Sweet Growth in Maui Fields

Joan Garver
Maryland Correspondent

MAUI, Hawaii — Early in the morning as you drive down the highway from Up County on Mt. Haleakala you might smell the odor of something burning. You might even need to turn on the car headlights in order to see through the dust and smoke.

Native Hawaiians are acquainted with what’s happening. In fact many of their parents or family members have worked in the very fields that are on fire. If you ask, they’ll tell you that a sugar cane field is being harvested. The dead leaves and debris that forms at the base of the sugarcane plant has to be burned away before the cane is cut. The stalk is not harmed by the fire because of its high concentration of water and toughness.

The root of the plant is left in the ground to grow a new plant. It takes roughly two years for a sugar cane plant to mature so there is staggered harvesting of the cane fields.

There are three things essential to the growth of sugar cane. The plant requires rich soil,sunlight and plenty of water.

The Alexander and Baldwin Sugar Museum is a wonderful place for the inquiring minded person to visit and learn about sugar and its production. The museum is in a restored superintentent’s home from back in the heyday of sugar plantation life. It is located in the little town of Puuene across from the only sugar mill left in operation by The Hawaii Commercial and Sugar Company in Maui.

In 2005 about five percent of the United States sugar was produced at this mill.

Back in 1869 Samuel T. Alexander and Henry P. Baldwin purchased 12 acres at Makawao Maui for $110 and formed a sugar growing partnership. In 1870 they added 559 acres of sugar cane. They acquired Maui’s two main railroad lines (Kahului Railroad Company and Maui Railroad and Steamship Company).

In 1878 roughly 74 miles of water irrigation ditches were dug to help provide water for the cane fields. About 50 miles of the East Maui Irrigation system were tunneled through rock. Laborers were recruited from all over the world.

Workers were enticed with the promise of housing, and the establishment of hospitals and churches. Each nationality had its own plantation community.

Being a sugar cane worker was no picnic back in those early days. They worked 10-hour days for five days a week and six hours on Saturday. They worked in gangs with cane knives to cut the cane and were paid $12.50 to $15 a month. Today only the seed cane is cut by hand and fewer workers are required.

A contraption called a push rake does the field harvesting and cane hauler trucks, which can carry 64 tons, carry the harvest to the Puunene Mill where it is unloaded by a crane and placed on a conveyor that takes it into the mill.

From there, computers track the progress in the mill.

The cane is washed to remove the dirt and debris, then its shredded and sent through big rollers while being sprayed with hot water to extract the sugar.

Cane residue is called “bagasse” and is burned in a furnace that produces a lot of heat and generates boiling water and high steam pressure. The steam is used to turn the turbine to make electricity and create low pressure for the sugar-making process. The bagasse fuel is renewable and the gases it produces, mainly carbon dioxide are more than used up by the new cane growth.

Molasses is one of the products made when they’re unable to extract all the sugar from the juice. Raw sugar is sent by boat to California where it is refined as white sugar.

The Puuenne mill employs about 800 people. About 37,000 acres of sugar cane are cultivated yearly. This mill generates about seven percent of Maui’s electrical power.

Sugar cane had been the number one product produced in Maui until 2005 when tourism dollars brought more income to the area.

A senior volunteer at the museum recalled how it was when she was a child. She said her dad was employed by one of the many smaller plantations.

Today only one is left. She does her part to keep sugar’s story alive by donating one day a week to tell the sugar cane story at the museum.

The next time you go to the grocery store and buy sugar, remember Maui, Hawaii has more than beautiful beaches and lovely weather. Your sugar may have been grown in Hawaii.