%% > [!example] Notes along the way > [[2025-06-01 Chapter 5 scaffolding]] > [[2024-12-06 Chapter 5 progress]] > [[2024-11-14 Chapter 5 push]] > [[2024-11-14 Chapter 5 Sharetakers Outline]] > [[Local Food, Global Capital - 5 sentences]] > [[4.5 3rd Food Regime - Local Food, Global Capital]] %% >[!todo] Determine if/where to integrate >- [[Food From Somewhere]] > [!abstract] > Borrowing from Harvey's *accumulation through dispossession* [-@harvey_2003], this chapter documents recent agricultural development and investments in Hawaii, highlight the focus on goods for endemic consumption as a novel spatial strategy by corporate actors in the contemporary food regime. This approach is buoyed by Hawaii's long held interest in increasing food self-sufficiency and is in the process of capturing multiple local food sectors with scales of production previously unseen in the islands. The surplus value from this production will accrue less to Hawaii's rural homes and communities and more so to these actors shareholders. This strategy, which I term accumulation by localization, captures Hawaii's hunger for local food but exposes the archipelago to new risks in the process. # Chapter 5: Local Food, Global Capital: Third Regime Sharetakers in 21st Century Hawaii ## Research Question - How does food system risk shift as agribusinesses invest in production for local consumption? - Alternate: How does the shift to “local” production under global capital reshape risk in Hawaii’s food systems? - %% need to determine a final question!%% --- ## I. Introduction: The 'Local Shift' in Global Capital ### A. The End of King Sugar and the Rise of Sharetakers In 2016, Hawaii's last sugarcane plantation ceased operations. Hawaii Commercial & Sugar (HC&S) decision to shutter its Maui production marked the death of King Sugar. Two years later, HC&S parent company Alexander & Baldwin (A&B) sold the 41,000 acre holding to Mahi Pono LLC, a partnership between Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), one of Canada's largest government pension investment managers, and Pomona Farming LLC, a California based agrocapital investment firm that is a subsidiary of PSP Investments. While the closure of HC&S marked the end of over a century of colonial agribusiness control of the islands' land and water resources, the acquisition by Mahi Pono heralded a novel form of capital accumulation through agriculture, and a significant shift in Hawaii's agricultural landscape. Unlike the export-oriented plantations that had dominated Hawaii's agriculture for over a century, Mahi Pono announced its intention to grow food primarily for local consumption. This was not an isolated case. Across Hawaii, similar large-scale agricultural investments have emerged: Villa Rose's industrial egg operation on Oahu, Hawaii Meats' consolidation of meat processing statewide, and various other corporate agricultural ventures, all targeting local rather than export markets. These investments represent more than just a change in market orientation. They signal the emergence of what I term *accumulation by localization*—a new strategy within the third food regime where global capital coopts the narratives and captures the markets of food system localization. This strategy inverts the traditional export orientation of corporate agriculture in Hawaii, instead pursuing profit through domination of local food markets. While these ventures adopt the language of food security, sustainability, and local production, their scale, ownership structures, and market approaches represent fundamental ==discontinuities== %% determine if another word is better %% with the scales of investment, production, and market control pursued by local oriented agribusiness in Hawaii. The emergence of these "sharetakers"—my term for corporations pursuing *accumulation by localization*—reflects broader shifts in the global food regime. As McMichael [-@mcmichael_2009] notes, the contemporary third food regime is characterized by corporate power, market consolidation, and the financialization of agriculture. However, in Hawaii, this regime has taken a distinctive form. Rather than pursuing what McMichael cast as 'Food from Nowhere' in the contemporary regime's earlier period of globally integrated corporate dominance where origin is obscured, or the later 'Food from Somewhere' approaches to re-embed production in place, with more visible ecological feedbacks, transparency, and claims of authenticity a la @campbell_2009, *accumulation by localization* extends this logic to a terminus as 'Food From Here'. In Hawaii this extension specifically targets the islands' persistent concerns about food import dependence through a localized accumulation strategy in which global capital embeds itself directly within the place. By appropriating local values, identities, and narratives sharetaker firms seek to legitimize external control by presenting themselves as *local entities* embodying *local values* delivering *local benefits*. In presenting their production as locally rooted, community-oriented, and a beneficial part of the local marketplace, sharetakers establish social license to operate while forwarding the politics of dispossession of small farmers characteristic of the contemporary regime. This chapter examines how these sharetakers are restructuring Hawaii's food system and the new risks this restructuring produces. Through analysis of three major case studies—Mahi Pono, Waialua Fresh, and Hawaii Meats—==I demonstrate how these investments represent critical discontinuities across three key domains: production scale, economic scale, and social scale== %%edit needed%%. These discontinuities are not merely differences in size; they represent fundamental transformations in how foods are produced, how agricultural decisions are made, and how value is captured and distributed. %%change to where foods .. where decisions, where capital.. ? %% The scale of these operations—orders of magnitude larger than existing local producers or processors—creates market power that smaller operators cannot match. Their corporate ownership structures shift decision-making from local communities to distant boardrooms. Their capital requirements necessitate returns uncommon in agriculture, driving market consolidation that %%threatens to%% displaces existing producers. As Suryanata [-@suryanata_2002] demonstrated in her analysis of late 20th century agricultural transitions resulting from plantation closures in Hawaii, increased local production often leads to displacement of existing producers rather than reduced import dependence. This chapter addresses the question: How does food system risk shift as agribusinesses invest in production for local consumption? Drawing on discontinuity theory and scale domain analysis %% remove?%%, I examine how these sharetakers create new vulnerabilities even as they %%promise%% increase local food production. While they may superficially align with state goals to double local food production, their approach to *accumulation through localization* may ultimately leave Hawaii's food system more, not less, vulnerable to disruption. The analysis reveals a critical paradox: as global capital "goes local" in Hawaii's food system, it aims to control markets in ways that may undermine the very food security it claims to enhance. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for policy makers, planners, and communities seeking to build genuine food system resilience in Hawaii. @ige_2016 ### B. Theoretical Positioning - **Accumulation by localization**: Novel spatial strategy within third food regime - [[2025-01-12 accumulation through localization]] - **Sharetakers**: Corporations pursuing profit through control of local food markets - [[Sharetaker Case Study Format]] - **Scale discontinuities**: Orders of magnitude differences creating fundamental transformations - [[Scale Domain Analysis Framework for Hawaii's Sharetaker Transitions]] - [[2024-09-17 discontinuity and scale domains]] - The scalar discontinuity of share grower activities represents shifts in three important and related domains. Their emphasis on a significantly graduated scale of production represents a leap in the potential volume production for local consumption %%FIND A BETTER TERM%%. Production at this scale yields a market power %%potentially necessitated by investment backing%% that is unmatchable by other actors. ==As a result, the social scale of production for local consumption decision making shifts off-shore== to distant boardrooms and investment portfolio managers. The locus of 'local' is thus dislocated. - **Research focus**: How these investments restructure food system risk @harvey_2003 ### C. Chapter Overview - **Grounded theory**: Iterative development of multi-dimensional theoretical framework through cross-case pattern identification, followed by systematic application across cases ([[Sharetaker Case Study Format]]) - Framework emerged through initial cross-case pattern analysis, then systematically applied across all cases - Pattern matching and incorporated comparison as method ([[September 2024 Outline#Pattern Matching]]) - Assessment of new vulnerabilities and resilience trade-offs created despite increased local production --- ## II. Theoretical Framework: Accumulation By Localization > [!warning] context (food regimes) → mechanism (accumulation by dispossession/localization) → analytical lens (discontinuity) → central concern (risk). For Marx the cleaving of producer from the means of production, the peasant from the soil, is the "original sin", the necessary precursor to capitalist accumulation. This *primitive accumulation*, as he terms it, is the precondition to capitalist accumulation built through reintegration of cloven labor and land resources [@marx_1977]. The myriad processes of primitive accumulation, *inter alia* privatization and taxation of land, commodification of labor and essential goods, and erosion of relations outside the market, are all facets of what Illich [-@illich_1981] cast as aspects of the "war against subsistence". Illich traces an arc of processes from the late 15th to late 20th centuries. Marx' however viewed the processes as precursors that would yield class differentiation into capitalist farmers and a rural proletariat, Illich highlights the ongoingness of these processes. %%Aspects of primitive accumulation processes in 19th Century Hawaii are addressed in [[September 2024 Outline#^375c32 |Chapter Two]].%% Harvey [-@harvey_2003] notes that while the primitive accumulation processes Marx identified are still ongoing, novel means termed *accumulation by dispossession* have also emerged such as global market governance institutions and expansion of property rights to encompass genetic material. Harvey also identifies *financialization* resulting from overaccumulation of capital beginning in the early 1970s, privatization of public assets (e.g., housing, water) and institutions, and the management crises for asset acquisition. @nally_2011 weaves some of these threads, primarily that of genetic property, to elaborate *accumulation by molecularisation* as a frontier of commodification via biotechnology. In the same vein, I draw together a few of Harvey's threads to demonstrate *accumulation by localization* as a manifestation of financialization, privatization, and crisis management that pursues the commodification of local foods. Nally does this amidst demonstrating the historical transformation of market approaches replacing a moral economy addressing food crises and hunger. The narratives surrounding biotechnology, framing itself as the way to "feed the world" are one means by which this transformation can be parsed. Put directly, Nally finds that the "neoliberal truth regime presents global markets, agrarian biotechnologies and multinational corporate initiatives as the structural preconditions for alleviating world hunger" [-@nally_2011, p. 49]. The context of this pursuit is the third food regime. As an approach to framing capital accumulation through global agricultures, one means of bounding food regimes has been through elucidation of 'complexes', arrangements of production, distribution, institutional, and political relations around specific crops and products. From the late 19th to early-mid 20th centuries the Colonial-Diasporic regime is defined by flows of tropical products (e.g., sugar, tea, coffee, bananas, etc) from colonies and wheat and meat from settler states towards Europe, as expressions of British hegemonic power [@friedmann.mcmichael_1989]. Post-World War II into the 1980s a Mercantile-Industrial regime was defined by American surplus in wheat, livestock and feed, and durable (i.e., stable or manufactured) foods [@friedmann.mcmichael_1989]. In the language of World-Systems theory, the movement pattern of these key complexes shifted from periphery state exporting in the first regime to core state exporting in the second regime. %% REORDER below to focus on the complex first, then the financialization. demonstrate/allude to the fresh complex as a frontier for accumulation that appends to closer to home production goods that are 'fresh' from the globe. then demonstrate that *local* is the new (final?) frontier or *terminal enclosure* %% The recent 'third' regime, termed variously the corporate food regime [@mcmichael_2005] or corporate-environmental food regime [@friedmann_2005] identifies the ascendance of global corporate actors in agro-food system capital accumulation. %%ADD SENTENCE on WTO and global trade governance%% Thus tethered to trends in corporate ownership, agro-food systems became increasingly linked with finance capital and its myriad forms and institutions of investment. This financialization and its logics thereby become a key facet for analyzing the third regime [@burch.lawrence_2009]. Concomitant with financialization, a global fresh fruits and vegetables complex has emerged, enabling high income nations a stable access year-round to fresh goods produced wherever the season allows. Such globalized foods have been the longstanding *bête noire* of alternative food networks [a la @lappe_1971] and food systems praxis [@brinkley_2013] which often, sometimes erroneously, frame the localization of food systems as the solve for myriad problems [@born.purcell_2006]. Critiques of industrial food systems, whether for food miles, environmental impacts, or labor exploitation have been served a nepenthe to some concerns in the current regime through labeling schemes that signal social, economic, or environmental care [@guthman_2007]. This co-optation of alternative food narratives by capital reaches its apogee by pursuing *local* production. The trajectory of capital accumulation through agriculture set in motion by primitive accumulation finds its last (or at least latest) frontier of commodification in local foods. *Original sin* begets *terminal enclosure*. The already cleaved means of production now return, through the circuits of global capital, the product of fresh local foods. Local foods, as product of the the cleaved means of production, are now delivered fresh to Hawaii's markets through the circuits of global capital. The third global food regime from the 1980s to today, framed by the politics of neoliberalism and evidenced in the “corporatization of agriculture and agro-exports” (McMichael, 2005), has shifted the “locus of control for food security away from the nation-state to the world market” (Plahe et. al, 2013). %%has there ever been control by smaller, actually local players in contemporary market systems (over the nation-state)?