The Dairy Industry of the Hawaiian Islands

F aRESH milk is one of a small group of commodities in which the Hawaiian Islands are selfsufficient. In this respect milk is like sugar, pineapple products, and some few tropical fruits and vegetables. All other foods are imported in whole or in part, and it is significant that the list of imports includes manufactured dairy products, all of which are received from outside the Islands from the mainland of the United States, from Australia, and from New Zealand. The maintenance of a dairy industry in Hawaii is more than 70 per cent dependent upon imported feeds from the Mainland and from the Philippine Islands. In this respect, dairying is economically different from the two principal agricultural activities, the growing of sugar cane and of pineapples. About 30 per cent of the feed for Hawaiian dairy cattle, however, is provided by locally-grown Napier grass and by pineapple bran, a by-product of the canneries made by drying and pulverizing the shells and butt ends of the pineapple. The value of dairy production first surpassed the value of the Hawaiian beef cattle enterprise in 1953. It has continued its relative position since that year. Its post-war rise to prominence reflects the increasing population numbers, the post-war settlement of many persons from the Mainland in Hawaii, and the increasing Westernization of Hawaii's inhabitants, many of whom were born in the Orient or at least are only one generation removed. However, per capita consumption of milk in the Islands is only half that of the continental United States. When schools are closed, and the children of Oriental heritage do not receive school milk, the dairy companies of Hawaii are faced with a surplus

Biology · Business · Dairy industry · Economic geography · Geography · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Food Science

• The Changing Plantation

  Howard F Gregor•Annals of the Association of…•1965

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