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WAIALUA, Hawaii (AP) — The reddish-brown mud that smothered Bok Kongphan’s Hawaii farm has hardened in the tropical sun. Irrigation tubes lie in a tangle where his lemongrass, cucumber and okra once flourished.
His niece, Jeni Balanay, lost her crops too — a mustardy green called choy sum, bitter melon, tomato. The leaves of her recently planted banana, coconut and mango have gone yellow, the trees unlikely to survive.
Across Oahu’s North Shore, an area famed for its big-wave surfing, the small farms that help supply the island’s food are struggling after back-to-back storms in March brought the state’s worst flooding in two decades. Officials are pleading with farmers not to give up, stressing that local agriculture is crucial for the isolated archipelago.
“In some cases entire farms have been wiped out,” said Brian Miyamoto, executive director of the Hawaii Farm Bureau. “These are farmers who were just days or weeks away from harvesting and now they have to start over.”
According to data collected by farming advocates, more than 600 of Hawaii’s 6,500 farms reported nearly $40 million in damage, including to crops, livestock and machinery. But Miyamoto said the farm bureau estimates that the full extent of the destruction is much broader — $50 million at close to 2,000 farms.
A particular type of agriculture
For most of the late 19th and 20th centuries, plantation-style agriculture dominated Hawaii, as companies like Dole and conglomerates founded by missionary descendants grew immense fields of sugarcane or pineapple for export. The operations drew large numbers of immigrants, primarily from Asia and Portugal.
But that large-scale monoculture faded by the 1990s amid international competition, and officials began to promote smaller farms — some, like Kongphan’s, just a few acres — with a wider array of crops that could be sold to local grocery stores or at farmers markets.
Worldwide shipping disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced the importance of having a local food supply in Hawaii, and the state in recent years has offered additional support to the farms. That includes money for infrastructure, a farm-to-school program and loans for those who have been denied credit from banks.
But they still face challenges. Unlike many of their counterparts on the mainland, Hawaii farms are often too small and diversified to be able to afford or qualify for crop insurance.
Many of the farmers are immigrants who were barely eking out a living even before the storms, Miyamoto noted.
The majority of Hawaii’s farms report less than $10,000 in annual sales, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The flooding, along with high winds and power outages, killed or stressed livestock and destroyed equipment, vehicles and infrastructure.