%% It is in the context of this world market that we find new risk entering the local foods marketplace. ### A. Contemporary Food Regime Context **Corporate-Environmental Regime Characteristics**: - Financialization of agriculture and corporate consolidation - Co-optation of alternative food narratives and sustainability rhetoric ([[2024-11-16 sign-value and "local" food]], @guthman_2007, etc) - @friedmann_2016 : "Once capitalist firms and international organizations adopt the rhetorics of their critics, those wishing to change food systems must adapt to a new game. When corporations talk of making industrial agriculture sustainable, sometimes through using specific techniques pioneered by farmers, it is much harder to convince people to oppose the system as a whole and support a better one." - Shift from nation-state to world market control of food security This chapter examines change in Hawaii food systems in the contemporary food regime through analysis of recent agribusiness investments in the production of local foods. The context for this anaylsis is **Hawaii's Distinctive Third Regime Form**: - **Export-to-local transition**: Inversion from export-oriented to local market-oriented corporate agriculture - "Food from somewhere" narrative targeting import dependency concerns - State support through neo-productivist policies ### B. Accumulation By Localization Theory - @marx_1977 *primitive accumulation* - @harvey_2003 on *accumulation by dispossession* - @glassman_2006 - @nally_2011 adapts this as *accumulation by molecularization* - @peluso.lund_2011 on land - **Spatial Strategy**: Localization as capitalist frontier for value extraction ([[2025-01-12 accumulation through localization]]) - **Co-optation of local food's sign value** ([[2024-11-16 sign-value and "local" food]]) - "Dislocal" effects: displacement of existing producers despite increased local production ([[2025-01-13 Eggs - Accumulation via Localization]]) - See @suryanata_2000 on displacement when local production increases - Dislocal: Localization as a Mechanism of Dispossession - Environmental and Social Contradictions >[!todo] For each case study draw from the [[Sharetaker Case Study Format]] **Multi-Component Analytical Framework** (empirically derived): 1. **Capital Scale**: External investment enabling market entry with outsized leverage 2. **Market Control**: Physical chokepoints through land and processing facilities 3. **Policy Influence**: Regulatory advantages and barriers for competitors 4. **Sign Value Legitimation**: Localist branding masking social scale transformations 5. **Market Restructuring**: New dependencies and vulnerabilities Context: local food demand and 3rd food regime Scale of capital investment pursuit of market control salved by sign value bolstered by policy efforts results in market restructuring ### C. Scale Domain Analysis Framework - Discontinuity theory & panarchy: @sundstrom_2018, @sundstrom.allen_2019, @holling_1992\. [[2024-09-17 discontinuity and scale domains]] - **Production Discontinuities**: Land holdings, production volume, labor structure, technology ([[Scale Domain Analysis Framework for Hawaii's Sharetaker Transitions]], [[2024-09-17 discontinuity and scale domains]]) - **Economic Discontinuities**: Capital sources, decision-making authority, profit distribution - **Social Discontinuities**: Accountability structures, community control, knowledge systems - %%CONSIDER REMOVAL%% Introduction of [[2025-05-25 Herfindahl-Hirschman Index |Herfindahl-Hirschman Index]] for market concentration - @howard_2016 for use and critique - @deteix.etal_2024 on use, limitations, and future research direction --- ## III. Market Context & Sharetaker Emergence ### A. Pre-Existing Market Structure (Combined Overview) >[!warning] reference chapter 2 for overview of ag history/current state? **Hawaii's Agricultural Landscape (2000-2015)**: - **Vegetables**: Small-scale diversified farms, high import dependency, fragmented distribution - **Meat Processing**: Limited local capacity, mainland processing dominance, regulatory gaps - **Eggs**: Small local producers, mainland imports, minimal processing infrastructure - @riker_2015 **Common Patterns Across Sectors**: - Import dependency (85-95% across food categories) - Small-scale, family-operated production - Fragmented supply chains and distribution networks - Limited processing and storage infrastructure - Regulatory environments favoring mainland operations %%curious, when Ige was doing his push to double local food production, was this with the consciousness/desire to create regulatory environments increasingly skewed toward mainland operations and/or to shift perceptions/approval of any manner of "locally" produced food%% **Export-to-local transition**: Highlight the regime shift from export crops to local market orientation ### B. Defining Characteristics of Sharetakers ==What defines a *sharetaker*?== > [!llm] > Building from the theoretical scaffold of *accumulation by localization* we now explore actors pursuing the strategy as case studies. The term *sharetaker* is applied based on their strategic alignment with key facets of *accumulation by localization* and, as will be demonstrated, the impact of their investments. - **Scale**: Order(s) of magnitude larger than existing local producers - **Ownership**: Distant capital with corporate governance structures - **Narrative**: Emphasis on local food security and environmental management - **Strategy**: Market control through infrastructure, policy, and branding - Note: Also consider "performative" agricultures that are not (or not yet) sharetakers (Sensei, Oprah's OW Farm, Zuckerberg's wagyu investment) as part of the landscape [[2024-11-14 Chapter 5 Sharetakers Outline]] - Larry Ellison's Sensei Farm on Lanai - Now shipping across the state - Oprah Winfrey's OW Farm on Maui - Sells to restaurants on island - Mark Zuckerberg's Wagyu cattle on Kauai - https://fortune.com/2024/01/11/mark-zuckerberg-hawaii-ranch-rearing-cattle/ - https://www.instagram.com/p/C15Lck4SfpS/?hl=en&img_index=1 - https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/mark-zuckerberg-hawaii-kauai-cattle-18600962.php **Three Case Studies**: - **[[Mahi Pono]] (Fruits and Vegetables)**: 41,000 acres, Canadian pension fund + California agrocapital - **[[Hawaii Meats]] (Meat Processing)**: Statewide processing consolidation, corporate ownership - **[[Waialua Fresh]] (Eggs)**: Industrial egg operation, mainland joint venture --- ## IV. Empirical Analysis: The Multi-Component Accumulation Process ([[Sharetaker Case Study Format]]) Similar to analysis of accumulation by dispossession, and primitive accumulation before it, *accumulation by localization* can be framed as a set of processes. The processes considered here as defining characteristics of *accumulation by localization* are the relative scale of capital investment, pursuit of market control, exertion of policy influence, and narrative selection. Drawing from the Sharetakers as case studies. %% Reorder the above and below as: - A. relative scale of capital investment - B. securing social license to operate through strategic narrative management - C. exertion of policy influence to consolidate power - D. pursuit of market control through ??? %% ### A. Capital Scale and Strategic Investment > [!abstract] > **External Capital Enabling Market Entry**: > > - **Mahi Pono**: PSP Investments (Canada pension fund) + Pomona Farming partnership providing unprecedented capital scale for Hawaii agriculture > - **Waialua Fresh**: Mainland joint venture bringing industrial-scale investment to egg production > - **Hawaii Meats**: Corporate consolidation capital enabling statewide processing control > Each of the cases in review have distinct, and often complex, ownership structures, however they share an access to capital. **Mahi Pono LLC** is a foreign limited liability company (LLC) registered in Hawaii in 2018 and managed by Mahi Pono Holdings LLC, also a foreign LLC registered in 2018. Mahi Pono Holdings LLC is managed by the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP) of Canada. PSP is one of Canada's largest public pension investment managers, overseeing funds of armed forces and federal employee pensions. %% ADD IN INITIATING CHARTER LANGUAGE: @brown_2022 : PSPIB’s mandate, established by federal legislation under the Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act, 1999, is “to invest its assets with a view to achieving a maximum rate of return, without undue risk of loss” (Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act, 1999). In debates over the proposed Act in the House of Commons in 1999, NDP representatives spoke to motions aimed at requiring PSPIB to adhere to ethical investing policies (House of Commons, 1999). However, this language does not appear in the Act as it stands today. %% In 2018, PSP managed nearly CAD$160 billion in assets. While not reflected in the registrations, Mahi Pono is a joint venture of Pomona Farming LLC and PSP [@pspinvestments_2018]. Pomona Farming LLC is a California-based firm "created to invest in additional agricultural lands on behalf of PSP Investments" [@pomonafarming_2025]. PSP directly, through Pomona Farming, and numerous other subsidiary entities holds stake in production California (raisins, almonds, pistachios, and walnuts), as well as significant land holdings and agricultural operations in Australia. %% NEED TO ADD IN ABOUT TRINITAS %% In 2018, PSP purchased 41,000 acres for $262 million from Alexander & Baldwin (A&B) after it closed operations of Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company (HC&S). HC&S was Hawaii's last operating sugar plantation which closed in 2016. **Waialua Fresh** is a trademark used in marketing for products of Villa Rose LLC, a domestic LLC registered in Hawaii in 2014. Villa Rose LLC is partnership between two private corporations based in the continental United States, Hidden Villa Ranch of California and Rose Acre Farms of Indiana. Rose Acre Farms and Hidden Villa Ranch are among the largest egg producers and distributors, respectively, in the United States. Rose Acre Farms production extends across multiple states, with products like shell specialty (e.g., cage-free), liquid, and dried eggs. In operation since the 1930s, Rose Acre rapidly expanded in the late 1970s through taking on debt for infrastructure investments and employing what one jury found to be predatory pricing strategies [@frawley_1989]. Hidden Villa Ranch is a subsidiary of Luberski Inc (the latter being the registered entity in Villa Rose LLC filings). Luberski Holdings oversees a diverse portfolio from food marketing to fossil fuel exploration, real estate, framing itself as an "international conglomerate" and Hidden Villa Ranch as a "multi-national food distribution of private label and branded products with concentration in eggs, cheese, milk and other industry staples" [@_ag]. As both partners both partners are private firms, their capital holding are not known. holding are not known. In 2013, the Villa Rose partnership purchased 317 acres for $6.4 million from the Dole Food Company as part of the latter entities dispensation of former pineapple plantation holdings. **Hawaii Meats LLC** is a domestic LLC registered in Hawaii in 2019 and managed by Riverbend Management, Inc. Hawaii Sustainable Beef LLC is a domestic LLC registered in 2020 and also managed by Riverbend Management. Riverbend Management Inc. is registered in Hawaii as a Foreign Profit Corporation, with Frank Vandersloot listed as Director. Vandersloot's role as Chairman of Melaleuca Inc., an international direct marketing company focused on home, personal care, and food supplements, has led to his frequent listing as Idaho's richest person. Perspectives on Melaleuca's business practices vary \[CITATION?] but the firm received at least one Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warning letter about earnings claims that referenced the FTC's multi-level marketing business guidance [@ftc_2020]. Position atop the business pyramid %% should probably change this to not get sued. seriously%% net Vandersloot billions. In 1991, he established Riverbend Ranch that now controls 290,000 acres across multiple states [@riverbendranch_] and vertically integrated in 2022 via Riverbend Meats' 210,000-square-foot processing facility [@riverbendmeats_]. In 2019, Vandersloot purchased leasehold interest in the only USDA-certified slaughterhouse in Kapolei on O‘ahu from Kunoa Cattle Company. In 2016, Kunoa Cattle Company had acquired the lease for the state-owned facility with plans to increase output, but faltered in execution. Hawaii Meats LLC was formed with Kauai rancher and Kunoa founder and Bobby Farias for the acquisition. The acquisition of the slaughterhouse involved payment of $1.5 million in outstanding debt to ranchers and other creditors, as well as 2,500 head of Kunoa's cattle [@gomes_2019]. Concomitantly, Hawai‘i Land & Livestock secured a 35-year lease for the adjacent 110 acres as a feedlot and water source for the facility [@dawson_2023]. Hawai‘i Land & Livestock is managed by Riverbend Management. In 2020, Vandersloot acquired the lease of another state-owned slaughterhouse in Pā‘auilo on Hawai‘i Island, this time from Hawai‘i Beef Producers. In 2012 the state had invested $4.15 million in upgrades to the facility. The two plants are managed under Hawaii Sustainable Beef, which is majority owned by Vandersloot [@vandersloot_2021]. In late 2021, Vandersloot established Kealia Land Company LLC, also managed by Riverbend Management, and invested approximately $51 million to acquire over 2,000 acres of former sugarcane lands on Kauai's northeast coast with plans to develop cattle grazing operations [@shimogawa_2021; @dukelow_2022]. --- **Scale Discontinuity Evidence**: - Economic scale jump from local/personal capital to external/institutional investment - Shift from local banking relationships to international finance structures - Geographic distance between decision-makers and local community **Social Implications**: - Decision-making authority moves from local owners to off-shore investors - Accountability shifts from community oversight to shareholder primacy - Transformation of social relationships into market transactions **Double-edged sword**: Capital brings capacity but also dependency and loss of local control ### B. Market Dominance / Control and Market