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Nope, those were long gone before NAFTA. Those two crops were outsourced to the philippines years ago.
Yep, cheap land and cheap labor in the Philippines - and a better global supply chain, bigger and more efficient ships, and a perfect climate for those crops, doomed the industries.
Most people don't realize the C & H Sugar (California and Hawaii Sugar) processes no Hawaii sugar, and while its last processing of Hawaiian sugar was only a few years ago, common household sugar from C & H has not been from Hawaii for over 25 years. The Hawaii sugar was more or less packaged as boutique sugar.
NAFTA was signed in 1993, it went into effect in 1994 and last sugar cane harvest along the Hamakua coast was 1996. (There was a parade through Honokaa, even though it was a sad occasion.) Sugar is a two year crop, which is why it needs a tropical climate and why last harvest was two years after NAFTA went into effect. We couldn't compete with international sugar companies since they used migrant workers and didn't provide housing or medical or anything else for their workers. Hawaii sugar workers had houses, accounts at the company store, company doctors, each camp used to have it's own town with stores, theaters and such.
I forget the exact numbers, but it was something like Hawaii sugar was 10¢ per pound and non-US sugar was 3¢ a pound or something along those lines.
The year after NAFTA was signed, there was some sort of changes to the welfare program so that was cut as well. Hilo and the Hamakua coast lost 40% of their economic support in one year. Maybe more since the sugar workers spent money in Hilo as well as their own areas. It was a frigging ghost town for several years. Everyone had to move away because there wasn't any work at all. Folks weren't driving their cars because of the cost of fuel, they weren't painting their houses because of lack of money. Several towns pretty much dried up and died off.
Back then, inter-island airfare wasn't as expensive so a lot of folks were commuting weekly to Oahu for work. They'd stay with family, friends or where ever they could and then come home on the weekends.
After sugar left on the Hamakua coast, they tried to start a lumber industry with trees for making paper pulp. Acres and acres of eucalyptus trees were planted and a paper mill in Japan, Oji Paper, was going to come build a mill. We planted lots of trees and then they said we had to plant twice as many more before they'd show up. There were already too many acres in trees and the people here didn't want to plant any more. So, the mill never showed up and the trees are still here. Apparently, unless pulp trees are shipped via supertanker sized loads, it's not economical to ship them away. Several times the pile of trees in Kawaihae waiting to be loaded have caught fire, too. Not sure if it was from compression from too big of a pile or what, though.
Low grade pulp trees are not a viable industry. Had they planted high end trees such as koa, teak, mahogany, etc., and made high end furniture or even hardwood lumber, it would be a viable industry and worth shipping the finished goods. Sugar was sorta factory work done outside, the workers didn't have a lot of skill sets. Had we gone to quality lumber and woodworking, we would have had to have trained the workforce more, but it would have been better than pulp lumber.
We lost a lot of our population for a time, but now there's a lot more diversified economy going on along the coast here and things economically are stronger than they were before, at least, for the people along the coast, not sure if it's any good for any large corporations. Although, the diary just got shut down (they are at least a corporation, although not that large - not like sugar used to be) so that will be some jobs lost and that may have been Hawaii's last dairy? We could use another dairy, but one that is further away from people or one that doesn't spray manure on the fields of GMO corn being grown to feed the cows. They weren't overly sensitive to folks living nearby on multiple levels. How a diary could make as many stinks and noises as that one did is a mystery to me.
Yep. Take Canada, for example. There are 36 millions Canadians living on a land mass slightly bigger than the USA. Their citizens enjoy a higher standard of living than Americans. City governments over there recently raised taxes on foreign property buyers to keep prices down so Canadians could buy a home. Australia successfully did the same.
Canada and Australia are in a unique situation because of commonwealth status with former member Hong Kong. Lots of wealthy Chinese fled Hong Kong for commonwealth countries just before Hong Kong was transferred from British to Chinese rule after the 99 year lease signed in 1898 expired. These people would have lost their commonwealth status in 1997. The diaspora set the stage for wealthy Chinese to funnel investment monies into things like real estate to former commonwealth countries through family members and business ties that existed due to the migration. It is unknown if the 15% foreign surcharge* did that much to keep the prices down because it happened at the same time the market was already becoming saturated, and the Chinese government started export controls on capital including foreign real estate purchases. It might have worked, or it may have been coincidence.
* I don't recall if the foreign surcharge was exactly 15%, and I'm only aware of Canada figures.
NAFTA was signed in 1993, it went into effect in 1994 and last sugar cane harvest along the Hamakua coast was 1996. (There was a parade through Honokaa, even though it was a sad occasion.) Sugar is a two year crop, which is why it needs a tropical climate and why last harvest was two years after NAFTA went into effect. We couldn't compete with international sugar companies since they used migrant workers and didn't provide housing or medical or anything else for their workers. Hawaii sugar workers had houses, accounts at the company store, company doctors, each camp used to have it's own town with stores, theaters and such.
I forget the exact numbers, but it was something like Hawaii sugar was 10¢ per pound and non-US sugar was 3¢ a pound or something along those lines.
The year after NAFTA was signed, there was some sort of changes to the welfare program so that was cut as well. Hilo and the Hamakua coast lost 40% of their economic support in one year. Maybe more since the sugar workers spent money in Hilo as well as their own areas. It was a frigging ghost town for several years. Everyone had to move away because there wasn't any work at all. Folks weren't driving their cars because of the cost of fuel, they weren't painting their houses because of lack of money. Several towns pretty much dried up and died off.
Back then, inter-island airfare wasn't as expensive so a lot of folks were commuting weekly to Oahu for work. They'd stay with family, friends or where ever they could and then come home on the weekends.
After sugar left on the Hamakua coast, they tried to start a lumber industry with trees for making paper pulp. Acres and acres of eucalyptus trees were planted and a paper mill in Japan, Oji Paper, was going to come build a mill. We planted lots of trees and then they said we had to plant twice as many more before they'd show up. There were already too many acres in trees and the people here didn't want to plant any more. So, the mill never showed up and the trees are still here. Apparently, unless pulp trees are shipped via supertanker sized loads, it's not economical to ship them away. Several times the pile of trees in Kawaihae waiting to be loaded have caught fire, too. Not sure if it was from compression from too big of a pile or what, though.
Low grade pulp trees are not a viable industry. Had they planted high end trees such as koa, teak, mahogany, etc., and made high end furniture or even hardwood lumber, it would be a viable industry and worth shipping the finished goods. Sugar was sorta factory work done outside, the workers didn't have a lot of skill sets. Had we gone to quality lumber and woodworking, we would have had to have trained the workforce more, but it would have been better than pulp lumber.
We lost a lot of our population for a time, but now there's a lot more diversified economy going on along the coast here and things economically are stronger than they were before, at least, for the people along the coast, not sure if it's any good for any large corporations. Although, the diary just got shut down (they are at least a corporation, although not that large - not like sugar used to be) so that will be some jobs lost and that may have been Hawaii's last dairy? We could use another dairy, but one that is further away from people or one that doesn't spray manure on the fields of GMO corn being grown to feed the cows. They weren't overly sensitive to folks living nearby on multiple levels. How a diary could make as many stinks and noises as that one did is a mystery to me.
Awesome post!
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