Category: Mahi Pono

June 4, 2021 Cooking, Farm to Table, General Ag News and Notes, Mahi Pono, Vegtables Post a Comment

Chefs to curate farm plots on Mahi Pono fields

Maui News –
by Melissa Tanji –

Program to help supply food for Maui restaurants –

PUUNENE — Nationally recognized chef Chris Kajioka would “love to” sink his hands into the Puunene soil that will nurture the kale, sweet potatoes and cabbage he will use in the restaurant he heads in Kaanapali.

“It’s any chef’s dream to touch the things he’s going to use,” Kajioka said Thursday morning.

But for now, he’ll leave it to the experts.

“For me, I don’t really have a green thumb at all. I don’t know if I’ll be much help,” the James Beard Foundation nominee said with a chuckle as he stood in a Puunene field with other local celebrity chefs and Maui County leaders.

On Thursday Mahi Pono and the Hawai’i Food & Wine Festival unveiled its new “Chefs’ Corner Project,” where five renowned chefs, some with multiple TV appearances, have the chance to personally curate and steward what is grown and harvested for their restaurants.

Mahi Pono has set aside 2 acres on the Kahului side of Maui Veterans Highway for the project. The two acres are split to five quarter-acre farms plots for the chefs, including Kajioka, who leads up Waicoco at the Westin Maui Resort & Spa as well as other restaurants on Oahu and the Mainland.

The other chefs are Roy Yamaguchi, of Roy’s Ka’anapali and Humble Market Kitchin; Beverly Gannon of Hali’imaile General Store, Gannon’s Restaurant and Celebrations Catering; Lee Anne Wong of Papa’aina; and Scott McGill of T S Restaurants, which includes Duke’s, Hula Grill, Kimo’s and Leilani’s.

The chefs all agree that the project is a boost to their restaurants, bringing in locally sourced fresh produce and helping with sustainability. Some produce is hard for restaurants to get locally, such as baby fingerling potatoes, icicle radish, butternut squash or baby corn, Gannon said in a news release.

“This garden will provide a consistent supply of locally grown fresh ingredients I am excited to feature on my menus,” she added.

Gannon is requesting baby fingerling potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, celery root, butternut squash, baby corn, cherry tomatoes, yellow beets and watermelon radish.

Other chefs are also looking for a variety of vegetables. Kajioka needs sweet corn, haricort vert, baby tomatoes, caraflex cabbage and sweet potatoes. Wong is asking for corn, kale, cabbage, broccolini, crops from the choi family (kai choi, pak choi and choi sum), beets and squash. McGill wants tri-colored carrots, cucumbers, corn, dino kale, broccolini, arugula and head cabbage. And, Yamaguchi’s list includes yellow squash, sweet onions, green beans, watercress, assorted microgreens, shiso, daikon, fennel bulbs, leeks, baby bok choy, breakfast and watermelon radish and zucchini.

Darren Strand, Mahi Pono vice president of agricultural outreach and business development, said he hears chefs asking all the time why farmers don’t grow what they need for their restaurants, while farmers wonder why chefs don’t buy what they’re growing.

“This is a classic project for us to hopefully bridge that gap and grow stuff for your restaurant,” Strand said at the unveiling and groundbreaking in Puunene. “There is nothing cooler for a farmer to go out to dinner or lunch and to open up a menu and see local product on the menus.”

He later admitted with a smile that “some of the things on the (chefs’) list, I’m nervous to grow.”

The Puunene fields are not well suited for tomatoes, for example, but are favorable for crops such as watermelon.

Strand said they will need to test crops including shiso, an aromatic herb native to Asia.

“I’m not sure how it will grow here,” he said.

Strand said Mahi Pono is preparing the soil in the chefs’ plots and will then plant a cover crop. The first crops could be ready for chefs to use around September.

Chefs will be able work in the plots if they want or let Mahi Pono take the lead, Strand said. They also have the option of transporting their own produce to their restaurants or having Mahi Pono do it.

The partner chefs will also have first opportunity to purchase all of the produce grown, a news release said. Any available surplus will be sold under Mahi Pono’s Maui Harvest label.

