Business
Taro in High Demand in Hawaii
They're now looking to Fiji and Samoa
In between guzzling mounds of takeaway and fast foods, a lot of Hawaiians still have space in their stomach for a dollop of poi. The trouble is that Hawaii's farmers can¹t grow enough taro needed to fill the market for poi, the form of claggy dough in which Hawaiian consumers like to consume taro.
Such processors as The Poi Company worry about inability to supply enough poi for family celebrations and a "cultural" market for a form of food basic to the diet of the Hawaii Islands since the original Polynesian inhabitants first settled them.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
The Poi Company makes poi muffins, cakes, ice cream, biscuits, bagels, dinner rolls, cheesecake and a few other derivatives. The growing shortage is turning it to a supply from Central America. The shortage is attributed to the appearance of taro leaf blight and rot diseases and problems of weather, water supply and finding labour for what is a labour intensive form of farming that requires commitment that the offspring of old growers may not have.
Hawaii has about 450 acres of taro farms, with 70 percent located in the island of Kauai, where suitable agricultural land and the supply of water is still quite plentiful.
Most farms are of one to five acres with the family of the grower helping out. A Kauai farm is the biggest at 50 acres.
With sugar cane production dwindling to next to nothing, some sugar land is being brought under taro.
Some farmers say it is difficult to increase yields per acre because of the disease problem. They say there is little or no recruitment into the specialised industry.
Eric Enomoto, of HPC Foods, Hawaii¹s other large processor, doesn't agree that the industry is without recruits. But he says his company needs to scrape around for any taro available. "We are trying to plant more, but yields are down due to disease," he says. Samoa and Fiji are the two main South Pacific producers of taro. Samoa was once a larger exporter to the big Polynesian market in New Zealand. But it was hit by a plant disease that virtually destroyed the industry.
In recent months the Samoa Government has launched a project to revive it with specially-bred disease resistance varieties of the crop. Fiji moved into the vacuum left by Samoa's misfortune. It ships large amounts to Pacific Islands resident communities in New Zealand and Australia.
Exports last year were worth F$13.8 million, 55 percent more than in 1999. Trial shipments of dalo were made last year with the aim of capturing the Pacific Islands market on the West Coast of the United States of America and in Hawaii.
They identified the optimum conditions in which to send dalo in refrigerated containers by sea freight. It takes nine days to ship dalo to Honolulu, Hawaii, and five to six days to ship to Australian or New Zealand ports. Refrigerated sea containers can accommodate 600 bags of taro, while air freight containers hold up to 60 bags.
