Hawaii Farmers Are Fighting to Keep Their Soil From Flushing Out to Sea
Farmers in Hawaii are adapting to effects of a changing climate by combining traditional Hawaiian practices with new, regenerative agricultural techniques to save soils, streams and reefs
Young cacao trees stand in an unlikely spot on the northeastern slopes of the Waianae Range, growing on a windswept point overlooking Oahu’s North Shore. “Our soil, in the summer, becomes a powdery flour,” says Max Breen of Kamananui Cacao Farm. “A lot of runoff, a lot of blowing. … Challenging to plant a wind-sensitive crop up here.”Breen is adapting. He planted his chocolate-bearing trees under a runway of black matting and mulch, interspersed with native and locally important saplings — gandules or pigeon peas, aalii and iliee. Those shrubs and plants will grow faster and protect the sensitive cacao from the harsh sun and ruthless coastal winds. The mulch and matting will help hold the soil in place against the wind and rain.Soil is paramount to crop health but especially important in historically productive areas such as central and northern Oahu. Farmers there were already contending with the repercussions of decades of plantation agriculture, which wrought almost irreparable damage on once-deep topsoils. Now, they’re trying to hold onto the light topsoil that’s left.Climate change is only making that harder. The region is experiencing more intense periods of drought, which dries out the soil, followed by more intense periods of rain, which flushes it off the farm and muddies the coastal waters miles below.Without soil on the land, farming is crippled. With soil in the water, sea life suffocates. Farmers like Breen understand their soil was built over millions of years and is difficult to replace, and they recognize their farms have an influence on the entire watershed’s health — what happens in the mountains affects the reefs below. For this part of Oahu, that means Kaiaka Bay, which is showing elevated levels of sediments and contaminants across most metrics, including possible chemical pollutants. Over the past three years, Agriculture Stewardship Hawaii has helped Breen and 10 others within the same watershed prevent more than 25 dump truck loads — more than 300 tons — of sediment from making its way into Kaukonahua Stream and eventually the ocean. Approximately 735 pounds (333 kilograms) of nitrogen and 317 pounds (148 pounds) of phosphorus were stopped from entering the stream too. The farmers’ methods reflect a return to Indigenous agricultural values that blend new techniques with a more holistic approach to environmentally friendly food production. This involves negotiating modern property lines, water availability and environmental priorities. Breen underscored the need to be able to retain the water when it comes, while ensuring the land is primed for its arrival — for the farm and for the watershed. Scientists estimate annual rainfall will drop 16% to 20% in the Kamananui watershed between 2040 and 2070, or 11 to 14 fewer inches (28 to 36 centimeters) of rain. The temperature is predicted to rise 2% to 4%, or up to 3.1 degrees Celsius, according to the Pacific Drought Knowledge Exchange developed by University of Hawaii climate scientist Ryan Longman. “One or two degrees Celsius warmer,” Longman says, “is still going to have profound implications to ecological function and for food production.”Despite the challenging outlook, the farms all have similar goals: to educate the public on the virtues of agriculture, to reinvigorate a stagnant agricultural economy and to increase the islands’ self-sufficiency.For Kamananui, education is baked into the business model. Any given day can bring a gaggle of tourists to sample raw cacao from one of the 7-year-old farm’s 1,600 mature trees. Those trees will produce thousands of pounds of chocolate this year, and the yield is expected to rise.Kamananui was recently named among the 50 best cacao growers in the world, joining a growing list of internationally recognized Hawaii growers in a niche-but-burgeoning homegrown cacao and chocolate industry. That recognition is part of the draw for tourism, which a 2022 survey found accounts for about 30% of farmers’ incomes. During these tours, guides introduce visitors to the Native Hawaiian ahupuaa land division system. The practice was once prevalent throughout Hawaii, balancing food production and environmental health to sustain their residents. The health of theaina and wai, land and water, was central to the practice. Now, after years of polluting and extractive plantation agricultural practices, pockets of farmers are returning to a holistic approach to agriculture that shuns the idea of extraction. Letting nature inform the work is part of that, as Breen and his colleagues adopt measures to keep both soil and water on the land while growing out their chocolate enterprise. “As we spend time here, I see how the land reacts to water, especially when we get big storms,” Breen said. “What soil stays wet, what