“While these farm plots will provide a consistent and tailored stream of crops for our partner chefs, they also help move us closer to food security for the island of Maui,” said Mahi Pono Chief Operating Officer Shan Tsutsui.

Yamaguchi, who is also the co-chairman of the Hawai’i Food & Wine Festival and a James Beard Award winner, said that the Chefs’ Corner project “is reminiscent of the Hawai’i Regional Cuisine movement of more than 30 years ago that helped replace the sugar and pine plantations, such as the land here at Mahi Pono, with diversified agriculture in Hawaii.”

Yamaguchi, who spent many summers on Maui at his grandfather’s Yamaguchi Store in Wailuku, added that “it brings back the importance of our symbiotic relationship that allows us to showcase the best of Hawaii’s agriculture and cuisine.”

The project could open up to other local chefs depending on how the initial efforts go.

“Mahi Pono is hoping to be able to expand in the near future but we are currently focusing on the success of the first five Chefs’ Corner lots,” Mahi Pono Project Manager Jayson Watts said Thursday evening.

June 2, 2021 DLNR, General Ag News and Notes, Mahi Pono Post a Comment

Judge may vacate East Maui water diversion permits

Maui News –
by Melissa Tanji –

Circuit Court said contested case should have been held before the state land board

Revocable permits granted last year for diverting water from East Maui streams for Mahi Pono’s farming and other uses may be in jeopardy unless a First Circuit Court judge hears a formal request to stay the order.

Saying that “the court does not wish to create unintended consequences or chaos by vacating the permits without knowing the practical consequences of such an order,” First Circuit Judge Jeffrey P. Crabtree ordered the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, which granted the permits on Nov. 13, to hold a contested case hearing on the matter “as soon as practicable.”

The BLNR initially denied Sierra Club’s request for a contested case hearing on the permits, but Crabtree said Friday in an interim decision on appeal that the board violated the Sierra Club’s “due process rights” by not holding the hearing and that the club had new information to present regarding the permits.

The orders are the latest developments in the Sierra Club’s appeal against the BLNR, Alexander & Baldwin Inc. and East Maui Irrigation Co.

On Nov. 13, the BLNR approved another round of one-year permits, allowing A&B to divert 45 million gallons of water per day using the East Maui Irrigation system on state lands for Mahi Pono crops this year. A&B co-owns the water diversion system with Mahi Pono.

Water from the East Maui system is also diverted for other users, including the county Department of Water Supply for municipal purposes such as domestic water use.

Crabtree said he is not vacating the revocable permits yet and that “the court reserves jurisdiction to consider any additional requests from the parties on whether or not the court should modify the existing permits, and how, or whether the court should leave the existing permits in place until their current expiration date.”

He added that if “no such further requests” are filed by 4 p.m. June 30 then the revocable permit “shall automatically be vacated.”

“The court’s order means that for the first time, the Board of Land and Natural Resources will be required to make A&B fulfill its burden of proof before receiving any permits to use public resources,” Sierra Club attorney David Kimo Frankel said in a news release Monday. “It also means that the Sierra Club will be given an opportunity to show how much harm the diversion of our streams is causing. A&B cannot justify draining streams dry when most of the water it takes is wasted.”

For more than 150 years, A&B diverted East Maui streams for sugar operations in Central Maui and Upcountry. After the sugar plantation closed down in 2016, some of those stream flows were restored. In June 2018, the state water commission set in-stream flow standards for East Maui streams diverted by A&B through subsidiary East Maui Irrigation Co.

A&B, whose water permits are nontransferable, had been granted one-year revocable permits for more than a decade for sugar operations. The company would not have been allowed to apply for a revocable permit beyond 2019 were it not for the Intermediate Court of Appeals in June of that year overturning a lower court decision in a lawsuit filed by East Maui taro farmers and practitioners against the BLNR, A&B and the County of Maui.

In November, the BLNR unanimously approved the permit. Following Crabtree’s decision, the Sierra Club will have a chance to get a hearing before the board.

“Our East Maui communities who depend upon the dozen streams left out of previous restoration decisions, will finally have a chance to make a case to restore the life-giving waters to our streams and fisheries,” East Maui resident and Sierra Club Maui Group Executive Committee Chairperson Lucienne de Naie said.

