Category: General Ag News and Notes

November 8, 2009 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Finance officials tightening enforcement – The Maui News

County of Maui Administration Continues Anti-Agriculture Policies Despite Polls Showing Public Supports Agriculture on Maui

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POSTED: November 8, 2009

WAILUKU Maui County finance officials are stepping up efforts to collect delinquent taxes, reclassifying some nonfarmers who claim agricultural tax assessments, and taking other steps that could add to the county’s revenues ahead of what’s expected to be a tight year in 2010.

Other efforts by the Real Property Tax Division include pursuing tax foreclosures against property owners who have been delinquent on their taxes for more than three years and a program to verify that people claiming the homeowner classification really live on their properties.

Some of the programs to tighten tax loopholes were started before county finances began heading for a decline. But Finance Director Kalbert Young said projections for a 10 percent slide in revenues next year brought a greater focus on enforcing rules that have been in place all along.

Chasing down delinquent taxpayers won’t close the estimated $45 million budget deficit, but it will be a step in the right direction, he said.

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November 8, 2009 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Future pine supply uncertain – The Maui News

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KAHULUI Mr. Pineapple – aka Jimmy Hutaff – needs 350 delicious Maui pineapples a day, and when Maui Pine closes down later this year, he doesn’t know where he will get them.

"That’s a good question," he said Wednesday, the day after Maui Land & Pineapple Co. announced it would shut down its money-losing plantation.

It isn’t that there isn’t pineapple in Hawaii. Dole farms about 2,700 acres on Oahu, about the same size operation as Maui Pine has been running.

"It’s not the same," said Hutaff, who sells fresh fruit, as well as lei and jams and jellies on Dairy Road, catching tourists leaving the island on their way to the airport.

Mr. Pineapple offers a "Pineapple Challenge," which Hutaff describes as similar to the "Pepsi Challenge," and Maui Gold fruit usually wins. "Maui Gold seems a little bit better," he said.

Maui Pine, Dole and (long gone) Del Monte developed the sweet Gold variety cooperatively. The same variety was grown by the three companies, but growing conditions and practices do affect the flavor, as does the season of the year. Winter fruits are sweeter, summer more acid.

Maui County’s director of water supply, Jeff Eng, is a graduate food technologist, and one of his earlier jobs was at Maui Pine, where he had to try to even out the sweetness/acidity ratio so that the canned product would have a uniform flavor.

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November 6, 2009 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Haku Mo‘olelo – The Maui News

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By EDWIN TANJI, City Editor

POSTED: November 6, 2009

Hawaii set the standards for commercial pineapple, but that does not assure the islands’ standing in the world’s marketplace.

As with any other industrial producer, Hawaii’s pineapple industry needed to be competitive. Both in pineapple and sugar, Hawaii’s agronomists developed farming techniques and hybrid strains that improved productivity to keep ahead of operations with lower farming costs in competing countries.

But farming techniques and hybrid cultivars are transferrable; the better the Hawaii agricultural industry got in using technology to improve yields, the better the world got. What Hawaii could not transfer to regions competing with the isle-grown product were its agricultural wage scales and benefits.

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November 6, 2009 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

MAUI LAND & PINEAPPLE CO INC – Costs Associated with Exit or Disposal Activities

Form 8-K for MAUI LAND & PINEAPPLE CO INC

6-Nov-2009

Costs Associated with Exit or Disposal Activities

Item 2.05. Costs Associated with Exit or Disposal Activities

On November 2, 2009, the Board of Directors of Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc. (the "Company") approved the recommendations of the Board of Maui Pineapple Company, Ltd. ("MPC"), a wholly owned subsidiary, to immediately cease planting pineapple and to cease all other pineapple agriculture operations by December 31, 2009. The decision was made due to highly competitive fresh pineapple markets on the Mainland USA in which MPC was unable to recover the high cost of growing Hawaiian pineapple. The Company will eliminate approximately 208 positions, including 193 bargaining unit positions. Termination notices have been issued to employees with termination effective December 31, 2009.

Employee severance costs are expected to be approximately $3.1 million and will be primarily accrued in the fourth quarter of 2009. Severance payments for the non-bargaining positions are expected to be paid on the regular payroll schedules throughout most of 2010. The timing of the severance payments for the bargaining unit positions will be addressed with the International Longshore & Warehouse Union ("ILWU"). Additional one-time termination benefits will be negotiated with the ILWU and MPC is not able to estimate the amount of such benefits. Payments of approximately $0.5 million for accrued vacation balances are expected to be paid before December 31, 2009. The Company has not yet determined the effect on its pension and post retirement plans.

