn’t remember a thing. Continue reading ‘Deadly Nightshades’

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Department of Energy – Secretary Chu Announces Six Projects to Convert Captured CO2 Emissions from Industrial Sources into Useful Products

Published on July 22, 2010 in Biofuels, General Ag News and Notes and Sustainability.


Secretary Chu Announces Six Projects to Convert Captured CO2 Emissions from Industrial Sources into Useful Products
$106 Million Recovery Act Investment will Reduce CO2 Emissions and Mitigate Climate Change

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today the selections of six projects that aim to find ways of converting captured carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industrial sources into useful products such as fuel, plastics, cement, and fertilizers. Funded with $106 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -matched with $156 million in private cost-share -today’s selections demonstrate the potential opportunity to use CO2 as an inexpensive raw material that can help reduce carbon dioxide emissions while producing useful by-products that Americans can use.

“These innovative projects convert carbon pollution from a climate threat to an economic resource,” said Secretary Chu. “This is part of our broad commitment to unleash the American innovation machine and build the thriving, clean energy economy of the future.”

Converting captured CO2 into products such as chemicals, carbonates, plastics, fuels, building materials, and other commodities is an important aspect of carbon capture and storage technology. Converting CO2 into other useful forms can help reduce carbon emissions in areas where long-term storage of CO2 is not practical. It is anticipated that large volumes of CO2 will be available as fossil fuel-based power plants and other CO2-emitting industries are equipped with CO2 emissions control technologies to comply with regulatory requirements.

The projects announced today were initially selected for a first phase funding in October 2009 as part of a $1.4 billion effort to capture CO2 from industrial sources for storage or beneficial use. Over the succeeding months, the project teams have performed experiments on innovative concepts and produced preliminary designs for pilot plants to study the feasibility of capturing and using CO2 exhausted from industrial processes. The selected projects now enter a second phase in which researchers design, construct, and operate their innovations at pilot-scale and evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of applying them commercially.

The projects selected to demonstrate the beneficial use of CO2 include:

Phycal, LLC (Highland Heights, Ohio)-Phycal will complete development of an integrated system designed to produce liquid biocrude fuel from microalgae cultivated with captured CO2. The algal biocrude can be blended with other fuels for power generation or processed into a variety of renewable drop-in replacement fuels such as jet fuel and biodiesel. Phycal will design, build, and operate a CO2-to-algae-to-biofuels facility at a nominal thirty acre site in Central O’ahu (near Wahiawa and Kapolei), Hawaii. Hawaii Electric Company will qualify the biocrude for boiler use, and Tesoro will supply CO2 and evaluate fuel products. (DOE Share: $24,243,509) Continue reading ‘Department of Energy – Secretary Chu Announces Six Projects to Convert Captured CO2 Emissions from Industrial Sources into Useful Products’

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PostPartisan – The firing of Shirley Sherrod — and the cowardice of Tom Vilsack

Published on July 21, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes.

The firing of Shirley Sherrod — and the cowardice of Tom Vilsack

From everything I’ve read, I’m told that the firing of Shirley Sherrod, the once and probably future Agriculture Department official in Georgia, is about race or dishonest journalism or the vagaries of the 24-hour, incessant news cycle. Permit me a dissent. It is mostly about cowardice.

The coward in question is Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack who, even though from Iowa, fired Sherrod in a New York minute, and by extension and tradition –“The buck stops here,” remember? – Barack Obama himself. Where do they get off treating anyone so shabbily?

Sherrod was caught on video supposedly telling an NAACP meeting last March that she had not given a certain farmer the service he deserved because he was white. A clip of that speech made the rounds of right wing blogs and media outlets — Fox News, for instance — and in no time Vilsack ordered the woman canned. He moved with what would have been commendable dispatch had he first heard her side of the story, viewed the entire video and asked what its source was. The answers should have stopped him in his tracks.

The full video showed that Sherrod, after repressing some racial antipathy, treated the farmer with dignity and efficiency — and, anyway, the entire event took place more than 20 years ago. Had Vilsack seen the entire video, he would also have learned that Sherrod’s story had a moral: She learned that poverty, not race, is what mattered. Since this is America, it is God who taught her that.

But that full video was not shown by the right wing blogger Andrew Breitbart.
Continue reading ‘PostPartisan – The firing of Shirley Sherrod — and the cowardice of Tom Vilsack’

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Farm Fair features foods made locally

Published on July 21, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes, Haliimaile Pineapple and Pineapple.


The 2010 Hawaii State Farm Fair, at Bishop Museum this weekend, will feature a celebrity cook-off and the Ag-Tastic Expo.

The cook-off will involve an Island Beef Stir-fry, starting at 12:15 p.m. Saturday. The beef comes courtesy of Michelle Galimba’s Kuahiwi Ranch in Kau, and all other food ingredients will come directly from the fair’s farmers market.

The expo will showcase samples of Hawaii-grown and locally made products from farm bureau members on Oahu, Maui, the Big Island and Kauai. They include Naked Cow Dairy; Hanalei Taro and Juice Co.; Maui’s Ono, producer of specialty dressings; honey producers from Molokai; Haliimaile Pineapple Co.; Lorie Obra, producer of award-winning Rusty’s Hawaiian coffee; and Will Tabios of Rising Sun coffee, another award winner.

The farm fair features a 4-H livestock exhibit with competition in lamb and beef categories, agriculture displays, the farmers market and exotic tropical plant displays and sales.

Admission is $7, $3 for children ages 4 to 12. The event runs from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Purchase tickets at the door or beforehand at the museum box office or the Hawaii Farm Bureau office, 2343 Rose St. in Kalihi. Call 848-2074 or visit www.hfbf.org.

Farm Fair features foods made locally – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

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Water Dispute Increases India-Pakistan Tension

Published on July 20, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Water.


BANDIPORE, Kashmir — In this high Himalayan valley on the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir, the latest battle line between India and Pakistan has been drawn.

Laborers who work long hours in Bandipore said the work is not merely a matter of electricity. National pride is at stake, they said.

This time it is not the ground underfoot, which has been disputed since the bloody partition of British India in 1947, but the water hurtling from mountain glaciers to parched farmers’ fields in Pakistan’s agricultural heartland.

Indian workers here are racing to build an expensive hydroelectric dam in a remote valley near here, one of several India plans to build over the next decade to feed its rapidly growing but power-starved economy.

In Pakistan, the project raises fears that India, its archrival and the upriver nation, would have the power to manipulate the water flowing to its agriculture industry — a quarter of its economy and employer of half its population. In May it filed a case with the international arbitration court to stop it.

Continue reading ‘Water Dispute Increases India-Pakistan Tension’

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Aloun Farm owners deny threats

Published on July 20, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Vegtables.


The sentencing hearing for the owners of Aloun Farms on forced-labor charges will continue in September because brothers Alec and Mike Sou refused to admit to committing acts to which they had pleaded guilty in January.

Alec Souphone Sou, president and general manager of the Ewa farm, is facing 46 to 57 months in prison for conspiring to commit forced labor in connection with the importation of 44 farmworkers from Thailand in 2004, according to federal sentencing guidelines.

Mike Mankone Sou, vice president and operations manager, is facing 41 to 51 months in prison for the same crime.

The sentencing guidelines are based on a number of factors, including the seriousness of the crime and a defendant’s actions and criminal history. Alec Sou has a higher prison range because he has prior DUI convictions.

The guidelines are also advisory, and U.S. Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway could sentence the brothers to prison terms outside the recommended range. Continue reading ‘Aloun Farm owners deny threats’

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