Sierra Club Director Marti Townsend added that the court’s decision “does not jeopardize Upcountry users of East Maui water.”

“The Sierra Club has repeatedly committed to ensuring that water continues to flow to domestic users of the water like those in Upcountry,” Townsend said.

Both the county and the state declined to comment on the decision, with Department of Land and Natural Resources spokesperson Dan Dennison saying that the department “cannot comment on pending legal proceedings.”

Maui County spokesperson Brian Perry said that “Mayor (Michael) Victorino has no comment while he’s reviewing the First Circuit order and looking out for the best interests of the people of Maui County.”

A spokeswoman for Mahi Pono also said the company did not “have a statement at this time.” Mahi Pono, which owns half of EMI and purchased 41,000 acres of former sugar cane lands from A&B in 2018, has sought to differentiate itself from its predecessor’s plantation-era water use.

A&B also did not provide a comment by Tuesday evening.

June 1, 2021 DLNR, General Ag News and Notes, Mahi Pono Post a Comment

Judge orders new hearing on Maui water permits

Star Advertiser –
By Timothy Hurley –

A Circuit Court judge says he’s prepared to revoke Alexander &Baldwin’s annual permit allowing it to divert up to 45 million gallons per day from dozens of streams in East Maui.

Judge Jeffrey Crabtree, in a ruling issued Friday, ordered the Board of Land and Natural Resources to hold a contested case hearing about the revocable permit and said he would cancel it June 30 unless he sees a formal request to stay his order.

The Sierra Club asked the Land Board in November to hold a contested case hearing on Alexander & Baldwin Inc. and East Maui Irrigation’s request to continue using about 33,000 acres of public land and divert 45 million gallons per day from East Maui streams for the year 2021.

The board denied the request and approved the continuation of the permits, prompting an appeal by the Sierra Club.

On Friday the court concluded in an interim decision that the board violated the nonprofit’s due process rights and ordered a contested case hearing as soon as practicable.

“The court’s order means that for the first time, the Board of Land and Natural Resources will be required to make A&B fulfill its burden of proof before receiving any permits to use public resources,” Sierra Club’s attorney David Kimo Frankel said in a statement.

Frankel said the Sierra Club finally will be given an opportunity to show how much harm the diversions are causing the streams.

“A&B cannot justify draining streams dry when most of the water it takes is wasted,” he said.

Asked for comment, BLNR spokesman Dan Dennison said the agency doesn’t comment on legal issues prior to settlement. A spokesperson for Alexander &Baldwin could not be reached Monday.

In his ruling, Crabtree said he didn’t buy arguments from the board that allowing contested case hearings on annual revocable permits could mean requiring such hearings on virtually everything BLNR decides.

Crabtree said new information, issues and developments pertinent to the stream diversions have come up recently and are worthy of a closer look in a contested case hearing.

“Our environmental law system has a goal that the decision-makers will hear from stake-holders before decisions are made, to help decision-makers reach sound policy decisions examined from multiple perspectives,” the judge said in his ruling.

“The new information and issues,” he wrote, “are relevant, and are not insignificant.”

Crabtree is the same judge who in April sided with BLNR and Alexander & Baldwin in a similar case challenging the 2018 and 2019 permits.

Following a three-week trial, Crabtree ruled that the board acted properly when it allowed the diversion of stream water in those permits, saying Hawaii’s public-trust doctrine imposes a dual mandate on the state to both protect water resources and make maximum reasonable beneficial use of those resources.

The parties remain in mediation over the final order.

Sierra Club Director Marti Townsend said the upcoming contested case should provide a full hearing on the issues, including the amount of wasted water in the aging system and the fact that the diversions are making the streams run dry too much of the time, causing immense ecological damage.

“We’re trying to use all remedies available to us to make sure we protect those resources,” she said.

Townsend said the court’s decision will not affect Upcountry Maui users of the stream water. “The Sierra Club has repeatedly committed to ensuring that water continues to flow to domestic users of the water like those in Upcountry,” she said.

