Local sources of sugar?

[night0wl]

Originally Posted by khyron

What were the central causes to the decline in Hawaiian sugar cane production? My uneducated guess would be ripple effects of the corn subsidy economy set up by the USA...but that's just a presumption (it's the root cause of nearly all the mainland's various and sundry agricultural disasters and even a major contributor to the obesity epidemic).

From what I've read, it just couldn't be competitive. In the USA, the domestic market has protections in place for big-sugar produced domestically. Globally, sugar is much cheaper so you cant sell internationally and compete with caribbean or other low cost producers. However, the shipping cost from Hawaii to mainland was too expensive for the domestic market...losing out to Florida. When big-food started using high fructose corn syrup...then more expensive hawaii shipped sugar lost what little market that was left.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by khyron

What were the central causes to the decline in Hawaiian sugar cane production?

Cost of labor and land were the biggest issues. The economy shifted dramatically to tourism in the 60's with the jet age - and cheap labor and land from places like the Phillipines, Puerto Rico - even Florida, brought on the decline of the industry.

Ultimately, besides the novelty factor - sugar is sugar whether you get it in Hawaii or the Phillipines.

[Robin Rossi]

Originally Posted by night0wl

From what I've read, it just couldn't be competitive. In the USA, the domestic market has protections in place for big-sugar produced domestically. Globally, sugar is much cheaper so you cant sell internationally and compete with caribbean or other low cost producers. However, the shipping cost from Hawaii to mainland was too expensive for the domestic market...losing out to Florida. When big-food started using high fructose corn syrup...then more expensive hawaii shipped sugar lost what little market that was left.

Rats, foiled again by that dastardly high-fructose corn syrup!!!!!

[hotzcatz]

NAFTA killed Hawaii's sugar. When they allowed foreign sugar to be sold in the United States without paying all the extra tariffs to protect domestically produced sugar then the local sugar mills here died almost immediately. Sugar was doing fine when it was subsidized but couldn't compete with sugar grown in places that didn't provide housing or health care for the workers.

There was also a huge drop in welfare benefits that year and one other third thing that decreased the economic income of the Hilo area of the Big Island the year sugar died, although I forget exactly what that was at the moment. I remember I did figure out that Hilo lost about half of it's economic income in that one year and things were very dismal for quite some time after that. Nobody had any work, nobody was driving their cars (no money for gas), folks weren't painting or repairing their houses for quite a few years, etc. It was a very depressing time in more ways than just economic.

If you want locally produced Big Island sugar, you pretty much have to make it yourself these days. I know someone selling a cane juicer machine, but she wants about $800 for it so I won't be squishing sugar myself. I've been growing Stevia instead. It grows pretty well at 1,100 feet on the Hamakua coast and is easy enough to use instead of sugar.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by khyron

What were the central causes to the decline in Hawaiian sugar cane production? .

It's cheaper to make sugar from sugar beets. Also, a lot of other countries have much cheaper land and cheaper labor costs. It's difficult for USA to compete in any of the agricultural products that require a lot of labor.

USA grows and exports agricultural products that can be produced with mechanization (wheat, cattle, soybeans) and grown in parts of the country where land is still relatively cheap.

[OpenD]

Globally 80% of the sugar is produced from sugar cane. It requires tropical or near-tropical conditions to grow, and a pool of cheap labor to be competitive. Besides Maui, in the US sugar cane is still commercially grown in Florida, Louisiana, Texas and Puerto Rico.

Maui sugar is barely holding on in the marketplace, despite much higher than commodity-level pricing and high shipping costs, primarily by virtue of positioning itself as a premium product, such as "Maui Gold." But environmental concerns, especially from the toxic smoke produced by the annual field burning to remove stubble, are creating a lot of pressure to close the industry.

Puerto Rico produces 70% of the rum consumed in the US, and it is made from molasses, a by-product of the sugar making process. Today, however, the tables have turned and the crystallized sugar is the byproduct, while the base for rum is the primary product.

Southern states producing cane sugar mostly market regionally, under traditional brand names, where their higher production cost is somewhat offset against cheaper imports by their lower transportation costs.

[Razzbar]

Originally Posted by night0wl

Hi all,

I'm intrigued to know that after "big sugar" died off in Hawaii, particularly Big Island, are there any small to medium scale producers left? People that could supply sugar, molasses, and other products for local mid-scale consumption?

