Worst Flooding in 20 Years Has Hawaii's Farmers on the Brink

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, the AP reports, stressing that local agriculture is crucial for the isolated archipelago.

"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. 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. Without insurance, Kongphan, an immigrant from Thailand, has been trying to obtain government aid and figure out how to level earth moved by the floodwaters. His niece has been helping him and other Thai farmers navigate the aid and loan process. In an interview interpreted by Balanay, Kongphan called the floods devastating but said he will keep working the 5-acre plot he leases, growing vegetables to sell at farmers markets, a swap meet, and at shops and stalls in Honolulu's Chinatown. "These are the farms that we really need to get started again," Hurd said. "We cannot have them give up."