April 6, 2021 Farm Land for Sale, General Ag News and Notes, Mahi Pono, PSP Investments, Sustainable Agriculture Post a Comment

Case study casts doubt over ESG claims of Canadian pension fund PSP’s major agriculture investment on Maui

farmlandgrab.org

Case study casts doubt over ESG claims of Canadian pension fund PSP’s major agriculture investment on Maui, calls for greater scrutiny into the community impact of investments

Responsible Markets today published a case study of an approximately $600 million investment that the $135.59 billion Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP) is making in a former sugar plantation in Maui, Hawai’i. The report found evidence that the Montreal, Canada based pension plan, which invests its capital through PSP Investments, is not living up to its own environmental, social responsibility, and corporate governance (ESG) principles, resulting in adverse impacts on Maui’s environment and residents.

The study entitled “From the Mountains to the Sea: When Big Money Moved in on Maui’s Agriculture” takes a comprehensive look at Mahi Pono LLC, capitalized by PSP. Mahi Pono was created in December of 2018 under management of Pomona Farming, a subsidiary of the California based private equity firm Trinitas Partners. It now owns and operates over 41,000 acres of farmland in Maui’s central plains, which it acquired from long-time plantation owner Alexander & Baldwin.

Among Responsible Markets’ findings is that the success of the Mahi Pono investment is dependent on securing water rights at exceptionally low rates, at a direct economic and cultural cost to the indigenous Hawaiian people, and on the continued diversion of water away from East Maui, a practice that undermines Hawaiian farming communities. Rather than creating local food security as the company has promised, the Mahi Pono business plan is dependent on export crops. Additionally, the company operates secretively and with little transparency, and has failed to generate the number of jobs promised.

“Through Mahi Pono, PSP is seeking to profit by exploiting the resources of the Hawaiian people,” said Shay Chan Hodges, a co-organizer of Responsible Markets’ initiative, the Maui ESG Project, and co-author of the report. “This is not an ESG investment; it is merely a new version of the extractive practices of plantation capitalism that have been so damaging to Maui’s culture, environment, and economy for over 100 years.”

“The Mahi Pono case study illustrates the importance of early community engagement and ongoing partnership in land-based investing,” says Delilah Rothenberg Founder and Executive Director of the Predistribution Initiative, a multi-stakeholder effort to improve investment structures to share more wealth and influence with workers and communities, and ultimately address systemic risks including income inequality and climate change.

“With capital flows that are so intermediated, meaningful relationship development is often overlooked by distant investors – even asset owners and allocators who are taking measures to integrate ESG. Yet this lapse jeopardizes investors’ returns and perpetuates legacies of colonialism, with foreign powers undervaluing the risk that locals take and the value they offer with their land, resources, and labor,” concluded Rothenberg.

“Large private market agricultural land acquisitions in Hawai’i are all too familiar – wealthy investors parachuting in, missing a golden opportunity to ‘build back better’ for all impacted community stakeholders,” says Lisa Kleissner, impact investment pioneer and co-founder of Hawaii Investment Ready. “While access to water is the hook in this report, the water issue serves to underscore the lack of alignment between Mahi Pono’s objectives and the community’s needs. This report comes to the rescue by laying out in clear, pragmatic terms how Mahi Pono LLC and, for that matter, any private investor in agriculture can move investor/community discourse to a new, mutually beneficial level. First, ancestral rights must be acknowledged and addressed. And secondly, the business and financial model must demonstrate evidence-based community-aligned economics.”

The report shows how investors use the language of ESG and impact investment to promote, and invest in, economic opportunities that do not necessarily have a net positive ESG benefit. Responsible Markets calls on PSP and its staff to meet directly with community members and other stakeholders on Maui to understand the problems Mahi Pono is causing as well as the missed opportunities for positive transformative investment. True community intelligence is invaluable and cannot be outsourced to investment managers and advisors.

April 6, 2021 General Ag News and Notes, Mahi Pono, PSP Investments, Stock Market Post a Comment

PSP and Trinitas Accused of Greenwashing Hawaiian ESG Investment

Institutional Investor –
by Julie Segal –

A Canadian pension fund and its private equity partner come under fire. –

Canada’s PSP Investments, which invests for the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, is under fire for greenwashing a sustainable investment in Hawaii. –

Responsible Markets, a 20-year-old consulting firm in Hawaii focused on the environmental, social, and governance impact of investments, has published a detailed case study arguing that PSP’s $600 million investment through a joint venture called Mahi Pono in a former sugar plantation in Maui, Hawaii is not in accord with PSP’s own ESG standards.

