Sugar mills are closing. One by one, the great landed families who over a century ago transformed Hawaii's native kingdom into paternalistic cane plantations, have sold out. While workers watched the mills age, the machinery rust, and the harvest shrink every year, mill owners became investors in everything but sugar - from resorts to shopping centers. The plantation era is ending. In seven years, the state's sugar workforce has shrunk by more than half - from over 5000 to 2100 workers, and from 12 to 6 companies.
More closings are just months away.
In its heyday, from the middle of the last century to the middle of this one, when sugar and pineapple were the kings of the Hawaiian economy, the plantations gave work to tens of thousands. The people of the islands, especially outside of Honolulu, are largely the descendants of those workers. This is not a good time in Hawaii to lose a job. The hotels and resorts, which replaced agriculture as an economic engine in the last two decades, are cutting back as tourists look for newer and cheaper destinations. The end of the cold war is shrinking the military as well, the islands' other big employer.