Integration **Physical Chokepoints Across Sectors**: - **Mahi Pono**: Land consolidation (41,000 acres) and water rights [@cantor.etal_2020; @kay.etal_2023; @knudson.etal_2022] control creating agricultural chokepoints - - **Hawaii Meats**: Processing facility consolidation creating statewide meat processing bottlenecks - [[Hawaii meats Pricing changes]] - **Villa Rose**: Retail partnership control and distribution network dominance in egg sector - @frawley_1989 - @villarosellc_2021a: After description of import reliance the brand website states "CURRENT INEFFICIENCIES FUELED INSPIRATION AND LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OF DEVELOPING A FULLY SUSTAINABLE FARM ON A LARGE SCALE TO SUPPORT ALL OF HAWAII FROM A LOCAL LEVEL." - "Waialua Egg Farm by Villa Rose wants to put local eggs in the fridge of every Hawaii resident." @khon2_2021 **[[Predatory Pricing Strategies and “Cage Free" Recoupment]]”** - overview of Recoupment and Predatory Pricing @kaplow_2018 - 1989 pricing case - @frawley_1989, @mueller.etal_1989, @mueller_1989, @goldstein_1991, - 2020 case @carstensen_2023 - March 2025 $8/tray of 30 eggs @gabaylo_2025 HERE **Vertical Integration Strategies**: - Upstream control: Input supply, breeding programs, equipment provision - Downstream control: Processing, packaging, distribution, retail partnerships - Infrastructure dependencies imposed on smaller producers Through acquisition of the Oahu and Hawaii island operation, the two largest slaughterhouses in the state roughly 70% of meat processing capacity, are controlled by Vandersloot [@yerton_2021]. **Scale Discontinuity Evidence**: - Production scale jump from 5-50 acres to 1000+ acres - Shift from diversified practices to industrialized monoculture - Transition from family/small crew to corporate workforce structure **Social Relations of Production Transformation**: - From family/community labor networks to wage labor and corporate management - From shared knowledge and mutual aid to proprietary knowledge and technical systems - From local decision-making about land use to corporate decision-making ### C. Policy Influence and Regulatory Strategy > [!todo] Review @roe_1994 major work on narrative policy analysis > > See also items of interest that cite Roe: > > - @bene.etal_2019 review of sustainability definition in different food systems narratives > - @mostafanezhad.suryanata_2018 on agro-food initiatives (AFIs; such as eg, tours, workshops, fairs, etc) as public engagements which produce social change counter-narratives which can influence agricultural policy > - @robert.etal_2025 "applies narrative policy analysis to identify and compare the dominant agriculture and food (agri-food) narratives of Canadian federal government and civil society policy over time" See also - [[All Agriculture Matters]] and organic pushback - [[2025-10-28 ground beef]] on [Acts 175 and 176]([[2025-10-28 ground beef#^c68078]]) - [[2025-05-21 Policy as Through-Line]] > [!abstract] > **Policy as Market Power Mechanism**: > - **Mahi Pono**: Water rights advocacy and allocation policies favoring large-scale operations > - **Villa Rose**: Cage-free mandate implementation creating barriers for smaller egg producers > - **Hawaii Meats**: Processing facility consolidation and inspection standards favoring corporate operations > > **Regulatory Capture Mechanisms**: > - Professional lobbying vs. community-based advocacy > - Technical expertise vs. local knowledge in policy formation > - Corporate coalitions vs. grassroots organizing > - Agency relationships vs. democratic participation > > **Scale Discontinuity Evidence**: > - Social scale shift in decision-making from local/community-based to off-shore/corporate centers > - Change from community accountability to shareholder accountability > - Shift from democratic participation to professional lobbying > > **Barriers Created for Smaller Producers**: > - Compliance costs that disproportionately burden small operations > - Standards that favor economies of scale > - Resource allocation policies benefiting large operations ##### Mahi Pono ##### Hawaii Meats ##### Waialua Fresh - how they've maneuvered in the legislature to forward animal welfare standards ([SB346 2021](https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=SB&billnumber=346&year=2021)) in hand with the national humane society, but to the potential detriment of local egg producers, was eye-opening. - [SB1585 (2023)](https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session/archives/measure_indiv_Archives.aspx?billtype=SB&billnumber=1585&year=2023) CAFO bill challenged - @ashwood.etal_2023 on Right-to-Farm laws protecting CAFOs - 2025 Regular Session hired Scott Enright - Opposed [SB240 (2025)](https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=SB&billnumber=240&year=2025) on amending right to farm act - Supported [HB1427 (2025)](https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=1427&year=2025) and [SB1591 (2025)](https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=SB&billnumber=1591&year=2025)to fund avian influenza response by HDOA ### D. Social License Through Legitimation Narratives %% see [[legitimation theory & SLO]]%% The narratives employed by Sharetaker firms are critical to their legitimation and acceptance. Such acceptance, a social license to operate, can only be achieved and maintained when sharetakers are viewed as ==*local entities* embodying *local values* producing *local benefits*==. Each of these facets is contestable, and therefore political, in nature. Akin to the concept of nature, which itself is a social construction resulting from processes reflective of the values of the constructing culture [@greider.garkovich_1994], the social construction of local food involves physical and social attributes of both product and production [@sundbo_2013]. In Hawaii, *local* can denote a person, a lifestyle, various types of food, or the origin of foods, serving as both a spatial and ideological marker [@hobart_2016]. Since this social construction of local food in the islands is shaped by unique histories and politics [@gupta_2016], and can deliver positive association with community connection and sustainability [@costa.besio_2011], these firms pursue strategic messaging to navigate contemporary concerns, historical legacies, and competing expectations from local communities and external capital interests. Within this complex messaging landscape, three narrative dimensions are examined here: place-based branding, environmental and production ethics claims, and food self-sufficiency and security framing. > [!todo] Add **Counter examples?** & Other maybes > > - local entities - GMO battles with multi-nationals > - embodying local values - ookala and ulupono dairy efforts > - Ulupono and Ookala dairy efforts as counter examples, also @gupta_2016 and @gupta.makov_2017 > - producing local benefits (ie food self sufficiency) - N/A since the *accumulation by localization* is new > - Does the signifier change at all based on where the agribusiness is (i.e. Maui v O'ahu), are there any differences in the narratives that are circulated hyper-locally #### Legitimation Theory and the Social License to Operate ![[legitimation theory & SLO#^bcead8]] #### Local Entities: Place-Based Branding ^0b602e The incorporation of Hawaiian words and and place names is common an approach to integration and ingratiation. This form of embedding, while normative in the islands, draws upon the perceptions of both localness of local food. Drawing from @baudrillard_2019, we can see how the perceptive qualities, or *sign value*, overwhelm the use- and exchange-value of a good in post-modern economies. In the context of 'dislocation' of local food, sign value affords a means to highlight that the social, economic, or environmental goals of local production and consumption of agricultural goods are eclipsed by the narrative sign power of "local". The sign value "local food" has acquired is not just due to notions of taste or nutrition, but also for the meanings and associations attached to it. The inter-subjective meanings often intone a connection to the community, support for small-scale farmers, sustainability, and an undercurrent of *authenticity* attached to localness. Consumers often value local foods not just for their flavors, but for the perception of a story behind the production, the assumed outcomes of consumption, and sense of place and connection that local food has come to represent. Exemplifying this is a consistently demonstrated willingness by tourists to pay higher prices for local fare [@andrade.etal_2021; @linnes.etal_2023]. In this context, the sign value of local food shapes consumer preference. This can lead to a situation where the symbolic value of local food outweighs its actual material properties. %% he story holds more power than the facts.%% Considerations of the actual economic beneficiaries, scale of production, or environmental outcomes become subsumed by the *local*-ness. Overall, sign value helps to show how local food, as a symbol carrier of meaning, identity, and values for consumers, can be coopted. Thus it is unsurprising that local signifiers are the through-line of narrative construction across the Sharetakers case studies. %%ADD A TRANSITION SENTENCE%% ##### Mahi Pono The global finance body PSP Investments and its California registered, and notable California-place named, Pomona Farming LLC selected the title Mahi Pono for their Hawaii partnership. In *ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi*, the Hawaiian language, *mahi* simply means to farm or cultivate, while *pono* carries much broader meaning. *Pono* is commonly translated a righteous or righteousness, based on its use as Hawaii's State Motto since 1959: *Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono* (the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness). The phrase however was first uttered by King Kamehameha III in 1843 upon the restoration of Hawaiian sovereignty after a period of foreign occupation. According to Pukui and Elbert's Hawaiian Dictionary [[email protected]_1986], *pono* encompasses "goodness, uprightness, morality, moral qualities, correct or proper procedure, excellence, well-being, prosperity, welfare, benefit, behalf, equity, sake, true condition or nature, duty; moral, fitting, proper, righteous, right, upright, just, virtuous, fair, beneficial" and the list goes on. Paired together Mahi Pono thus can mean "cultivating righteousness" or as the firm's website front page has long displayed "responsible farming" [@mahipono_2025]. Previous iterations of their website offered additional meaning "to farm or cultivate morally and properly", declaring that they "are committed to practicing sustainable agriculture, to growing food for local consumption, to responsible use of the natural resources entrusted to us, and to providing high quality agricultural employment for generations to come" [@mahipono_2020]. {#fig:mp-landing width=400px} Alternatively, *pono* as a noun can also mean assets, property, resources, or fortune [@pukui.elbert_1986], so "Mahi Pono" could be interpreted as "cultivating assets" or "farming fortune", a framing arguably better aligned with the capital accumulation impetus of the Canadian pension fund's investment. This dual reading of meaning, responsible farming versus cultivating assets, reveals the contradictory nature of the firms operations: promoting itself as righteous actor while primarily functioning to generate portfolio returns from land as a material asset for foreign shareholders. {#fig:mahipono-logo width=60%} The brand logo (See @fig:mahipono-logo) for the farming plan.visual elements add to Mahi Pono's Hawaii-centric branding strategy. The stylized landscape of cultivated fields backed by mountains and the sun, harken to Maui's central plains where much of Mahi Pono's farms acreage sits. The stylized landscape of cultivated fields backed by mountains and the sun harken to Maui's central plains where Mahi Pono's farm acreage sits. The dual-mountains evoke the geographic context of the island's agricultural valley, creating imagery that is unmistakably that of the islands despite the company's distant capital, ownership and control. %%In sum, Canadian pension management firm PSP Investments and its California-based subsidiary Pomona Farming LLC, named for the California region, and elides this ownership structure by framing its work as as a joint venture. This "partnership" acquired significant holdings in Hawaii under the banner of cultivating morally,%% ##### Hawaii Meats Hawaii Meats LLC was created upon the 2019 acquisition of Kunoa Cattle Company and its assets including the Oahu slaughterhouse. After acquiring Hawaii Beef Producers processing plant on Hawaii Island in 2020, the firm Hawaii Sustainable Beef was created in 2021 to encompass both processing operations. All three are managed by Riverbend Management Inc. In 2022, Honolulu Meat Company LLC, also managed by Riverbend was formed and began marketing ground beef as Kua 'Aina Ranches (See @fig:kuaainaranches-logo). {#fig:kuaainaranches-logo width=170px} *Kua'āina* translates literally as back land [@pukui.elbert_1986] or back country, however use a demonym was common to refer to the inhabitants of saids lands. This person-focused use transitioned from demeaning to venerating those living with the land during the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance beginning in the late 1960's. McGregor, in a book on these contemporary traditional life ways explains, "kua'aina are the Native Hawaiians who remained in the rural communities of our islands, took care of the kupuna or elders, continued to speak Hawaiian, bent their backs and worked and sweated in the taro patches and sweet potato fields, and held that which is precious and sacred in the culture in their care" [-@mcgregor_2007, p. 4]. As a firm sourcing from ranches across the islands Honolulu Meat Company's framing their goods as the the products of *paniolo*, or Hawaiian cowboys, makes marketing sense. However since 1975, near the height of the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance, Kua 'Aina Sandwich Shop had been selling burgers to residents and visitors, establishing itself as a recognized name with multiple locations within and beyond the islands. The internationally known Sandwich Shop filed a lawsuit claiming trademark infringement and unfair competition, making the case that consumer confusion would arise from Honolulu Meat's sale of ground beef under the name [@yerton_2022; @boylan_2022]. The issue was settled when Vandersloot proposed instead a public naming competition [@none_2022] to retitle the Hawaii Meat Company products. Thus the beef over beef became Name the Beef, a website (namethebeef.com) and social media campaign (see [@fig:namethebeef]) crafted to engage public participation with promise of one grand $10,000 bounty from Hawaii Sustainable Beef and 100 runner up $20 gift cards to the Kua ‘Aina Sandwich