The findings from the year-long research project comes as a critical mass of pensions, endowments, and other institutions publicly commit to investments that meet comprehensive ESG and sustainability goals as well as financial returns. Asset managers, especially those in the U.S, are scrambling to keep up.

The allegations of greenwashing illustrate the complexity of sustainable and ESG investing, particularly when external managers are used.

Mahi Pono, a farming venture between the Public Sector Pension Investment Board and Pomona Farming, a subsidiary of private equity firm Trinitas Partners, purchased the 41,000 acres of farmland in Hawaii in December 2018. At the time, PSP said that, among other things, the deal would ensure that the land would continue to be used for agriculture, that green space would be preserved in Central Maui, and that the acreage would be a long-term source of revenue for the local economy. The project was also intended to create food security for residents and local jobs.

But Responsible Markets argues that Mahi Pono depends on securing water at rates that are exploitative to indigenous Hawaiians and diverts water from local farmland.

“Rather than creating local food security as the company has promised, the Mahi Pono business plan is dependent on export crops,” wrote Shay Chan Hodges, a co-organizer of Responsible Markets’ initiative, the Maui ESG Project, and co-author of the report. “Additionally, the company operates secretively and with little transparency, and has failed to generate the number of jobs promised.”

According to the report, called “From the Mountains to the Sea: When Big Money Moved in on Maui’s Agriculture,” PSP Investments and its external manager use the language of ESG and impact investments, but the results haven’t yielded benefits in line with that narrative.

Ryon Paton, president of Pomona Farming and Executive Chairman of Mahi Pono, said the project is enormously complex and still in its infancy. For example, the project involves investing $30 million to upgrade an old gravity-fed water system that was in disrepair. “The overarching goal is to provide clean foods to the local Hawaiian market and for export,” he said. Paton added that rates paid for water are determined in a public forum and the manager has filed an environmental impact statement. The manager is now in the process of responding to 500 comments it has received from the public. “The long-term lease rationalization process is public and anybody can bid on the right to the water. We don’t negotiate that directly,” he said.

[II Deep Dive: ‘I Will Get Very Serious About ESG — But Not Yet,’ Allocators Claim]

Responsible Markets wants PSP to meet with the community in Maui to understand the problems that the project is causing, as well as what it calls missed opportunities. It also lays part of the blame on PSP’s engagement of an external manager. “True community intelligence is invaluable and cannot be outsourced to investment managers and advisors,” according to the report.

The case study alleges that Trinitas has a history of making questionable sustainable investments, particularly when it comes to water. According to the report, “Trinitas Partners and their affiliates have shown themselves to be masters of sustainable investment rhetoric, [but] the on the ground realities of their agricultural investments show a much more complex picture.” The case study outlines a deal that the partners executed in California, which converted land from vineyards and other crops into almond farms. Almond farming has become a hot button issue in California as these farms use significant amounts of water. Paton stressed that its orchards in California have received the highest level of sustainable certifications.

“Capital markets have become so intermediated that it’s difficult for investment professionals within a large institution to understand what’s happening on the ground,” Delilah Rothenberg, founder of Development Capital Strategies, an advisory firm specializing in sustainable and responsible investment, told II. “A lot of investors do hide behind the excuse of using external managers until there’s enough of a backlash where they have to address the issues,” she added. Rothenberg isn’t familiar with PSP’s Maui investments and couldn’t comment on the case study in particular.

February 6, 2021 Edible Crops, Employment/Jobs, Farm to Table, General Ag News and Notes, Hawaii Agricultural Employment, Hawaii Agriculture Jobs, Mahi Pono, Papaya, PSP Investments, Sustainable Agriculture, Tourism, Tropical Fruit, Vegtables, Watermelon Post a Comment

Mahi Pono farmers pivot amid pandemic

Maui News –
by Kehaulani Cerizo –

New crops go to market; 3,500 acres of plantings slated this year –

Wind. Drought. Pests. Farming in Central Maui already holds a unique set of challenges. Add a global pandemic and agriculture operations are tested in a whole new way.

