• Gay & Robinson Gay & Robinson Word that Gay & Robinson, Inc. is cutting back on its sugar planting for this year is distressing. G&R is the last sugar plantation operating on Kaua‘i and the news means this living
• Gay & Robinson
Gay & Robinson
Word that Gay & Robinson, Inc. is cutting back on its sugar planting for this year is distressing. G&R is the last sugar plantation operating on Kaua‘i and the news means this living part of our sugar plantation heritage is hurting economically.
The company is leaving the former fields of Kekaha Sugar located on state lands fallow this year. The past planting of these fields showed great promise for the expansion of the Westside sugar operation. Now this reduction in planting is a sign that sugar planters in Hawai‘i and on the Mainland are facing yet more economic problems.
Plantation manager Alan Kennett is citing as reasons for the decision the low sugar prices in the United States, a move away from carbohydrate-heavy foods due to Americans going on low-carb diets and the increasing threat of imported sugar tilting the scales of the U.S. sugar market.
However, on the up side, G&R is still in operation because of the innovation and stick-to-it attitude of the management and workers at the Kaumakani-based plantation. The company has diversified by adding a mill and field tour, and hopes to begin refining sugar, a process now being done in faraway C&H Sugar in Northern California.
The possibility that ethanol refined from sugar cane may soon become a popular fuel for vehicles in Hawai‘i would be a big boost to G&R. Kaua‘i’s members of the Legislature should be behind this proposal; it may mean life or death for G&R.
