![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/maui-gold-pineapple-healthy-field.png\")
Maui Gold workers harvest pineapples from a healthy field. Photo courtesy: Hawai\u2018i Farm Project \/ Maui Gold<\/p>\n\nMaui Gold workers harvest pineapples from a healthy field. Photo courtesy: Hawai\u2018i Farm Project \/ Maui Gold<\/p>\n
In an unfenced field overlooking a gulch, where plump yellow Maui Gold pineapples grow, axis deer climb up the hillside in the mornings and evenings \u201cand feast away.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hungry wild deer and pigs have been wreaking havoc on about 20 acres of the H\u0101li\u2018imaile pineapple farm. At a cost of $165,000 per acre \u2014 for planting, maintaining machinery and the value of the harvest \u2014 the losses total about $3.3 million.<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s \u201cpretty significant for a struggling farm,\u201d said Max Tornai, director of grants and government affairs for the Hawai\u2018i Farm Project<\/a>, the parent company of Maui Gold Pineapple Co<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Maui Gold leases 757 acres from Maui Land and Pineapple Co. and wants to scale up to full production, but the company is struggling with the challenges of feral animals, as well as drought.<\/p>\n And, Maui Gold is not alone in battling these obstacles.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a big one for lots of farmers on Maui,\u201d Tornai told the Hawai\u2018i Agribusiness Development Corporation<\/a> on Thursday. \u201cWe are definitely getting literally eaten alive by axis deer and feral pigs. \u2026 It\u2019s pretty devastating, especially considering the investment that went into those fields and the fact that our crops are hand-planted.\u201d<\/p>\n Tornai and other farming officials came to the Agribusiness Development Corporation\u2019s board meeting last week \u2014 the first held on Maui in the state agency\u2019s 31-year existence<\/a> \u2014 to share their struggles and the ways they hope the board can help local farmers succeed. They want funding and support to fend off deer and pigs, more investments in irrigation and on-island facilities such as cold storage, and programs to help farmers get their products to market.<\/p>\n The Hawai\u2018i State Legislature created the agency in 1994 \u201cto replace and repurpose lands, irrigation systems and other agricultural assets left idle after the closure of sugar and pineapple operations.\u201d It\u2019s currently working on a statewide strategic plan and setting one-year, five-year and 10-year priorities.<\/p>\n Warren Watanabe, executive director of the Maui County Farm Bureau, told the board that \u201cMaui\u2019s agriculture is in an extreme state of flux.\u201d It\u2019s been 16 years since Maui Land & Pineapple Co. shut down its century-old plantation<\/a>, and nine years since Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. on Maui shuttered the last sugar plantation in the state<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The decline of widescale sugar and pineapple production offered a break for the soils that struggled under decades of monocropping<\/a> and allowed for the return of water to East Maui streams. But their steady disappearance also impacted the smaller family farmers who benefitted from the \u201ceconomies of scale\u201d that came with having large quantities of crops grown on island and investments in agriculture such as cooling facilities, Watanabe said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they closed, local vendors also closed, leaving our farmers with limited access to products and increased costs,\u201d Watanabe said. \u201cIt appears increased self-sufficiency or increased farm-to-school production is best achieved, coupled with a strong export component.\u201d<\/p>\n Maui Gold\u2019s challenges are a reflection of what\u2019s happening on a wider scale.<\/p>\n In late 2022, the Hawai\u2018i Farm Project acquired Maui Gold when the farm\u2019s then-owners, LeVecke Corporation, decided to step away from pineapple cultivation on Maui, Tornai said.<\/p>\n The Hawai\u2018i Farm Project is the parent company of several different agrotourism-based operations on Maui. It started out in 2011 as the Maui Pineapple Tour<\/a>, a three-person operation doing tours at the Maui Gold pineapple farm for about 2,000 guests. Over the next decade, the company grew to include the Maui Pineapple Store<\/a> on Front Street, Lahaina Honey Co.<\/a>, Maui Farm Events<\/a>, Maui Chocolate Tour at Ku\u2018ia Estate Chocolate<\/a> in Lahaina and Maui Coconut Tour at Punakea Palms<\/a> in Launiupoko.\u00a0<\/p>\n By the end of 2022, the Hawai\u2018i Farm Project had grown into an operation serving more than 83,500 guests across three farms with total revenues of over $8.3 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since acquiring Maui Gold, the Hawai\u2018i Farm Project has invested $4.3 million into the farm to date, Tornai said. The funds primarily came from the tourists who are the main customers of the pineapple tours.<\/p>\n The pineapple farm produces an average of 50 tons of fresh fruit per week, and 90% of the products remain in the state, going to stores and restaurants and contributing to Maui-based creations like HI Spice hot sauces<\/a> and Jeff\u2019s Jams and Jellies<\/a>. More than 100 tons of fruit are sold every year to provide juice to local businesses such as Maui Brewing Co.<\/a> and Maui Wine<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Aug. 8, 2023, the Lahaina wildfire destroyed the company\u2019s store on Front Street as well as the pineapple tour\u2019s head office in The Wharf Cinema Center. The company also shut down its chocolate and coconut farm tours as well as Lahaina Honey Co.