The estimated clean up and other costs related to termination of use of the various properties previously used by pineapple operations are estimated to be approximately $1.3 million, which is expected to be incurred primarily in 2010. Non-cash charges in the fourth quarter of 2009 for fixed assets and materials and supplies, net of estimated sales proceeds, are expected to be approximately $12.5 million. MPC is not currently able to estimate the cost of termination of its private grower pineapple supply contract.

In summary, the estimated total cost of this action (for items currently estimable) is expected to be approximately $16.8 million and the total estimated cash outlay for these items are estimated to be approximately $4.9 million. The Company’s Agriculture segment will be reported as discontinued operations in its next periodic filing.

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

November 4, 2009 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Demise of pine brings sadness – The Maui News

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WAILUKU – Although the demise of pineapple growing on Maui did not come as a surprise Tuesday, the announcement that Maui Pineapple Co. would stop operating by the end of this year brought sadness and nostalgia about the end of an era.

"This is very sad news for our community, especially for the employees and their families who will be affected," said Mayor Charmaine Tavares, who recalled working in pineapple fields during summer months. "Agricultural fields are part of our heritage and have been a foundation for our island’s history. For nearly a hundred years, the company’s pineapple operations have made our community’s character unique. Working in our pineapple fields has been a source of income for many families, where high school teenagers spent their summers and where multiple members of a family worked in different parts of the operations."

As many as 285 company employees will lose their jobs, Maui Land & Pineapple Co. announced.

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November 4, 2009 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Pineapple all pau on Valley isle – Starbulletin

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By Dave Segal

Hawaii’s once-rich agricultural industry, renowned throughout the 1900s for its pineapple and sugar crops, has suffered another devastating blow.

With the last remaining sugar company hanging on by a thread, Maui Land & Pineapple Co. said yesterday it would stop planting pineapple immediately, cease all pineapple operations by the end of the year, and lay off more than 45 percent of its work force amid a companywide restructuring that repositions subsidiary Kapalua Land Co.

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November 4, 2009 General Ag News and Notes, Maui Gold Pineapple Post a Comment

Political Response Pours in as Plug is Pulled on Pineapple « PRG NEWS WITH WENDY OSHER

 

Many on Maui are calling it the end of an era as Maui Land and Pineapple Company pulls the plug on pineapple production.  An estimated 285 lay offs are planned by the end of the year in a move that was announced to workers Tuesday morning.

After losing $115 million in agriculture over the past seven years, company officials said market conditions have not improved and pineapple operations were no longer financially sustainable.  The company plans to focus its efforts on the success of its Kapalua Resort while trying to accommodate up to 133 employees at partner companies.

The following are statements released by various political figures in the wake of the recent announcement.

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November 3, 2009 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Maui Land & Pineapple Co. to cease pineapple operations – The Maui News

    A Black Day for Agriculture in Hawaii

The last Crop of Pineapple in Haiku
The last Crop of Pineapple in Haiku
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Up to 285 jobs will be lost

Maui Land & Pineapple Co. announced today that it will cease pineapple operations by the end of the year and restructure its resort and land development division.

Up to 285 employees will be laid off. This comes after 274 employees were laid off in July of 2008 and 100 more jobs were cut earlier this year.

The current work force numbers 624, and the company hopes to offer up to 133 employees positions at partner companies.

In a statement, ML&P Chairman and interim CEO Warren Haruki said:

"The painful decision to close pineapple operations at MPC (Maui Pineapple Co.) after 97 years was incredibly difficult to make, but absolutely necessary. We realize this ends a significant chapter in Maui’s history — an important part of many lives, over many generations."

Haruki said that Maui Pineapple Co. had lost $115 million in agriculture since 2002 while investing $20 million in capital expenditures for a new fresh-fruit packing facility.

"Realizing that these losses could no longer continue, we spent the last year exploring options to keep pineapple operations going on Maui," he said. "Despite our efforts, it became clear that there were no other financially viable options."

Changes were also announced in the resort operations for Kapalua Land Co., which until now had managed most phases of the Kapalua Resort.

According to the statement issued today, the company will "partner with ‘best in class’ operators in their respective fields who can manage select assets of the resort more effectively."

The arrangements to be concluded on or before Dec. 31 include:

— Appointing a management company to manage the 206-unit Kapalua Villas.

— Leasing the equipment and to license operations of Kapalua Adventures to a "well-respected zipline activity company."

— Choosing an operator to provide resort shuttle and security services.

— Finding a new operator of Kapalua Farms.

Last week, Maui Land & Pineapple Co. reported a $25.5 million loss for the third quarter of 2009, bringing the company’s losses for the first nine months of 2009 to $92.9 million — larger than the $76.1 million loss the company recorded for the entire year in 2008.

Maui Land & Pineapple Co. to cease pineapple operations – Mauinews.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor’s Information – The Maui News