Can farming on Moloka‘i be sustainable?
Of course it can. The Hawaiians fed themselves for centuries before Western technology arrived. But challenges today are different. Ag Park History Starting in the late 1970s, plantationscale pineapple production phased out, opening fertile land to the ingenuity of small-scale farmers. People believed that this island could become the “breadbasket of Hawai‘i,” and many crops had their day in theMoloka‘i sun, including watermelons, string beans, eggplant, strawberries. . . . For a time we even had a wild animal park. By about 1990 most of these initiatives had begun to fall to the pressures of doing business on this small and unique island. Fortunately the State of Hawai‘i created this Ag Park during the early ‘70s— about 1,000 acres divided into 25 low-lease lots served by a 12″ water line, each with its own standpipe. Today the Ag Park is the center forMoloka‘i’s diversified farming industry. Here you will find corn, mangoes, the largest cucumber farm in the state, tropical flowers, m
