West Kauai to develop prospective dairy

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – With Hawaii down to just one commercial dairy farm and heavily relying on imports, a West Kauai area has been proposed as a new development site.

According to Honolulu Civil Beat, Aloun Farms, a local produce farm, wants to develop a 500 acre site in the agricultural area into a new dairy farm.

Six years ago, plans to build a dairy on Kauai’s south shore were terminated following fierce backlash from the tourism industry and environmentalists, arguing that cow manure would pollute the ocean and air quality with their proximity to beachfront pools.

Aloun Farms has since proposed a new location for the dairy far away from tourist land.

The new desired West Kauai area has roughly 6,000 residents and fewer than 100 hotel rooms.

Hawaii once had 160 dairies, now the state imports 90% of its milk, a product that is vulnerable to price fluctuations.

Currently, an imported half-gallon milk carton in an average Kauai grocery store last week ranged from $5.29 to $8.99. In Honolulu, typical grocery store prices for a milk carton spanned from $4.99 to $7.29.

Aloun Farms President and General Manager Alec Sou projected that his new West Kauai dairy could lower the price of milk to somewhere between $3 and $4 per carton.

With the collapse of the Kekaha Sugar Company five years ago, the article reports that there are thousands of neglected acres of land leftover that could house the proposed dairy.

The company expects its proposal to go over better than the last dairy farm proposed for the island.

To read the full Civil Beat article, click here.

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