Hawaii's Last Sugar Harvest Paves Way For A Fight On The Land's Future

"MAUI, Hawaii -- For one last season, luscious, green fields of sugarcane are animating Maui’s landscape.

Hulking trucks are loading pre-burned cane from the Hawaiian Corporate and Sugar Company (HC&S)’s 144th crop into the rust-colored factory where it will be rolled, shredded, squeezed and boiled into molasses. Passenger jets rumbling over the cane fields are a reminder that tourism has overtaken sugar in recent years, and assumed the role of largest industry in Maui.

For more than 150 years, the big agricultural corporations that produce sugar have been top dogs in the island’s economic life and its political governance. As the industry winds down, a new generation of activists are dreaming big of replacing sugar not only with a new agricultural model but also a new political settlement."

Stephen McLaren reports for the Guardian April 28, 2016.