Shop. {#fig:namethebeef width=250px} Per the contest website, the week long contest sought a name to convey "an accurate, positive message about their beef" including it's sourcing from "small local ranchers in Hawaii" and, importantly, specifying it "needs to be a brand that is not already trademarked and not already in use" [@hawaiisustainablebeef_2023]. Hawaii Sustainable Beef, in consult with its leading ranchers, would select the new name from those submitted "to represent beef that comes from over 140 local ranches on The Big Island, Oahu, Maui, and Kauai" [@hawaiisustainablebeef_2023]. Over 2000 people submitted over 5000 name ideas, and ultimately Kama ‘Aina was selected (see [@fig:kr-logo]). Winner and runners up were named and public image refreshed with glowing quotes from Vandersloot about doing the right thing and breaking bread with the plaintiff [@hawaiisustainablebeef_2023a]. Kama‘aina Ranches LLC was formed with Riverbend Management LLC as manager. {#fig:kr-logo width=170px} *Kamaʻāina* most commonly refers to locals of Hawaii. Literally translated as land child, the child of the land meaning encompasses Native-birth, acquaintance, and familiarity [@pukui.elbert_1986]. This term, applied to Native Hawaiians and settlers alike, explicitly conveys *local* by its use. Supporting local ranchers and vending local beef has thus become the brand of Kama‘Āina Ranches. The company website states the "brand represents the meat from over 172 local cattle ranches in Hawaii" [@kamaainaranches_2023]. By selecting this branding, Riverbend Management transposes the identity its Idaho billionaire backing with that of many of its beef producers. While an appropriate representation of the ranchers across the island whose beef it processes, this quotidian term obscures and legitimizes the consolidated and external ownership and control of meat processing in the islands. Confounding Riverbend Management's narrative of supporting local ranchers across its Hawaii firms, Hawaii Meats has imported nearly 800,000 pounds of beef from Australia and New Zealand since 2024 [@importyeti_2025]. ^5b56f0 ##### Waialua Fresh Villa Rose is a partnership between egg producer Rose Acre Farms and egg distributor Hidden Villa Ranch. In 2021, Luberski Incorporated, the California corporation operating as Hidden Villa Ranch, filed trademark applications for "Waialua" and "Waialua Fresh" covering shell, liquid, frozen, powdered and hard cooked eggs [@unitedstatespatentandtrademarkoffice_]. *Waialua* is the traditional *moku* (district), that encompasses much of North Shore of Oʻahu, including the area where Villa Rose has its egg operation. The ample former sugar and pineapple plantation lands of the region are home to various diversified production operations. While using a regional place name for agricultural branding is common worldwide, Villa Rose's logo notably adds a kahakō (macron) over the second 'a' to create "Waiālua". This diacritical mark is not part of the traditional spelling of the district. The kahakō is absent in Hawaiian language documents from the 1800s [@officeofhawaiianaffairs_2009], not used in the authoritative Place Names of Hawaii book [@pukui.elbert_1986], nor found in Hawaiʻi State Board on Geographic Names documents [@hawaiiboardongeographicnames_2014]. The Waialua Fresh logo (see [@fig:wf-logo]) further emphasizes Hawaii imagery through the prominent hibiscus flower. First enshrined in 1923 as the flower of the then Territory of Hawaii [@stillman_1994; @nstate_2018], the hibiscus adorned post-World War II Hula Girl marketing [@lemarie_2024], was sung into statehood celebrations [@schroeder.borgerson_2008], and became established through tourism as a widely recognized symbol of the islands. {#fig:wf-logo width=170px} Appearing on everything from mid-1970s license plates to State Library cards today, the hibiscus has become a synecdoche for Hawaii itself. This symbolic power makes the hibiscus particularly valuable for brands seeking to tap into Hawaii's cultural cache. The place name and flower reinforce the geography of Villa Rose's production over that of its mainland corporate ownership. #### Local Values: Environmental and Production Ethical Claims ^13aec7 %% [[local values prompt & rubric]]%% While each firm's branding draws explicitly on their or their producers geography, and at least implicitly on values, each operation also has made numerous ethical and values claims. For sharetaker firms, these ethical narratives function both as market differentiation and symbolic alignment with popular and cultural values in Hawaii. Pursing legitimation through values proximity [@eriksen_2013], the firms draw upon globally recognized yet locally tailored notions of stewardship and responsible production, presenting themselves as a sustainable providers of local fare. To understand the power of these values claims, the trajectory alternative food movements co-optation is instructive. The rise of alternative agro-food networks and movements in recent decades was spurred by concerns about industrial and global food systems impacts to the environment as well as human and animal wellbeing. Framing the corporate food regime as the locus of these issues, alternative food movements promote, *inter alia*, environmental stewardship, fair labor and trade, and animal welfare. As these critiques moved from the margins to the mainstream consumer emphasis turned to the *quality* of foods [@murdoch.etal_2000a; @goodman_2003], where markers like local, organic, sustainable, and humane suggest a purchase could provide value not just the individual consumer, but purchases would provide value the world. However, since local, like organic [@guthman_2003], is often taken as synonymous with sustainable and humane production methods this conflation serves as a "local trap" wherein it is believed localization in itself will yield positive outcomes in the food system [@born.purcell_2006]. The outcome being the assumption being that by by dint of food production being embedded within a place, the ethics and values of that place will be embedded in the production process. Further confounding the goals of presenting an alternative, this quality turn has been co-opted by corporate actors who've adopted the rhetoric to meet market demand. Interest in whole foods can now be sated at Whole Foods. This values-laden approach is fully manifest in the contemporary corporate-environmental food regime [@friedmann_2005], wherein sustainability discourse has become a de facto part of continued capital accumulation. The Hawaiian value of *aloha ʻāina* (love of the land[^1] ) is a social ethic that has become integrated into contemporary laws of the land [see @sproat.palau-mcdonald_2022 for deeper cultural meaning and legal analysis]. As an ethic, *aloha ʻāina* relates directly to that of _mālama ʻāina_ (care for the land) which provides the primary analytical lens to examine sharetaker claims related to stewardship against their service to external capital. %% NEED TO EXPAND ON ALOHA AINA OR MALAMA AINA A BIT MORE %% While traditional Hawaiian land management, culture, and values, which all shape contemporary notions of *local*, were co-developed over time, corporate sustainability claims, through the self-ascription of said values, endeavors ==to be in relationship with a place that - like their capital - is foreign==. Thus the values claims service as a form of proximity making [@eriksen_2013] to a place where no relationship had been developed. Thus, when local production is conflated with local values, ethical concerns about industrial practices or the economic distribution of value generated become even harder to parse. Beyond _mālama ʻāina_, a secondary analytical focus of each firm explore their additional ethical narrative claims: water resource management with Mahi Pono, animal welfare with Waialua Fresh, and natural food quality with Hawaii Meats. In every case, the issue is not whether the firm actually adopts a certain practice or enact a given ethic, but how these narratives deflect attention from questions about distribution the profits produced. To wit, claims of environmental stewardship, humane production, and cultural values all serve to legitimate operations whose primary beneficiaries are not the communities providing the land and labor resources. ##### Mahi Pono The ethical environmental and production claims of Mahi Pono exemplify how *accumulation through localization* appropriates value sets to legitimate ongoing and novel extractive operations. The company's 2020 website declares their mission to "sustain the well being of Hawai'i 'ohana %%add definition%% through responsible farming" and to that they are "committed to practicing sustainable agriculture" and the "responsible use of the natural resources entrusted to us" [@mahipono_2020]. This messaging strategically adopts six Hawaiian words as values with further articulations, one of which being "Mālama: Responsible stewardship of Maui’s natural resources (ʻāina, water & renewable energy)" [@mahipono_2020]. Similar to the use of Hawaiian words and place names, the adoption of Hawaiian words cum values is somewhat normative in the islands. This application by a pension fund seeking social license, however, affords a means to contrast sustainable agriculture and water stewardship claims against the firm's actions. ###### Sustainable Agriculture: "Bringing Sustainable Ag to Maui" The multi-faceted concept of sustainable agriculture pursues environmental, economic, and social goals [@velten.etal_2015], and is defined by the USDA as an "integrated system of plant and animal production practices" that will, *inter alia*, "enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agriculture economy depends" and "make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls" over the long-term [@u.s.congress_1990]. Sustainable agriculture, and the related claim of _ʻāina_ stewardship by Mahi Pono both obfuscate the industrial practices required for plantation scale operations. The cleft between espoused values and on-the-ground practices is most apparent in their application, and likely misapplication, of the herbicide paraquat for weed management and the resulting narrative management its use required. Allegedly, in January 2020, a University of Hawaii Extension agent visiting Mahi Pono potato fields smelled the fragrance ingredient added to Gramoxone, the brand name for a Syngenta product containing paraquat [@caulfieldrybak_2020]. The news of its use quickly spread as many Maui residents were readily aware of the chemical risks. Paraquat had been used in the unsolved killings of some sixty pets over the course of a dozen years on Maui in the late 1990s and early 2000s [@hurley_2002], and concern about children becoming victims, intended or otherwise were raised [@kubota_1999]. Subsequently, agrochemical usage became a lightning rod during multi-year public advocacy against genetically-modified crop (GMO) production across the islands [@brower_2022]. In 2014, this advocacy led to Maui County's first ever ballot initiative that placed a temporary moratorium on GMO production until overturned by a Federal Court in 2015 [@barnett-rose_2015]. The potential for community and even regulatory response being apparent, Mahi Pono quickly submitted an opinion-editorial announcing that Mahi Pono was "Bringing Sustainable Ag to Maui" [@tsutsui_2020]. The piece, attributed to Senior Vice President of Operations and former Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii, Shan Tsutsui, stated that while the firm had stopped using glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. Aware that glyphosate had also been a key active ingredient in the statewide activism against GMO production and agrochemical use by firms like Monsanto, this comment sought to demonstrate Mahi Pono's commitment to sustainable production. Similar distancing from GMO associations appeared in their website FAQ section where the company stated that they do "not own any land formerly owned by Monsanto" and that "Monsanto is not a lessee of Mahi Pono" [@mahipono_2020a]. However while the "long-term goal is to bring sustainable agriculture to Maui" the piece noted that many "current and future crops will be grown conventionally", adding that Mahi Pono would "never produce anything that is unsafe for our consumption, our families and the community" [@tsutsui_2020]. Notably, this response elides a fundamental tension between industrial-scale production and sustainable agriculture, conflating food product safety with food production sustainability, and avoiding questions about the social and environmental relations of their production model. Unconvinced by the statements, the issue and responses continued via local news site critiques [@caulfieldrybak_2020], an op-ed poignantly titled "Is Paraquat Pono?" [@pell_2020] and independent food safety testing spearheaded by a State Representative from Maui [@cerizo_2020]. Continued investigation through public data requests found that Mahi Pono had then recently purchased some 240 gallons for weed control which was later applied across nearly 1000 acres [@rybak_2021]. %% ADD a note that Mahi Pono had four violations of pesticide laws between 2020 and 2022 according to data released on List of repeat violators of pesticides law %% Food quality concerns aside, the widespread application of pesticides results in the loss of biodiversity and biological simplification within the landscape. Biodiversity underlies all the myriad ecosystem services critical to the functioning of agroecosystems [@altieri_1999; @kremen.miles_2012]; while biological simplification reduces both the functional diversity (i.e., the range of ecosystem services provided) and response diversity (i.e., varying species reactions to environmental changes) that are essential for system resilience [@holling_1992]. Through biological simplification to reduce management requirements and the substitution of ecosystem services with exogenous chemical inputs (i.e., fertilizers and pesticides) conventional farming systems have shown dramatic increases in productivity. These gains in yield, however, come with considerable externalities. The substituting of chemical resources for ecosystem services has on farm (pesticide resistance), downstream (eutrophication), and global impacts (carbon and water cycling). By substituting exogenous, often chemical, resources for ecosystem services conventional farming becomes reliant on an extended supply chain network which exposes their production systems to a much broader set of risks; while biological simplification reduces response diversity, both the substitution and simplification decrease the resilience of conventional farming systems. %%SHORTER (PART LLM) VERSION: In conventional biologically simplified farming systems, these lost ecosystem services, such as natural pest control, nutrient cycling, and pollination, are replaced by external chemical inputs, creating dependency cycles that further degrade the ecological foundation of agricultural productivity. %% So, despite their claimed commitment to sustainable agriculture Mahi Pono has adopted the conventional practices of biological simplification and chemical substitution as their means of initiating production. In 2023, a ramification of these management decisions resulted in $9,600 in fines for fugitive dust violations after the Hawaii Department of Health [@hdohcleanairbranch_2023], responding to numerous community complaints, found that agricultural operations and winds "caused or permitted visible fugitive dust to become airborne without taking reasonable precautions" across four separate days in August and December 2022 [@riker_2023]. Mahi Pono's response framed dust production as "one of the persistent challenges inherent in large-scale farming", especially during "initial conversion of fallow sugarcane land into diversified fields of agriculture," while emphasizing their "mission to increase our state's food security through local, diversified agriculture" [@hnnstaff_2023]. The "diversified fields of agriculture" presumably references Mahi Pono's planted and planned crop selections. %% Drawing upon the language of goals long held within the state towards economic diversification away from sugarcane and pineapple production.