So Mahi Pono, the largest agriculture company on Maui, has made key changes to its operations in light of coronavirus.

The pandemic affected everything from shipping costs — a 46 percent increase in Young Brothers rates took effect last year — to in-field work that needed COVID-19 safety protocols. Restaurants and hotels — major markets for local produce — closed, causing the company to look at the type and scale of its crops.

One bright spot of the pandemic is that it emphasized the need for food sustainability, making farming more essential than ever, Mahi Pono officials said.

“We’re an island state that continues to import about 90 percent of all of our food; that makes us vulnerable every time there’s a natural disaster, shipping issues or a global pandemic,” said Shan Tsutsui, Mahi Pono chief operating officer.

During a recent farm tour, Tsutsui and Mahi Pono officials discussed the pandemic’s impact on last year’s farm plan and products made available in 2020, along with adjustments they’ve made to this year’s plan.

They highlighted the Chef’s Corner project, a test plot for new crops; the progress of the company’s community farm, which rents parcels to local farmers; and recent plantings that have done surprisingly well, including watermelon, broccolini, kale and green beans.

Instead of producing a signature crop, Mahi Pono wants to be known for an array of locally grown foods — a big departure from the monocrop of sugar cane that has occupied Central Maui fields for more than a century.

“Transforming former sugar cane fields into diversified agriculture is not an easy task,” Tsutsui said. “It takes time, hard work and financial commitment.”

Watermelon for the people

Chase Stevenson, Mahi Pono Chef’s Corner farm manager, showed off its rows of green, yellow and purple beans, butternut and kabocha squash, red kale, green kale, dinosaur kale, bok choy, green onions and orange sweet potato.

The corner, comprising about 40 acres of organically managed land off Maui Veterans Highway, tests what works best for Mahi Pono farmers and for the market, Stevenson said. From there, farmers scale and grow. Each time the crop is rotated, it improves the soil.

Stevenson, who has about a decade of Maui farming experience at Kula Agriculture Park and in Haliimaile, said farming in the central plains is both challenging and rewarding.

“You never know what you’re going to run into. It is fun even though it doesn’t sound fun — it keeps things interesting,” Stevenson said, laughing.

Some crops, such as watermelon, were a pleasant surprise. Watermelon grown on about a half-acre was consumed almost entirely by the local market with the remainder shipped to the Big Island, Tsutsui said. Because it was a hit, watermelon fields will be expanded with yields scheduled for summer.

Darren Strand, vice president of agricultural outreach and business development, said the company is learning that beans, broccolini and kale do really well, but with COVID-19 causing restaurant and hospitality markets to scale back, it’s hard to move produce that would typically sell easily.

“Anything you grow with a good quality and a consistent supply, you are going to be able to move,” Strand said. “Hopefully things are going to turn around in the next month or so and we will be positioned with this project, and some potatoes, onions and papayas, to be ready to hit that and run.”

Farther south, sweet onions are at various stages of growth, with some ready for April or May harvest. Non-GMO solo and sunrise papaya trees that were sticks last year have shot up and are producing well.

In all, Mahi Pono will plant more than 3,500 new acres of crops this year, according to Grant Nakama, vice president of operations.

Another program, the Mahi Pono community farm, expects tenants to move in by the end of this month. The program provides “farm ready” land, including water, to local growers for $150 per acre a year. Tentative agreements have been reached with 14 farmers and small businesses for an initial 60 acres. A second phase of community farmland will add more acreage, officials said.

Pivoting amid the pandemic

Despite the pandemic, Mahi Pono last year brought its products to market under the Maui Harvest brand. Potatoes were sold at Whole Foods in Kahului, Honolulu and Kailua; watermelon, KTA Market in Hilo; papayas, Takamiya Market in Wailuku; watermelon, potatoes, eggplant, Pukalani Superette; papayas, Target in Kahului; broccolini, Tamuras in Kahului and Lahaina; and watermelon, Times Supermarket in Kihei and Honokowai.

An extra emphasis was placed on row crops after the onset of the pandemic in order to provide more locally grown potatoes, onions and papaya.