floods, where ephemeral streams are created — the land, it just kind of teaches us as we go.”Chandeliers of bananas hang heavy on the limbs of green and yellowing plants 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) downslope from the cacao orchard. Plots of bare dirt surround the banana patches. The land is freshly tilled, previously blanketed with bushy velvet beans, which farmer Gabriel Sachter-Smith turned over as he prepped for the next planting. Sachter-Smith is known for his bananas — he has a bank of roughly 150 varieties. But he’ll be cycling in beans again next season to inject nitrogen into the soil, suppress weeds and stabilize the earth. The beans will decompose underground, adding nutrients to the land for the bananas when they’re planted. Strong, healthy soils absorb more water and retain it longer, which is important as climate change intensifies rain events while supercharging drought. This practice is just one form of regenerative agriculture, a cultivation canon that has emerged in prominence throughout Hawaii in the wake of pineapple and sugar plantations. Central to the regenerative ethos is the rebuilding of the environment and restoring balance.It’s costly and time-consuming, Sachter-Smith says, but he is driven by a sense of responsibility to his farm, environment and community.Agriculture Stewardship Hawaii has been supporting Sachter-Smith, Kamananui and nine other farms and ranches within the watershed to do the work, facilitating grants of $6,000 to $47,000 to help them take on conservation projects as part of their work. “It’s really about having a suite of practices that work together that support viable farm operation but that also provide valuable environmental outcomes for all,” said Dave Elliot, executive director of Agriculture Stewardship Hawaii. Many farmers want to integrate these practices into their everyday work, which is why grant funding and technical assistance is important. Sustainability for farmers is not just environmental, Sachter-Smith said, it’s a question of economic viability. The state doesn’t keep data on how many farmers or farms have adopted regenerative techniques, partly because it’s difficult to define, Hawaii Farmers Union Vice President Christian Zuckerman said. Unlike organic certification, which has a strict set of parameters, regenerative agriculture is still in its infancy.There is growing interest in the cultivation method, particularly among the younger generation of farmers and ranchers. Larger farms recognize soil conservation is good for their bottom line: more healthy soil means fewer fertilizers need to be purchased. “It’s not just bottom-line driven,” Zuckerman said. “It’s understanding that you have to be thinking seven generations ahead. We’re not just thinking about tomorrow. It’s a shift in mindset.” Regenerative techniques are an exciting “back to the future” development in farming, yielding results at the cutting edge of agricultural science, says researcher Noa Lincoln, who leads the University of Hawaii Indigenous Cropping Systems lab.It has been prone to politicization. Earlier this year, the Trump administration canceled — and is now remodeling — a $3.1 billion initiative to help farmers and ranchers do more to conserve soils and implement climate-friendly techniques. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called the program a “green new scam.” Hawaii was set to receive about $30 million in support. State lawmakers have mostly ignored legislation that would promote these practices. In 2022, the state enacted a law to create a cover crop initiative to help farmers buy seed for velvet beans and other crops. It never resulted in a program.The erstwhile federal initiative promised a lot but ended up being “actively harmful” to Sachter-Smith’s operation, he said. Grants are an important source of capital for farmers, especially when they’re adopting techniques new to them. But they are hard work, farmers say, requiring grantees to jump through bureaucratic hoops that sometimes work counter to their intuition. “We’re just small, at the end of the day. The money we’re working with is peanuts,” Sachter-Smith said. “But those peanuts mean a lot to us farmers.” Na Mea Kupono’s 14 ponds are nestled in the outskirts of Waialua, surrounded by homes a stone’s throw from Kaukonahua Stream. Taro grows from some of the ponds, others sit fallow, while tilapia swim in another, all situated between Sachter-Smith’s banana farm and Kaiaka Bay. Native, endemic and endangered birds loiter, with species such as aeo, kolea, akekeke and koloa nesting and idling in the kalo and lichen-covered rocks. In a fully functional ahupuaa such ponds would help control waterflow, cleaning it as it flows coastward from pond to pond. That still is the case, albeit a modern interpretation. Property lines and land and water uses have interrupted the ancient systems but Steve Bolosan and Kaimi Garrido see it as their responsibility to maintain the area as a loi kalo. They are witnessing water