%% This represents an economic diversification that is distinct from the field level biodiversity. @fig:mahipono-map, colored by crop type, demonstrates the diversity of crops at the landscape scale is indeed greater than the monoculture production of sugarcane. {#fig:mahipono-map width=60%} Economic diversification within the operation is distinct, however, from biologically diversified production within a given field. While the prior is an approach common to reduce risk in any type of production planning, conventional or otherwise, the latter is squarely associated with sustainable agricultures. The @fig:mahipono-map demonstrates that, despite some economic diversification, the vast majority of lands have been planted with citrus trees, yellow colored on the map. In late 2021, three years into operation, Mahi Pono celebrated its millionth tree planting. This accomplishment was received with much peanic news coverage [@hnnstaff_2021; @mauinow_2021]. One article, however, identified that 600,000 of the trees planted were citrus and noted that "Mahi Pono has tried to distance itself from the former sugar plantation but has nonetheless inherited many of the longtime disputes that came with the land, including concerns over monocropping and environmental practices" [@tanji_2021]. Monocropping concerns are more than notional, as imagery like @fig:mahipono-fields, provided by Mahi Pono to media for the event, well demonstrates. {#fig:mahipono-fields width=400px} To recap, Mahi Pono's mass application of herbicides, a chemical substitution for other land preparation methods, was followed by monoculture planting of citrus trees to manufacture a biologically simplified landscape. This simplified landscape thus not only has minimal capacity for various ecosystem services that could reduce the need for external agricultural inputs, but an elevated risk of topsoil loss through wind erosion resulting in fugitive dust impacts surrounding communities. Despite adopting _mālama_ as a value and rhetorically committing to sustainable agriculture, Mahi Pono practices follow the conventional industrial model of biological simplification and chemical substitution, undermining both ecological resilience and community wellbeing. This could reasonably be termed greenwashing, the "practice where sustainability-related statements, declarations, actions or communications do not clearly and fairly reflect the underlying sustainability profile of an entity" [European Securities and Markets Authority, 2023 as cited in @schultz.senn_2024]. While within firm management corporate sustainability is the term *du jour*, the investment world has embraced Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) as the term of art and approach to assessing a company's impacts. In 2021, the Maui ESG Investment Project released a report highlighting significant contradictions between Mahi Pono's sustainability rhetoric and actual practices. In lieu of an agro-ecosystem management emphasis, the report sharply emphasizes that "Mahi Pono is not an ESG investment designed to help the community, but a land grab dependent on successfully executing long-term water arbitrage" [@mauiesg_2021, p. 17]. ###### Water Rights, Water Fight; or Water Fights with Zombies Beyond land management, Mahi Pono's control of water resources is perhaps the most contentious aspect of their purchase and operations. The purchase from A&B of former sugarcane lands was paired with ownership stake in the East Maui Irrigation Company (EMI). Developed by the namesake founders Alexander & Baldwin in the late 19th century, EMI controls water diversion from East Maui streams to the agricultural lands of Maui's central plains. Against the protests of Native Hawaiian communities as early as 1881, the firms succeeded in securing water diversion through successive governments and watered more than a century of A&B plantation operations [@environmenthawaii_1997]. Today, EMI infrastructures and the surrounding legal and policy regime persist despite the plantation closure. Through Mahi Pono EMI's material and legal corpus is reanimated in what @kay.etal_2023, drawing from Sizek's concept, term "zombie infrastructures", that perpetuate plantation power relations even after sugar's demise. Under the Hawaii State Constitution Article XI, Section 1 "all public natural resources are held in trust by the State for the benefit of the people" [@_1978a]. Hawaii Supreme Court ruling determined that "the public trust doctrine applies to all water resources, unlimited by any surface-ground distinction" and that the Sate has "an affirmative duty to take the public trust into account in the planning and allocation of water resources" [@hisupremecourt_2000]. This duty is, in part, overseen by the Committee on Water Resource Management which administers stream diversion and water use permits that define allowed water volumes [@_fa]. %%The establishment of water diversion and movement infrastructures led to a boom in sugar production across the islands between the 1860s and 1920s [@maclennan_2004].%% The Mahi Pono purchase agreement [@alexander&baldwinllcseriesr.etal_2018] included a clause that if EMI was prevented from delivering a "Minimum Water Amount" (MWA) of 30 million gallons per day (MGD) within eight years of the transaction, that A&B would owe PSP up to $62 million dollar in rebate on the $267 million dollar deal. The rebate would be triggered in two installments: an initial $31 million "Productivity Loss Event" rebate if water delivery fell below the MWA, and an additional $31 million "Continuing Productivity Loss Rebate" if the issue remained unresolved after one year. This effectively priced the likelihood of A&B's influence over the governance of a public trust resource in a US state at nearly a quarter of the deal's value. With EMI's century long track record it wasn't a bad bet. Since 1986 EMI and had been operating under annual state licenses for water diversion [@environmenthawaii_1997] and the purchase agreement included another $31 million “Lease Failure Rebate” that would be triggered if the parties were unsuccessful in securing a longer term lease from the state. Through the rebate, Mahi Pono enlisted A&B assistance to return to prior eras when licenses or leases extended for decades. The structure of the deal thus hinged on PSP benefitting from the perpetuation and revival of plantation era norms [@kay.etal_2023]. Mahi Pono sought to summon zombie infrastructures while casting itself as a "post-plantation" future. So what would be done with the millions of gallons of water? Mahi Pono's espoused *mālama* value of "responsible stewardship of Maui’s natural resources" explicitly listed water [@mahipono_2020a]. Their farming plans state a commitment to the efficient use of water, use of soil cover to reduce evaporation in their orchards, and projects that their diversified crop selection will use "50% less water compared to the previous sugarcane monocrop operation" [@mahipono_2025a]. Reducing water demand in half surely sounds significant. However, research on actual evapotranspiration (AET) of irrigated sugarcane in HC&S fields found that AET was around 80% of total water supply [@osorio.etal_2014]. In the two fields studied, the water supply was predominantly from irrigation and equivalent to around 100 inches of rain, on top of the 25 or so inches of actual precipitation. Clearly sugarcane is a thirsty crop, but the AET findings demonstrate it is also highly efficient it is water use. These findings raise questions about the extent to which a 50% reduction represents meaningful conservation or is more a reflection of the inherent different in water requirements between different crops. Mahi Pono notes this in stating that they "selected crops that will result in a significant decrease in water use on the farm compared to sugar cane" [@mahipono_2025a]. Reduction in field irrigation by dint of a crop transition, however, is only part of what could reasonably be expected by a commitment to "responsible use of the natural resources entrusted to us" [@mahipono_2020]. Questions about water responsibility extend well beyond HC&S fields. EMI has long provided water not just to Central Maui fields but also to farmers and communities like Kula, Makawao, and Pukalani in Upcounty Maui. Addressing the question of whether EMI profits from this water delivery service, Mahi Pono states that EMI operation are not profitable and that EMI has maintained the fee rate $0.06 per 1000 gallons since the initial agreement with the County of Maui [@mahipono_2025a]. In 1973, at the time of the initial County agreement, EMI's state lease acquired water for $0.0018 cents per 1000 gallons, making the $0.06 a 3300% markup [@environmenthawaii_1997]. In their review, @kay.etal_2023 found the Mahi Pono purchase sought to acquire "long-term leases for water at approximately 1/200th of the price that local small-scale farmers pay for water on the island" (p. 12). This dramatic disparity in pricing demonstrates how EMI control, even under new ownership, perpetuates inequitable access to water resources, undermining Mahi Pono's claims of responsible stewardship. 50% use reduction claims and stable, if inequitable, water pricing offer little redress to the impacts of a century of water diversion from East Maui. The effects of stream loss are framed best by an 1881 letter from East Maui community members asking Crown Lands Commissioners to not allow water diversions: >“We, the committee, whose names are below, request of your kindness not to dispose any of the water rights of the Crown Lands, that is from Honomanu, Ke’anae, Wailua, to the millionaire (Claus Spreckels), of Kamaomao. Because, if any of the water rights of the above-described Crown Lands are disposed of, then the king’s subjects, living on said lands, will be in trouble. Because, what the millionaire has done with the waters of other lands is well known, and on account of this trouble which is known, that is why we make this application. It is not proper to come for the water of the lands above described.” >[J. W. Kehuhu, K. Makaena, J. K. Hueu, S. Kamakahiki, K. E. Maialilua, D. W. Napihaʻa, M. Kaleba, B. B. Kalilimoku, Kamanele, J. S. Lono, J. Kuluhiawa, Keliʻi, & J. B. Kaʻakuamoku, 1881, translated by E. H. Hart, as quoted in @environmenthawaii_1997] In 2009, a a field investigation of Wailua Valley taro in East Maui found that farmers had been planting pumpkin instead of taro due to the lack of water [@cwrm_2009], highlighting the duration of this struggle and durability of the impacts. While Mahi Pono highlights it crop transition as a means of water use reduction, East Maui farmers have been forced into crop transition as a result of stream water reduction from EMI diversions. These plantation era legacies thus persist not just through land arrangements, but through water infrastructures, and logics, leverage, and laws that enable them. These conveyances of land and water resources carry forward the legacy of dispossession, a plantation era caught from its twilight and reanimated by modern capital with a new gleam and veneer. %% ADD NOTE THAT EMI didn't get the long term lease @lyte_2025 also [[mahi pono water notes]] %% ###### Greenwashed; Washed Out %%see [[2025-08-21 How to change PSP?]]%% The contradictions between claims of environmental management and water stewardship open questions about how Mahi Pono operations represent a broader pattern of "greenwashing" by its parent firms PSP, Trinitas, and Pomona Farming. The 2021 Maui ESG report [@mauiesg_2021] cast the Mahi Pono deal as unique opportunity to transition Maui from "colonial past toward a more diverse and egalitarian economy" but concluded that Mahi Pono used "the language of ESG and sustainable investment to make it appear as if they were facilitating that transition. All the while they were in fact, carrying on the old A&B legacy through their efforts to secure a massively advantageous long-term water contract, at the cost of local stake holders" [@mauiesg_2021, p. 18-19]. The report gained international audience when Institutional Investor published "PSP and Trinitas Accused of Greenwashing Hawaiian ESG Investment" [@segal_2021], highlighting how the pension fund and then partner firm Trinitas Partners' claims of sustainable investment were being challenged by local community and environmental advocates. The report stated that "Trinitas Partners and their affiliates have shown themselves to be masters of sustainable investment rhetoric" [@mauiesg_2021, p. 12] despite the ramifications of their management being far from what the communities they operated within regard as sustainable. A prime example being Trinitas' strategic acquisition of California lands with irrigation water rights to faciltate the transition of some 200,000 acres grape vineyards into almond groves. Trinitas' approach to securing water rights to irrigate thirsty almond trees in the drought stricken West relied in part on water attorney Tim O’Laughlin. In 2019, O’Laughlin was hired by Mahi Pono as Chief Operating Officer [@cerizo_2019], stating shortly thereafter that Mahi Pono is "not profiting off selling water, and we have no plans to do so in the future" amidst the firms pursuit of 30-year water lease from the state [@cerizo_2020a]. Regarding transparency, O’Laughlin stated the goal to publicly share water measurements from farm and canal on their website. %% As of 2025, no public canal guage or field water use data is available.