“This shift allowed us to donate more than 60,000 pounds of produce to nonprofit organizations like Maui Food Bank, Hawaii Foodbank and Chef Hui that directly helped those in need,” Tsutsui said.

Another area of growth despite the pandemic was Mahi Pono’s staff. The company went from 150 employees at the start of 2020 to about 260 employees at the beginning of this year.

“As an essential business during the pandemic, we were fortunate to be able to continue farming, expand operations and hire more employees,” said Mark Vaught, vice president of farm development.

Vaught, Nakama and Tsutsui were promoted in 2020. Tsutsui succeeded Tim O’Laughlin, who relocated to California to focus on new initiatives for both Mahi Pono and Pomona Farming, a news release said.

When it cames to water in 2020, Nakama said Mahi Pono made “every effort to be efficient.”

In 2020 the company diverted an average of 22.7 million gallons per day from East Maui — below the state interim in-stream flow standards and half the allowable water allocation under the Alexander & Baldwin revocable permit, he added.

“The amount of water was the minimum needed to support our agricultural operations and to meet our obligations to the County of Maui for Upcountry residents and water users,” Nakama said.

Looking forward, he said the company will continue to divert only what is needed to meet crop and Maui County obligations.

For ‘generations to come’

Mahi Pono, a joint venture between a California farming company and a Canadian pension fund, acquired 41,000 acres of former sugar cane land and half of the East Maui Irrigation water delivery system from Alexander & Baldwin in late 2018.

Since the purchase, Mahi Pono officials have said they should be viewed separately from A&B, which has a controversial history of water use and sugar cane operations.

Still, Albert Perez, executive director and co-founder of environmental group Maui Tomorrow Foundation, said the future of the new company remains uncertain because A&B has a hand in its success due to A&B’s control of East Maui water rights.

He added that the foundation is working with regenerative farmers to provide Mahi Pono a list of suggestions that will boost soil fertility, reduce and eliminate the need for pesticides, minimize windblown dust and increase the water retaining capacity of the soil.

“However, we are hopeful that under the leadership of Maui native Shan Tsutsui, sustainable, value-added agriculture that provides local food security will truly be the goal,” said Perez, who recently toured the farm.

Tsutsui, the former Hawaii lieutenant governor, said his life has been dedicated to public service. He said he sees Mahi Pono, which provides student internships and nonprofit programs, as the next chapter of community outreach.

“For me, it has been rewarding to be able to be a part something that’s going to have a major, positive impact on our community for many generations to come,” he said. “Not only are we growing crops for consumption, but we are also ensuring that Central Maui will remain undeveloped and in agriculture well into the future.”

Tsutsui said that in its short time, Mahi Pono has been working tirelessly, especially during a pivotal pandemic year. This includes clearing the land, researching the best crops that would thrive in Central Maui’s soil and climate, investing in modern farming technology and equipment, planting and maintaining fields, and implementing a food processing system and distribution channels.

It also established relationships with distributors, wholesalers and chefs to get Maui Harvest produce into stores, restaurants and homes, he said.

But like all worthy endeavors, changing the course of history will take time, Tsutsui said.

“We still have a long a road ahead,” he said. “We really want the public to be patient and understand that this will take time, but we are committed to delivering quality, Maui-grown produce.”

* Kehaulani Cerizo can be reached at kcerizo@mauinews.com.

_______________

MAHI PONO 2021 FARM PLAN AT A GLANCE

Crops already in the ground:

• Citrus: More than 1,800 acres. Along Haleakala, Maui Veterans and Kuihelani highways and Central Maui interior fields.

• Coffee: More than 150 acres. Right below Pukalani.

• Potato: More than 50 acres. In western fields between Maui Veterans and Kuihelani highways.

• Onions: More than 50 acres. In western fields between Maui Veterans and Kuihelani highways.

• Papaya: More than 20 acres. In Central Maui interior fields.

• Avocado: More than 10 acres. Near Maui Humane Society and Maui Veterans Highway.

Planting this year:

• 3,500 more acres of citrus.

• 150 more acres of coffee.

• Replanting onions and potatoes.

• 20 more acres of papaya.

An additional 20 acres to be planted in the Chef’s Corner project (in western fields between Maui Veterans and Kuihelani highways), which will serve as a test plot for potential new crops.