Or do people just go to the Costco in Kona for their bulk needs!

Yes, sugar was definitely king in Hawaii up to around the seventies. There were never any small scale producers to BE "left". There might be some new "boutique" producers, as one comment pointed out the one on Maui... but the sugar companies used to be ALL BIG CORPORATIONS.

It was a very different economy. Lots of businesses extended credit to nearly all of their regular customers to be paid when the plantation paid. E.g. Mr. Isa's liquor store in Keaau, he had shelves with dozens or receipt books -- one per customer -- above his cash register. People who worked for the plantation could live in a "camp" and rent a house for maybe a dollar a month -- or year. Actually, they'd rent the land and build the house themselves. Electricity and water were free, and both came from the plantation, not the county.

Sugar workers were unionized, and had good wages plus benefits. They were the highest paid agricultural workers in the world.

During the seventies, politicians all promised to "save sugar", but I don't think anybody in a position to do anything really tried. There was no shortage of ideas, some quite radical, like putting Hawaii onto an alcohol economy -- but the big plantations were owned by big corporations with trust fund babies on the board, who considered that farming was too much work.

Leave it to somebody on Maui to actually do something... Now that the industry is dead.

BTW, I don't mean to use the term "green" in any negative way, but "greenies" (like me) were downright *political* against Big Sugar. The mills polluted the air and water, the harvesting, other factors about Big Sugar were definitely undesirable. It's just kind of funny to think back on how we bashed it.

Those HUGE trucks that hauled it were made in Hilo. I don't know about the other islands, where they got their trucks, but that large old factory building near the Banyan drive golf course is where they made 'em. On Maui, the sugar plantations used only their own roads. They were private roads, but useful as shortcuts. On the Big Island, they used public roads to haul cane, and I remember this ONE guy who had the job of walking between Pahoa and Keaau with a rake, cleaning up after them. They were scary monsters if you rode a bicycle like I did. Stalks would stick out every which way. One day I was in traffic court, and the Keaau Plantation was called as a defendant. A guy approached the bench with a checkbook. Strictly routine, I guess. Break the law, that's just "fine".

The idea of growing eucalyptus or whatever, for the purpose of "biomass" -- to be burned for electricity, makes me think "can't you people carry two thoughts in your head at the same time???". Isn't the atmosphere getting enough pollution already? Sure, the wind blows it away... to what planet??? Sheesh!!

[KauaiHiker]

Sugar was a double-edged sword. The land (and water) politics of it were ugly, but it did keep a lot of land out of development. Agriculture and jobs are good, but not dumping chemicals on the land and storing them badly--several mill sites are toxic and essentially superfund sites. I too heard that it was NAFTA that removed the sugar tariffs that allowed sugar at 3rd world labor prices into the US. The G&R sugar on Kaua'i that was the last to close had the record for sugar production per acre, due to abundant sunshine and water (and who know how many chemical fertilizers)--so they were also competitive despite the labor cost, just not competitive enough. I still don't understand why they couldn't contine by producing ethanol (like they do in Brazil), and having a few premium byproducts such as local brown sugar (the Maui sugar did this with they Sugar in the Raw brand) and rum (Koloa rum just got started here). It seems like there were a lot of politics behind that as well (mainland corn being subsidized for high-fructose corn sugar and ethanol production, etc.).

They just tore down the sugar mill in Lihue, one of the biggest in the state since it was a joint mill for several plantations. It had tons of asbestos, so it was a health hazard, but I still wish they could've reused the building, or turned it into a museum. It left a big hole in the local "skyline" and the only remnant left is the street name: Haleko Rd.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by Razzbar

The idea of growing eucalyptus or whatever, for the purpose of "biomass" -- to be burned for electricity, makes me think "can't you people carry two thoughts in your head at the same time???". Isn't the atmosphere getting enough pollution already? Sure, the wind blows it away... to what planet???

I haven't looked at the calculations, but the claim is that the biomass gasification scheme sequesters carbon as "biochar." In other words, a byproduct of the process is a black granulated material consisting primarily of carbon, which is used as a soil amendment in farming.

Seems to me that we could be doing much more with our solar, wind, tide, and geothermal resources, but part of the appeal of the various biomass projects is the prospect of reviving existing capital resources without consuming fossil fuels.