The Hawaii Department of Agriculture on Wednesday released data on commercial agriculture activities statewide.
The 100-page report was completed through a contract with the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s Spatial Data Analysis and Visualization Lab and can be viewed here.
As the pie charts on this page illustrate, the state has been through “a dramatic change” — DOA’s words — in ag land use over the last 35 years with the end of the plantation era in both sugar and pineapple production.


“In 1980 there were 350, 830 acres in crop production, 85 percent of which was tied to sugar and pineapple,” says the DOA. “In 2015, total crop acres have dropped to just 151,830 acres with just 28 percent of that being sugar and pineapple.”
“This baseline study is one of several projects we are working on to lay a foundation for measuring our progress toward increasing agricultural production statewide,” said Scott Enright, chair of the Hawaii Board of Agriculture, in a press release. “We look forward to using this tool in making informed decisions about current agricultural enterprises and in the planning and promoting of new agricultural investment to increase our food security.”
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About the Author
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Chad Blair is the politics editor for Civil Beat. You can reach him by email at cblair@civilbeat.org or follow him on X at @chadblairCB.