%% Questions about the sustainability of Trinitas' California efforts raised by @mauiesg_2021 and others were answered somewhat by the firm's 2024 bankruptcy. The water rights Trinitas successfully secured in California were indeed a mechanism of profit this "surplus" water was sold to buyers in other water district [@caine_2024]. Trinitas assets were transferred to PSP-owned Pomona Farming prior to the bankruptcy, placing the future of the California region's water use in Canadian hands. While now defunct, the PSP partnership with Trinitas proved valuable for Mahi Pono, occluding the pursuit of water access with the rhetorics of sustainable agriculture further veiled in Hawaiian values. As investment advisor explained: "Capital markets have become so intermediated that it's difficult for investment professionals within a large institution to understand what's happening on the ground" [Rothenberg as quoted in @segal_2021]. The layering of firms, from PSP and Trinitas to Pomona and Mahi Pono create intermediations obscuring responsibility until financial failure render the underlying strategies impossible to ignore. Financial failures do not result in the restoration of water use to other farmers but further enable to their continued extraction and control under new names [@caine_2024]. As in other corporate settings, for example the sale of Monsanto to Bayer, the transition from one firm to the next forwards assets but not liabilities. %% ADD? that the Trinitas bankruptcy filing stated that Pomona Farming was "unaffiliated with the Debtors or Trinitas Partners”, @caine_2024 %% This begs the question of where accountability can be found. Mahi Pono had no official response to the 2021 report by The Maui ESG Investment Project. This may be a strategic silence. Research into the firm and stock price effects of greenwashing accusations and regulatory responses found that companies typically only respond robustly to regulatory consequences and are unaffected by accusations and scandals [@schultz.senn_2024]. However, as a Canadian Crown corporation that is not publicly traded, PSP lacks the market-based accountability that might force engagement with critics and isn't subject to securities regulations or shareholder pressure. This allows PSP and Mahi Pono to strategically minimize their response to criticism while projecting an image of responsible stewardship. Beyond their initiating legislative charter to achieve "maximum rate of return" and related fiduciary responsibilities, a primary mechanism of oversight for Crown Corporations is a designated minister, the treasury board president [@pspibact_1999, s. 4(1)(b)], accountable to Parliament for the corporation's activities [@tbcs_2005]. One is left to wonder if a letter to the Crown Corporation's minister in 2025 would have any different outcome than the 1881 letter to Crown Lands Commissioners. The asymmetry in Mahi Pono response to criticism compared to their extensive communications about values and claimed community benefits is stark. This cleft of selective engagement reveals the how the firms communications strategy reflects financial interests over genuine accountability. PSP's approach is not aberrant with Mahi Pono, but fits a pattern of financializaton of other sectors within their portfolio. A report by the Canadian Human Rights Commission found that companies including PSP were consolidating and reshaping senior housing in Canada. The report found these firms treating essential community resources providing the fundamental human right to housing "as a commodity and an asset class" [@brown_2022, p. 3] directly leading to inferior care. This financial logic of prioritizing shareholder returns over community benefits occurred despite a internal responsible investment policy [@pspinvestments_2017] and public-facing narratives that emphasize ESG and stewardship [@pspinvestments_2025]. Back in the islands, Mahi Pono's community engagement efforts reveal the disconnect between their financial imperatives and Hawaiian values-based messaging. While the company has promoted community farming plots and allowing access to pig hunting on parts of their lands these minimal concessions function more as strategic public relations without shifting any decision making power to local communities. Maintaining centralized control by a distant board it is unclear how Mahi Pono embodies their stated values "_ʻohana_" (family) and "_lawelawe_" (serving with aloha) [@mahipono_2020]. The statements thus serve as a form of culture-washing atop their "brining sustainable agriculture to Maui" greenwashing. The appropriation of Indigenous concepts and sustainable agricultural rhetorics seeks to legitimize Mahi Pono's external control of land and water resources while evading substantive engagement with local concerns. This pattern is not a transition away from Hawaii's colonial plantation past but an evolution of it, just with a greener, culturally appropriated veneer. Though the crops and corporate structures have changed, the fundamental dynamic of extracting value from Hawaiian lands and waters for distant shareholders remains intact. The value of production that once accrued to missionary-descended families and later their US corporations now flows to Canadian pensioners who may never set foot in the islands, creating even greater distance between those of Maui who have lived and labored on these lands and those who profit from them. ##### Hawaii Meats %% see [[hawaii meats local values]]%% The ethical positioning of Hawaii Meats demonstrates how sustainability claims function as proximity making [@eriksen_2013] to Hawaiian values of *mālama ʻāina* through rancher-based land stewardship, despite the consolidating approach of the firms external capital control. Kamaaina Ranches marketing emphasizes food quality through local, hormone-free and grass-fed claims that obscure questions about the distribution of access and profit Hawaii's meat processing, while simultaneously importing beef. ###### Mālama ʻĀina Through Local Rancher Representation Hawaii Meats articulates *mālama ʻāina* values through extensive representation of its connection with for "over 172 local cattle ranches in Hawaii" [@kamaainaranches_2023] in product narratives and marketing imagery. The Kama'Aina Ranches website emphasizes that their beef comes from "cattle raised and finished on beautiful Hawaii pastures" [@kamaainaranches_2023a]. Such pastoral imagery aligns with _mālama ʻāina_ ethics by drawing upon the land stewardship and production decisions of island ranchers. Foregrounding the local ranches whose cattle are processed in Hawaii Meats' facilities obscures and confuses the ethics of the consolidated processing company with those of local ranchers themselves. Hawaii Meats product marketing uses prominent claims of "grass fed," "grass finished," and "all natural" production under the Kama'Aina Ranches brand [@kamaainaranches_2023; @kamaainaranches_2023d]. Aligning with contemporary environmental values and consumer preference for more sustainable meat production, the grass-fed emphasis is consonant with *mālama ʻāina* ethics, suggesting land stewardship operating within rather than at the cost of natural systems. Such representations serves as a form of distributed legitimacy by combining the established community relationships of local ranchers with the environmental credibility of their production methods. In drawing upon the geographic and cultural localness of pastures and ranches, Hawaii Meats appropriates the relational aspects of *mālama ʻāina*. In highlighting production practices of island ranchers, popular perceptions of environmental ethics in land management and meat production draws upon *mālama ʻāina* as practice. This paired approach allows Hawaii Meats to present as deeply connected and committed to both island communities and sustainable production practices while deflecting attention from its pursuit of industrial consolidation under external ownership. %%AMI- I think thereʻs something here too about paniolo that encapsulate a period of time, ruggedness, expanse, etc. that captures an imaginary of a particular Hawaiʻi, especially in ranching districts/areas. There is honor there, geneaology...even connection to Hawaiian royalty due to the inherited claims to large tracts of land. Itʻs a distinct narrative of "local" from farming, I think...maybe even the preservation of the past through present-day practice%% ###### Food Quality as Values Alignment Beyond the land stewardship connotations of "all natural" and "grass fed", their primary function is to convey messages of food quality. Hawaii Meats' marketing promotes sustainable production methods as a means of portraying food quality through various claims that align with what @murdoch.etal_2000a identify as the quality turn's emphasis on linking food quality to nature and local embeddedness. The Kama'Aina Ranches website emphasizes that "Our beef is 100% grass-fed and grass-finished and raised with no added hormones" and that customers "can rest assured that all Kama'Aina Ranches ground beef is from cattle raised and finished on beautiful Hawaii pastures" [@kamaainaranches_2023a]. Similar text on the Kama'Aina Ranches logo reads "No Hormones," "All Natural," "No Antibiotics," "100% Local," and "Grass Fed" [@kamaainaranches_2023d]. In-store beef products, shown in [@fig:kr-brick], are marketed as "all natural" with "no added hormones or antibiotics". {#fig:kr-brick width=200} Contrasting with the general use logo, the in-store product logo representation states "Always Local" rather than "100% Local," potentially signaling an inability to make claims related to complete local provenance as a result of using imported meats. This shift demonstrates the flexibility of food quality discourse, when firm practices conflict with marketing claims brand language can be adjusted to maintain the appearance of local commitment. The intermixing of local and imported products under local branding represents a broader in Hawaii food products, *inter alia*, coffee, milk, macadamia nuts, and salt %% ADD CITATIONS%%. Such appropriation of the market premium for local products detached from local origins has resulted in producer upset, public outcry and legislative interventions %%ADD CITATION%%. ^baecc6 Wherever the provenance, the local, grass fed and "no added hormones or antibiotics" branding serve to associate qualities of the product and producers with those of the processor. This conflation allows Hawaii Meats to appropriate the production ethics of local ranchers while pursuing consolidation strategies that may undermine those same producers. Consumers who purchased based on quality attributes, seeking to support local food systems and sustainable ranching, instead are buying into corporate rent seeking through monopolizaton of processing and the adulteration of local products. ^047191 ###### Values Claims as Market Strategy The contradiction between Hawaii Meats' food quality positioning and _mālama ʻāina_ proximity making and its practice of food adulteration and and processing consolidation reveals how these values narratives function as market legitimation rather than genuine values expression. Hawaii Meats' subverts consumer food quality preferences and producer financial viability through food quality marketing that relies on local practices and branding, enabled by near singular control of processing infrastructure statewide and functional monopoly control in many regions. Kama'Aina Ranches quality claims thus exemplify what @goodman_2003 identifies as characteristic of the quality turn. Alternative food values are not truly embodied but instead service as markers for market differentiation that enable a local and grass-fed price premium, occluding the structural power relations and distribution of returns that characterize the contemporary food regime. The success of this legitimation strategy influences how ranchers, retailers, and consumers alike navigate within the restructured consolidated market that Hawaii Meats has created. ##### Waialua Fresh %% see [[waialua fresh local values]] %% Waialua Fresh's environmental and production claims demonstrate how an industrial animal agribusiness deploys land and animal welfare claims to secure social license. Villa Rose's self-positioning as a restoration of Hawaii agriculture and strategic narratives around environmental stewardship through technology and animal welfare through "cage-free" production obscure the novelty of its presence, production scale, and practices. ###### Proximity Performance: Simulating Embeddedness Waialua Fresh product branding demonstrates these myriad narratives succinctly. Their egg cartons prominently display "cage free", "local island laid eggs from the North Shore of Oahu" "produced with **Hawaiian** solar power", with "Hawaiian" emphasized in bold and larger font than "solar power" (see [@fig:waialuafresh-carton]]. The typographic hierarchy signals marketing priority: animal welfare as the primary signifier of value, location and Hawaiian-ness as secondary, with environmental claims serving a supporting role. {#fig:waialuafresh-carton width=250px} The proximity performance extends beyond place-based titling and product packaging to the a broader narrative positioning the operation as restoring Hawaiʻi's agricultural history of self-reliant agriculture before the era of imports. Villa Rose invokes Hawaii's agricultural history, stating the "Hawaiian islands hold a special place in history as the home of advanced cultures who flourished in agriculture and sustainability, working only with what was available to them on the island" [@villarosellc_2021a], invoking the self-reliance and sustainable stewardship associated with traditional Hawaiian agricultures. The company frames itself as "giving back to the community and land that has hosted it" [@villarosellc_2021a], adopting the reciprocal relationship values embedded in concepts like _mālama ʻāina_. This values-based positioning is reinforced through geographic proximity claims that "\[o\]ur eggs aren't coming in from the mainland on boats, they're coming from the North Shore" [@haf_2023], connecting their industrial operation to place-based agricultural values. This genealogical claim and simulated embeddedness in Hawaii's agricultural traditions is amplified by featuring an article on their press releases page that presents the firm as "community on O'ahu's North Shore" with "a rich history rooted in local problem solving" [@businessview_2024]. Villa Rose's approach to "local problem solving", however, fundamentally reframes stewardship, replacing the community accountability and ecological knowledge of _mālama ʻāina_ with technological interventions. ###### Mālama ʻĀina Appropriation: Technologizing Stewardship Villa Rose's environmental positioning demonstrates how industrial agribusiness redefine stewardship through technological substitutions at the periphery of business practice without changing the core logics of their operations. Villa Rose forwards, in the order of appearance on the Waialua Fresh website, solar energy use, biochar production from manures, water source and reuse, and a reduced shipping "footprint" from local production and