Harvest has begun in full force for the largest coffee producer in the United States located here in Kauai Hawaii. Just a short drive from our Kauai vacation rentals in the sleepy town of Kalaheo, the coffee trees are heavily laden with beans that are known in the industry at this stage as 'cherries'. This harvest will be different for the company and the nearly 100 employees. Earlier this year parent company Alexander and Baldwin sold its subsidiary to the venerable Italian firm, Massimo Zannetti. Speculators believe that after nearly 24 years in the fickle coffee business, the major shareholders of A and B stock … [Read more...]

In 1985 a group of agriculturalists with Amfac Sugar Co. were tasked with a study to evaluate alternate crops for company lands that were currently in sugarcane production. The results of the study were not very encouraging, what could be done with over 100,000 acres in sugar production if sugar was to experience a catastrophic event such as  loss of its agricultural subsidy. Vegetable production was ruled out, it was estimated that 300 acres of sweet corn could supply all of Oahu's annual needs, and 50 acres could satisfy it's needs for Broccoli. Small numbers when on Oahu at the time Amfac had many more acres to … [Read more...]

This is something you will never hear while you are on Kauai. From the backyard where that leaky faucet is of some use because it waters your banana plants, to the family farms in Wailua and WaimeaValley that grow a significant portion of the fruit eaten in the markets. Bananas are everywhere on Kauai. What’s fun for the visitor to Kauai is that they can sample many different varieties of banana with their taste and textural differences and compare them to probably the only variety of banana they have ever eaten, the Cavendish. The Cavendish, originally from southern China, represents 99% of the global export … [Read more...]