Back in the 80’s, the soda industry and other food producers began a switch from using cane sugar to corn-base fructose. The result was more control on the costs of production, the beginning of an upward trend in worldwide occurrences of Type II diabetes… and the near death of the Hawaii sugar can industry. Emphasize near death, because thankfully the cane industry did not completely die off.
Fast forward about 20 years or so. The corn segment of agribusiness is as enthralled with the idea of powering your car down the highway as much as it wants to abet your growing waistline. And guess what? Basic sugar from sugar cane and sugar beets isn’t such a bad thing any more. Thankfully, the folks that run Gay & Robinson, Inc. managed to keep things running at the last remaining sugar mill on Kauai for what is becoming a resurgence of the sweet stuff! And guess what? Sugar cane is a far more efficient source for ethanol than the stuff they grow in Iowa and the Midwest. Take that Big Corn!
This wasn’t suppose to be a polemic, so please allow me a moment to take a deep breath and get back to one of the more unexpectedly pleasant diversions of our vacation.
You can’t help but notice the mill as you drive the Kaumaulii Highway between Hanapepe and Waimea. It sits in the middle of some serious red dirt, and it will never win awards for the beauty of its architecture. But guess what? They are running the thing 17 hours a day and its business outlook is better than its been for over 30 years. Even without the obvious economic benefit there is just the psychological bond that the island has with the sugar industry (kind of like Iowa and corn, just to name one).
I didn’t expect to get an economic education when we turned down Kaumakani Avenue from the highway. What I expected to see was the remnants of a little company town, houses built for the sugar company management, and yes they are charming; even down to the street lights. Each one well maintained, tidy and occupied by families.
The bonus came when we pulled into the parking lot by the plant/plantation office. We knew that they had discontinued the plantation tours; silly me, I just thought it was a sign of hard times, but apparently they just have too much else to concentrate on now. We hadn’t even got out of the car when a guy in a hard hat walked up and greeted us. He explained that they don’t do formal tours anymore, but he was just about to get the mill grinding again after a shutdown caused by a drowsy mill operator late the previous night. He said to stick around, and once things were running again, he’d come back and show us around.
He was so nice and so insistent that we couldn’t have refused, even had we want to. So we watched the crane rearrange the piles of harvested cane, while the foreman drove around to the back. You’d think there wouldn’t be a lot to see, but watching the big claw crane was fun. Trouble was though, after a 45 minute wait, he hadn’t returned. Maybe there was a slight glitch that still needed to be addressed, or maybe he made the mistake of mentioning to his boss that he had a couple tourists that he was going to show around. In any case, we decided that the conversation and parking lot discussion we’d received had made the stop more than worthwhile and that maybe we should be getting on our way. There wasn’t anyone else (that wasn’t operating a large piece of machinery or otherwise busy) that we could make our excuses to, so we just had to kind of slip away. I hope he wasn’t too disappointed!
So here’s the bottom line. If you want to see an operating sugar mill, just follow the road off the main highway, you can’t miss it. Even if you don’t leave your car, it’s worth the drive down there. The company-town type houses are cool, and the workers don’t seem to mind as long as you don’t park in their way. If you’re going to get out of the car though, I might mention one thing. It’s windy and dry around the mill, and the dirt is serious Kauai Red. So you might not want to wear white pants or light colored clothes. If you’re friendly and polite, and have the time, you might… just might… get an offer to see the mill in operation. If that’s the case, I hope you have more time than we did. But the hour that we spent hanging around in the office parking lot made it yet another little diversion to remember.
That’s what I like about travelling with a non-rigid itinerary!