distribution [@villarosellc_2021] to construct a narrative positioning itself as a "carbon neutral" "model of sustainable agriculture" [@villarosellc_2021a]. This framing is echoed in statements by Executive Vice President Michael Sencer who termed the operation a "self-sustainable farm" [@sanovo_] built with the "aim to create a fully self-sufficient, environmentally responsible egg producer" [@businessview_2023]. Highlighting these aspects serves to shift focus from the core of their production model, animal confinement at an industrial scale, to a more sustainable periphery of inputs and outputs of production and distribution. ###### Sustainable Utilities for Utilitarian Confinement; or "the greener the claims, the redder the flags" The Waialua Fresh states their operation is powered by "independent sustainable energy from solar arrays which double as cage-free shelter for our hens" [@villarosellc_2021]. As noted above and in [@fig:waialuafresh-carton], Villa Roses frames this from **Hawaiian** solar power [@waialuafresheggs_2022]. Water stewardship is claimed through "a permitted independent water well" while "wastewater is reused for irrigation, so there is zero runoff" [@villarosellc_2021]. Efficiency is communicated through the dual purpose applications of their structures and water use in each utility claim. Concomitantly independence is explicitly claimed, framing Villa Rose as self-reliant. Taken together, efficiencies and purported self-reliance make a claim about the operation having minimal environmental impact. Claims and perception of minimal impacts are, arguably, most critical to Villa Rose's manure waste-management. In early 2023, with 150,000-160,000 hens on site, the facility was producing around 10 tons of manure per day [@cleanwaterbranch_2023]. This scale of manure production, the result of animal concentration, is technologically addressed, per the Waialua Fresh homepage, by a "biochar reactor \[that\] turns chicken waste into safe fertilizer" [@villarosellc_2021]. The composition and benefits of biochar are then touted: "carbon-rich, \[biochar\] has much slower rates of decomposition than other organic amendments, increases water retention in soil, and corrects soil acidity" [@villarosellc_2021]. The reactor converting waste into a resource seeks reactions that see the firm as having a closed-loop waste management system. Reactions, however, haven't been so closed. In July 2023, a Center for Food Safety blog post titled "Waialua Egg Farm Poses Environmental Risk from Manure Mismanagement" accused Villa Rose of having "misled the public about its waste management procedures" [@centerforfoodsafety_2023]. Local news reporting identified a USDA inspector who had raised concerns with the state in May 2022, and found the state response "lethargic" [@heaton_2023]. Nine months later in February 2023, the HDOH Clean Water Branch led a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation Inspection. Under the federal Clean Water Act, NPDES is a regulatory program that controls water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants into waters of the United States. NPDES permits are required for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) when animal waste, wastewater, or contaminated stormwater discharged from the facilities that could reach surface waters such as streams. Villa Rose's 318 acre parcel abuts Mohiakea Gulch, which flows into Kaukonahua Stream which in turn continues on to the Pacific Ocean [@cleanwaterbranch_2023]. The HDOH inspection report identified the facility as a large CAFO subject to NPDES regulation, requiring an NPDES permit should discharges to State waters occur, however no discharges were observed during the visit [@cleanwaterbranch_2023]. The report details the investigation of egg washing, wastewater, and storm water management, find that while "\[i\]nitial plans included producing 'biochar' from the manure. The Facility is still exploring producing 'biochar' from the manure but is not currently operating the biochar equipment on a regular basis" [@cleanwaterbranch_2023, p. 3].  Instead, "all chicken manure generated at the Facility is currently stored in an unoccupied barn" with "no manure currently reused or field applied" [@cleanwaterbranch_2023, p. 3]. All animal mortalities and damaged eggs are taken from the site by a contractor and processed at the local rendering facility Island Commodities. {#fig:waialuafresh-manure width=250px} The report found that "\[w\]hile no discharges were observed at the time of inspection, the nature of the Facility does obligate an NPDES permit for any such discharges" [@cleanwaterbranch_2023, p.3]. The regulatory framework places the burden of compliance, and seemingly even enforcement, on Villa Rose. The report states "it is the Villa Rose, LLC's responsibility to obtain and comply with an NPDES permit" and advised the company to "seek an NPDES permit as soon as possible" if discharges may occur [@cleanwaterbranch_2023, p. 1]. Despite explicitly being an NPDES review, "an inspection of Mohiakea Stream was not conducted" and "the perimeter on the Mohiakea Gulch was not fully inspected" [@cleanwaterbranch_2023, p. 4]. Furthermore, the report explicitly states "it is the responsibility of the Facility to determine whether storm water discharges from the production area occur or not" [@cleanwaterbranch_2023, p. 4]. The monitoring of potential water pollution from the then 10-tons of daily manure production, erroneously and publicly claimed as being processed into biochar, is thus left up to Villa Rose. The Center for Food Safety found that "\[d\]espite obtaining permits from the County \[of Honolulu\] and \[Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH)\], Villa Rose misrepresented its operations by claiming it would implement a biochar system to handle the approximately 10 tons of manure waste produced each day. However, it has been revealed that the biochar system is not functioning as planned, if at all. Instead, the waste has been stockpiled in vacant barns on the property for over two years" [@centerforfoodsafety_2023]. With minimal and delayed state oversight, the Center argues that "\[w\]ithout a manure management plan, Villa Rose should not be allowed to operate" while elevating concern about potential environmental disaster as planned production to 1,000,000 hens ramps up [@centerforfoodsafety_2023], which then would represent some 60 tons per day of manure. > [!todo] determine if/where to put the cautionary dairy tales > "After the closures of Big Island Dairy in 2018 and Hawaii Dairy Farms on Kaua'i in 2019 due to Clean Water Act violations, it has been shown that large factory farms are simply incompatible with the delicate island ecosystems of Hawai'i" [@centerforfoodsafety_2023] The application of technological solutions to the operation's energy and water needs paired with biochar for waste management present a veneer of sustainability, albeit backed by firm decisions and real investment, that approach but fail to bridge the cleft between industrial production and _mālama ʻāina_. A community member's letter published by the Center, while noting the myriad social and environmental justice concerns that arise from CAFOs, stated that "\[f\]actory farms do not promote the values we ought to promote locally—such as ecological stewardship", quipping "the greener the claims, the redder the flags" [@hee_2023]. A primary concern raised in the letter, however, was not about inputs and outputs, but on the operation's claims of animal welfare. ###### Animal Welfare with 'Nary A Chicken In Sight'? Waialua Fresh "cage free" claims are central to securing social license to operate in the islands. Animal welfare claims and concerns are critical factors in securing or losing social license to operate in various animal industries [@hampton.etal_2020]. To maintain social license, animal welfare claims have long relied on public perception absent of any public perspective (i.e., view) into actual operations. Through what are commonly know as "ag-gag" laws, CAFO firms nationwide have advocated to criminalize various forms of public sight into their operations in many states. Since the 1990s laws in multiple states have limited and criminalized, *inter alia*, entry as trespass, photography and filming without consent, and employment misrepresentation as fraud [@rumley_2019; @ceryes.heaney_2018]. While found unconstitutional in some states, overall these laws have a chilling effect on potential whistleblower activities. One such law was implemented in Iowa in 2012, just two years after a Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) investigator collected video at a Rose Acre Farms facility in Iowa documenting myriad animal welfare concerns [@piper_2020]. These findings led to an HSUS complaint against Rose Acres Farms filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), alleging that marketing claims of "happy" hens were deceptive [@penzer.etal_2010]. The HSUS filing argued that despite only meeting the "minimal standards of care" for animal welfare set by United Egg Producers (UEP) guidelines, Rose Acre's representation of their animal confinement practices to consumer portrayed much higher standards of care. UEP is an industry effort of "U.S. egg farmers collaborating to advance responsible egg production, assure proper hen care, produce safe eggs and preserve the environment for future generations" [@unitedeggproducers_2017]. The trade group operates the voluntary United Egg Producers Certified label with standards for caged and "cage-free" egg production, which at one time covered 80-90% of U.S. egg production [@rodriguez_2011]. UEP's 2024 cage-fee standards permit beak trimming, allow lighting schedules of up to 18 hours of lighting, and do not require access to the outdoors [@unitedeggproducers_2023]. The standards allow for high stocking densities and only minimal space for foraging and dust-bathing, reflecting a system of certification that is based around industrial production more so than animal welfare. The industrial standards of UEP's voluntary labeling system exemplifies what Guthman describes as a form of neoliberal governance to "protect the “conditions of production” with specific standards of production and with verification mechanisms designed to capture and/or retain value for certain producers" [-@guthman_2007, p. 456]. This and similar industry-led food labeling schemes allow corporate definitions of "humane" to prevail over what most consumers would generally recognize as such. These labels seek to capture and privatize regulatory responsibility while establishing market differentiation that publicizes the onus of welfare perpetuation onto the consumer. Yet when the public takes up the work of welfare management through consumer-based oversight exposing industry practices, like that of HSUS, industry has systematically sought legislative protections to criminalize the very investigations that would inform consumer choice. Subsequent to the HSUS investigation and complaint the 2012 Iowa "ag-gag" law, like most states' statutes, included a criminal trespass provision [@rumley_2019] to reduce access to agricultural facilities. ###### Hawaii Says Aloha (Goodbye) to Upton Sinclair %% MAKE THIS AN INSET BOX? or remove h6 and just bold as subsection header%% While Hawaii currently has no "ag-gag" laws per se, recently enacted statutes effectively institute a form of "ag-gag" by harshly criminalizing trespass on agricultural lands. The 2025 "Duke's Law" [@soh_2025] was titled in memory of rancher Cranston "Duke" Pia, who was shot and killed by trespassing poachers after an altercation wherein Pia shot at the poachers' dogs that were harassing his cattle [@heaton_2024]. Responding to this and other agricultural crimes such as theft, the law established, *inter alia*, a new subsection of HRS §708 defining *Criminal trespass on agricultural land* as a misdemeanor with escalating mandatory sentencing. Penalties range from imprisonment for at least three days and at least a $500 fine for the first offense to a third strike within five-years receiving minimum ninety-day sentences and $2000 fines; if a firearm or other "dangerous instrument" is present, the penalty automatically becomes a class C felony. The sweeping law covers private and public agricultural land that is fenced, in active cultivation or fallow, has any visible signs of livestock rearing (e.g., paddocks or structures) or farming operation, and even extends to associated irrigation and road infrastructures. As stated in the law, farming operation is defined as "commercial agricultural or aquacultural facility or pursuit conducted, in whole or in part, including the care and production of livestock and livestock products, poultry and poultry products, apiary products, and plant and animal production for nonfood uses; the planting, cultivating, harvesting, and processing of crops; and the farming or ranching of any plant or animal species in a controlled salt, brackish, or freshwater environment" [@soh_2025]. Beyond the above, a provision added to Hawaii's Penal Code HRS §708, Duke's Law escalated many regulatory infractions in Chapter 142 on Animals, Brands, and Fences, like the breaking of a fence, harboring a mongoose, sale of diseased animals, or raising rabbits on the ground into misdemeanors. The law further targets repeat offenses of those once regulatory laws by establishing HRS §142-B *Habitual agricultural crime*as as yet another class C felony. Similar to *Criminal trespass on agricultural land*, the new *Habitual agricultural crime* provision is triggered when a three criminal violations under Chapter 142 on Animals, Brands, and Fences, or reoffending under §142-B, occur within a five-year period. Notably, the habitual agricultural crime statute removes judicial discretion in considering motive or context: _“The prosecution shall not be required to prove any state of mind with respect to the person’s status as a habitual agricultural crime perpetrator. Proof that the person has the requisite minimum prior convictions shall be sufficient to establish this element”_ [@soh_2025]. In practice, this converts minor agricultural regulatory infractions, such as trespassing animals (e.g, wandering cattle) or unregistered branding, into the metier of criminal justice system when repeat offenses become felony charges. Legal testimony on the bill varied considerably. The state Office of the Public Defender testimony on multiple bill versions stated that the "**<u><b>offense habitual agricultural crime is unnecessary, unconstitutional and would put a strain on the criminal justice system</u></b>**" [emphasis in original, @officeofthepublicdefender_2025, p. 1]. Contrastingly, state Department of the Attorney General testimony stated that the deterrence power of these non-drug related class C felonies would be weakened by the rehabilitative leniency afforded to repeat drug offenders, cautioning that "\[e\]xtending this leniency to habitual agricultural crime offenders is inconsistent with the bill’s purpose” [@departmentoftheattorneygeneral_2025]. In the final law, the legislature ignored the calls for deletion and retained HRS §142-B while addressing leniency concern with sentencing requiring at least one year of imprisonment even with probation. By establishing two forms of agriculture-related class C felonies, Duke's Law reshapes Hawaiʻi’s landscape of law, land access, and jurisprudence. This arguably creates a sui generis form of ag-gag legislation that, albeit indirectly through the criminalization of access, covers all agricultural lands not just CAFO operations while exacting penalties far harsher than typical ag-gag legislation. As a result, CAFO operations are shielded from scrutiny as potential investigation and documentation are deterred through mandatory imprisonment for unsanctioned entry to any agricultural operation. ###### Back to Nary A Chicken The potential to lose social license from a cleft between public perception versus on-site perspective of "cage-free" may clarify why the Waialua Fresh brand website doesn't have any internal photos of operating barns. Public perception however is that access is tightly controlled, as the Center for Food Safety community letter published in September 2023 stated "Waialua Fresh has yet to allow the public to tour its facilities, despite early statements that it would offer such tours ... you'll only be able to glance at Waialua Fresh's ultra-green facility from afar, its gleaming metal structures, nary a chicken in sight" [@hee_2023]. However, in July 2023, two days after local news coverage of the Center's claims and related HDOH investigation [see @heaton_2023], I was contacted by Waialua Fresh staff and offered an on-site tour through my role with the Hawaii Farmers Union. Controlled visibility, through their media choices, selective access, and recently criminalized entry, enables Waialua Fresh to maintain welfare narratives absent of public scrutiny of actual operations. Scrutiny persists nonetheless. A million laying hens in extensive production systems would require vast rangeland to sustainably provide inputs and process waste through ecological processes %%(avian ecosystem services?)