Agriculture dominated local scene – The Maui News

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Statehood & Business: Hawaii Statehood 50 Years
By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer

POSTED: August 23, 2009

In 1959, plantation agriculture was big business in Hawaii. The plantations were branching out into tourism, but sugar and pineapple – and coffee in Kona – dominated.

In August, with the days of the territory numbered, a typical issue of The Maui News advertised a total of half a dozen help wanted ads. The plantations didn’t advertise for help; they had their own labor recruitment system.

It dwarfed the nonplantation labor system. In August 1959, pineapple plantations hired 1,100 Maui youngsters on school vacations, most of them to work in noisy, hot canneries.

The jobs were much sought after. Damien Farias, owner of Maui Toyota, recalls waiting for three days on a labor bench for a chance to work at a cannery on Oahu when he was in school.

Statehood was expected to give a boost to agriculture. The summary of Hawaii agricultural history published by the state Department of Agriculture says that "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."

It did not, of course, work out that way.

Na Wai Eha effort seen as agriculture threat

Maui News
By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer

WAILUKU ? Steve Holaday, the former manager of Maui?s last sugar plantation, testified at Thursday?s session of the Na Wai Eha contested case that more is involved than allocated water from four West Maui watersheds.

?My fear is that no matter what happens here, it?s going to be the triggering event for what happens to use in East Maui, and the triggering event for the rest of the state. This is the tip of the iceberg.?

The result, Holaday said, could be the collapse of agriculture throughout the islands.

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