become more scarce as nearby properties are developed amid a changing climate. “When the new guys are coming in, they’re changing the flow of the drains,” Bolosan says. “But we feel we’re stewards and that’s our kuleana — this is one of the last pieces of old Hawaii.”The loi has a natural spring they can draw from but they have noticed a drop in rain in recent years, which is why they sought funding to help implement their windbreaks and to remove invasive grasses from their streamside land. They plan to plant native species in place. Framing the farm with milo and kukui trees and mulch helps retain soil while protecting the plot from winds, which hamper plant growth, fuel soil erosion and blow dry the greenery, parching the soils.Sitting near the edge of the watershed, 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) from Kaiaka Bay, the farmers take pride in the birdlife and the techniques they use, Indigenous or otherwise. “It’s really important that we are chemical-free,” Garrido said. “We use no herbicides or synthetic fertilizer.” Other farms working with Agricultural Stewardship installed bioswales, shallow trenches filled with vegetation that act like Na Mea Kupono's loi. They are sponges for moisture, filtering water and slowing its flow downhill. They are often found in urban landscapes to help manage stormwater. Many regenerative techniques being promoted these days have their roots in Indigenous methods, a cornerstone of Agriculture Stewardship Hawaii’s work, according to watershed program manager Sophie Moser. To better understand the impacts of their work, the organization uses modeling technology developed by Minnesota’s Board of Water and Soil Resources. The program is still in its pilot stages on Oahu, focused on Agricultural Stewardship’s project areas on the North Shore and in Waimanalo. The models take what practices each farm implements to estimate how much sediment and nutrients the farms retain. Agriculture Stewardship’s partner farms each reduced up to 90 tons of sediment, 210 pounds of nitrogen (95 kilograms) and 91 pounds (41 kilograms) of phosphorus per year. “We can incentivize things but it’s hard now with how many different landowners there are,” Moser said. “In my dream world everyone living on agricultural land within one watershed would turn to more traditionally minded ways of managing so the water is coming out cleaner than it came into their property, and better for downstream people.”Kaiaka Bay has become known for its murky brown waters. After heavy rain, it’s even darker. It’s popular nonetheless, thronged by hopeful anglers who may not know the site has about one-third the fish population of an average Oahu fishing spot. Authorities attribute this to several factors, particularly the sediment that blankets the seafloor, clouds the water and strains the resident sea life. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus promote blooms of algae that potentially release toxins. Runoff carrying agricultural chemicals poses an equally toxic hazard. “Wherever the water falls, it’s bringing everything that it’s touching out into the ocean,” says Tova Callender of the state Division of Aquatic Resources. Callender, based on Maui, says any techniques for soil retention and erosion control are resoundingly positive, even if the payoff isn’t obvious or immediate. “They’re not blowing smoke; everything that they’re doing is meaningful,” Callender said of the farmers’ efforts upstream. “If we had intact upper forests and we had regenerative agriculture on all our ag lands and we hadn’t filled in our wetlands, I wouldn’t have a job. And that would be great.”The Main Hawaiian Islands’ reefs are worth $33.57 billion in economic terms, according to a 2011 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The economic value of the Koolau watershed alone is between $7.4 billion and $14 billion, according to the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization. Public-private partnerships’ work on watershed preservation efforts in the mountains and highland forests has continued for years but little data has been collected or made available on the effects of urban and agricultural conservation efforts for nearshore waters. Sediments only add to the increasing impacts of climate change on the reefs, which regularly face bleaching events as ocean temperatures rise. Without coral reefs, the islands are even more exposed to other climate change-associated threats, such as surging seas during stronger storms.It’s hard to tell just how much progress has been made through regenerative techniques because positive changes on a few acres in the hills take a while to manifest downstream. But it’s all part of an integrated system, as it was in the days when the land was managed as an ahupuaa — a past that Kamananui Orchards cacao farmer Breen occasionally ponders. “Just thinking about that, to me as a farmer here,” Breen said, “makes me feel inspired.”This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – December 2025