\u00a0<\/p>\n The company\u2019s store and offices reopened in H\u0101li\u2018imaile in 2024. The chocolate tour also resumed in 2024, but the coconut tour has yet to return.\u00a0<\/p>\n High winds during the Upcountry fire, also on Aug. 8, 2023, ripped the liner on the pineapple farm\u2019s reservoir, impacting its capacity. The liner wasn\u2019t repaired until early 2025, \u201cso that was a pretty significant delay in water delivery,\u201d Tornai said.<\/p>\n Now, the fields are still \u201cextremely affected by the impacts of drought and the ability to get water to our crops,\u201d Tornai said. About 70% of Hawai\u2018i and 93% of Maui County is currently in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>. In Maui County, nearly 60% of the area is under moderate drought, while just over 33% is in severe drought.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPineapple is a pretty resilient crop, but there\u2019s a tipping point for anything that\u2019s living in terms of water, and we have hit that with a lot of our fields,\u201d Tornai said.<\/p>\n The company also is trying to protect the surviving crops from wild animals. In 2023, the state provided $90,000 to fence off some of the pineapple farm\u2019s fields.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can see a direct impact for the fields that don\u2019t have fencing,\u201d Tornai said.<\/p>\n Across the gulch from a field that\u2019s been decimated by deer, a fenced-off field of pineapple is green and thriving.<\/p>\n Maui Gold has also worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on a hunting program to control the population, which has run rampant across the island<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tornai said that the Agribusiness Development Corporation could help farms like theirs by securing infrastructure for more consistent water delivery or funding to help with deer and other feral ungulates.<\/p>\n If the deer and pigs can be kept at bay, Tornai said there are lots of opportunities to grow Maui Gold and other farms.<\/p>\n Maui Gold recently renovated an old cutting and processing facility left behind by the previous owners and started turning smaller or \u201ccosmetically imperfect fruit that our distributors or retailers don\u2019t want\u201d into cut pineapple, frozen pineapple chunks, pineapple juice and dehydrated pineapple. The facility could fill a need on Maui where \u201cthere is a bit of a desert for agricultural processing facilities and cold storage,\u201d Tornai said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted, as we were renovating our cutting room, our processing facility, to be forward thinking and consider the needs of other agricultural growers on Maui,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd so we\u2019re installing equipment that we might not be able to use, like an industrial steamer, but other producers of \u2018ulu and kalo, they might want to partner with us and utilize our space in order to process their crops locally on Maui.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, the Hawai\u2018i Farm Project and the Hawai\u2018i \u2018Ulu Cooperative announced a partnership to process \u2018ulu<\/a> from Maui farms and package it for distribution to local restaurants, schools and hospitals. The cooperative will collect and process more than 3,000 pounds of \u2018ulu weekly to start, eventually scaling up to 30,000 pounds within 10 weeks of operation.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a huge boost for an organization that shipped more than 30,000 pounds of \u2018ulu to Hawai\u2018i island last year for processing and lost over 10% due to spoilage during shipping, Tornai said.<\/p>\n Hawai\u2018i is too small for farmers to compete against each other, Watanabe said. Local growers can\u2019t easily ship their goods to other parts of the country, and they need the investments in facilities that everyone can benefit from.\u00a0<\/p>\n Watanabe said some of the biggest challenges for farmers are land, infrastructure and labor.<\/p>\n \u201cMultigenerational farms are closing,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are farms that have the land, infrastructure and markets, and yet they close. Why? Addressing the why is important to ensure that future investments are done for the long term.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He pointed out that multiple agencies, including the Agribusiness Development Corporation, are putting together strategic plans, but said there needs to be a \u201cunited vision of ag in Hawai\u2018i\u201d that factors in all of the counties. Actions on O\u2018ahu impact the Neighbor Islands, and changes such as increases in shipping rates have forced the closure of some Maui farms, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/cu-agribusiness-board--scaled.jpeg\")
The Agribusiness Development Corporation, which is chaired by Maui resident Jayson Watts (fourth from left) holds its first meeting on Maui Thursday at the University of Hawai\u2018i Maui College campus. HJI \/ COLLEEN UECHI photo<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/maui-gold-workers-1.png\")
Workers pick pineapples in Maui Gold\u2019s H\u0101li\u2018imaile fields. Photo courtesy: Hawai\u2018i Farm Project \/ Maui Gold<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/breadfruit-processing.jpg\")
Breadfruit is processed at the Hawai\u2018i \u2018Ulu Cooperative. PC: Hawai\u2018i Farm Project \/ Hawai\u2018i \u2018Ulu Cooperative<\/p>\n