%% alone. When this scale of production is concentrated into confined production facilities the environmental costs from resource overdraw and waste concentration would overwhelm the site's ecological capacity. While Villa Rose's technological optimization of utilities creates a veneer of sustainability, it functions primarily to internalize environmental externalities that would otherwise impact the broader landscape. Solar power, water management, and biochar systems address the pollution and resource demands that industrial-scale animal confinement would typically impose on surrounding systems. The fundamental environmental cost of intensive production is thus internalized by the birds themselves through reduced welfare and confinement conditions. This technological approach to sustainability thus relies upon animal welfare reduction as the primary means of preventing environmental externalities from escaping the operation's boundaries. By highlighting environmental features and occluding animal welfare concerns Waialua Fresh positions itself as embodying sustainability praxis as a proxy for the local value of _mālama ʻāina_. This rhetorical strategy even extends to describing industrial confinement buildings as "shelters," terminology that Hee argues rebrands what is essentially "a giant cage" where hens "live with 50,000 others" [-@hee_2023]. Sustainability claims face additional challenges when examined more broadly. Waialua Fresh's inputs extend well beyond energy and water, and their purported reduced shipping 'footprint' from local production and distribution [@villarosellc_2021] was assailed by Hawaii Foodservice Alliance owner Chad Buck, a major distributor of local and imported eggs in Hawaii. Regarding Waialua Fresh's complete reliance on imported feed and chicks, Buck's riposte was pointed: 'If the imported additives stop – the eggs stop. It is hard to imagine how anyone could call this 'sustainable agriculture'' [Buck, as quoted in @heaton_2021]." ##### Values Washing & The Consumer-Citizen The performance of values as a market building strategy has firmly embedded in firm strategy in the 21st century. Sharetaker firms' strategic performance of values and narratives exemplifies what @bless_2025 identifies as the co-optation of regenerative agriculture discourse within the contemporary corporate food regime. This values play is a crucial mechanism for securing the social license to operate amidst what @murdoch.etal_2000a termed the "quality turn," where consumers seek food product alignments with social and environmental goals over just price and convenience. @bless_2025 demonstrates that the "halo effect" of positive associations like regenerative agriculture is sought by corporate actors across the global food system to bolster their legitimacy. Similarly @murdoch.etal_2000a show the quality turn creates this strategic opening for corporate appropriation of local embeddedness and environmental narratives. The sharetaker case studies demonstrate pursuits of legitimacy through the "halo effect" of _mālama ʻāina_ while endeavoring to capitalize on the quality turn. Agricultural production inevitably involves trade-offs. Underlying values inform the decision-making that becomes reflected an operation's production model. Through this lens, the production model is the practical value expression around which a rhetorical value expression may be built. Fundamental contradictions between espoused values and operational prouction decisions reveal the underlying values system across all three sharetake cases: **Mahi Pono's** avowed _mālama_ (stewardship), _pono_ (righteousness), and commitment to "sustainable agriculture" is contradicted by mass herbicide application, monoculture plantings, and environmental violations. The production model of industrial practices with chemical substitution, biological simplification, and the perpetuation of colonial water extraction systems reveals the primary value to return portfolio value to Canadian pensioners rather than _mālama ʻāina_. **Hawaii Meats'** appropriates the _mālama ʻāina_ practices of island cattle operations, positioning itself as supporting local ranchers while pursuing consolidation that undermines those same producers. "Grass-fed" and "all natural" marketing conflates ranchers' production ethics with Hawaii Meats' monopolistic processing control, revealing the extractive logic of market domination driving firm decision-making. **Villa Rose's** proximity performing invocation of traditional Hawaiian agricultural sustainability occurs whilst applying technological "solutions" to the environmental problems of their industrial-scale animal confinement. The firm's green trapppings, solar power, biochar systems, and water management all serve to internalize externalities from the gross costs of intensive production with reduced animal welfare. None of the cases demonstrated a reciprocal relationship aspect of _mālama ʻāina_ in the practical values system of the firm production model. Instead values of _mālama ʻāina_ sustainability serving a discursive and rhetorical function are absent in the core production models. This veneer takes from the shared ethos of island communities and masks contradictions between ethical stewardship and extractive capital accumulation. This mask of thin values claims risks perforation of legitimacy that could endanger social license to operate. Indeed, both Mahi Pono and Waialua Fresh faced public challenges to their environmental and stewardship narratives, demonstrating how contested these legitimation strategies can become. %% Move to be the opener for the next section?%% Such contest has a demonstrated history of impacting agricultural operations in the islands. Vehement public challenge spurred by community concerns over environmental and health impacts. In 2013 a Kauai County ordinance requiring users of restricted use pesticides to implement mandatory buffer zones and use disclosures [@cocke_2013a]. The same year Hawaii County passed a bill to ban any new genetically modified crops from being produced on the island and prohibited biotech firms from operating there [@cocke_2013]. In 2014 a Maui County ballot initiative banned the production and testing of genetically engineered crops [@hofschneider_2014]. All three laws were struck down in federal court based on pre-emption by Hawaii's Right to Farm Act [@barnett-rose_2015; @associatedpress_2016; @ashwood.etal_2023]. Subsequently dairy operations focused on production for local consumption also faced pushback. Community concerns and legal challenges ultimately led to the closure in 2018 of the Big Island Dairy in Ookala and the 2019 cessation of the Hawaii Dairy Farms project on Kauai [@gupta_2016; @gupta.makov_2017; @lovell_2018; @centerforfoodsafety_2023]. Despite both projects' production location and product destination alone were insufficient to sustain social license. In reviewing the dairy cases Gupta highlights that "most local food advocates do not value local purely on a geographical basis, but instead value locally grown food when it embodies other desirable attributes that they associate (or arguably conflate) with “local,” such as organic or small-scale" [-@gupta_2016, p. 486]. Recognizing the vulnerability of social license and that local market orientation alone may not secure it, sharetaker firms also seek to demonstrate that they provide material value to local communities through narratives of food security and economic benefits. #### Local Benefits: Food Security & Self-Sufficiency - Food security rhetoric justifying market consolidation - GMO battles as counter example? [[local benefits notes]] While biotechnology firms self-definition framed them as necessary means to address concerns of global hunger and "feed the world", the Sharetaker set engages with longstanding interest in the Hawaiian Islands in reducing food import dependence. These island concerns are themselves local variations of durable Malthusian global narratives around food scarcity. In the island context concern for Malthusian overshoot, termed that or otherwise, underpins at least some volume hand wringing over food import dependence. This concern however is often parried or presented with the island's history of productivity that sustained a comparable or larger population of Hawaiians prior to Western contact \[CITATION NEEDED]. This framing however tees up productivity as the resolution to import-dependence, which itself is often confused with having responsibility for household food insecurity%% as will be explored in [[5. History of Food Crisis in Hawaii]] or [[5.5 COVID-19 Pandemic in Hawaii Foodways]]%%. As noted above however, @suryanata_2002 identified that increased local output more readily competes with other local production than directly leading to decreased imports. Furthermore, the muddling of food self-sufficiency and food security concepts, as detailed by @loke.leung_2013a, enables a public perception that by dint of a few firms increasing their production in the islands that we will make headway towards reducing not just import dependence but also household hunger. %% Uncle Mac Poepoe and Jefts' farm %% [[Molokai farm transitions]] So how have Sharetakers fed into these and similar narratives of feeding? The narrative power thus cannot be ignored. Similar to the narratives surrounding *accumulation by molecularisation*, Sharetaker narratives and that of *accumulation by localization* ##### Mahi Pono - **food self-sufficiency** - **citrus & export** @segal_2021 > “Rather than creating local food security as the company has promised, the Mahi Pono business plan is dependent on export crops,” wrote Shay Chan Hodges, a co-organizer of Responsible Markets’ initiative, the Maui ESG Project, and co-author of the report. “Additionally, the company operates secretively and with little transparency, and has failed to generate the number of jobs promised.” @correa_2021 of A&B land sale on food sovereignty and Hawaiian health - Mahi Pono shaping future of Hawaii ag through CTAHR dean search [@uh_2023], ADC board seat [@mahipono_2023], ##### Hawaii Meats - supporting 172 ranchers - @kamaainaranches_2023b: "The Kama‘Āina Ranches brand was created to provide Safeway customers throughout Hawaii with access to the meat from over 172 local cattle ranches in Hawaii. More and more customers want to know where their food comes from, and all beef sold under the Kama‘Āina brand has been raised and finished in Hawaii. ==Our brand represents large, full-time cattle operations as well as many small ranchers== who choose to meet the high standards that Safeway expects from its suppliers. ==By purchasing this locally grown, grass-fed meat, Safeway customers are supporting their local economy and the families of local ranchers who raised these animals==." ##### Waialua Fresh - Hawaii Foodbank truck in the promo video on company website front page [@villarosellc_2021] - @villarosellc_2021 homepage re FOOTPRINT "CURRENTLY 75-80% OF FOOD IN HAWAII IS IMPORTED FROM THE MAINLAND. VILLA ROSE WILL PRODUCE AND DISTRIBUTE LOCALLY, REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF RESOURCES DEPLETED BY SHIPPING EGGS FROM THE MAINLAND." - CAFOs & Public health - @douglas.etal_2018 - Community benefits - >[!llm] Community engagement reinforces this positioning through donations to "food banks, churches, and community programs," while company statements invoke narratives of "giving back to the land and community" [@villarosellc_2021]. The company's website further emphasizes geographic embeddedness, describing itself as an "OFF-GRID CAGE FREE EGG FARM LOCATED ON THE NORTH SHORE OF O'AHU" [@villarosellc_2021]. These proximity markers create what appears to be organic local relationship while manufacturing consent for arrangements that primarily serve external capital. - "SPANNING ACROSS 300 ACRES ON THE NORTH SHORE OF O’AHU, WAIALUA FRESH IS A COMPLETELY OFF-GRID OPERATION. SOLAR POWERED, ENERGY INDEPENDENT, CARBON NEUTRAL AND ==BUILT BY LOCAL TRADESMEN==, THE FARM HAS SUPPORTED HAWAII’S SUSTAINABILITY GOALS WHILE ALSO CREATING ==MORE THAN 400 JOBS FOR THE ECONOMY==. IT’S SOLAR ARRAYS DOUBLE AS CAGE FREE SHELTER FOR THE HENS WITH PLENTY OF STORAGE TO REUSE THE ENERGY AND KEEP THE FARM RUNNING." @villarosellc_2021a - @heaton_2021 on reducing import dependence - @heaton_2023a: 'Eggflation' Puts Hawaii Egg Prices On Par With Mainland Imports - @heaton_2025: Mainland Egg Prices Drop, Waialua Fresh Egg Farm Scales Up > [!quote] @villarosellc_2021a > ALMOST 90% OF ALL THE EGGS CONSUMED IN HAWAII COME FROM THE MAINLAND. 10 YEARS AGO, TWO FAMILY-OWNED COMPANIES SAW THIS PROBLEM AND REALIZED HOW UNSUSTAINABLE IT WAS. HIDDEN VILLA RANCH AND ROSE ACRE FARMS DECIDED TO COMBINE THEIR RESOURCES, KNOWLEDGE, AND EXPERTISE IN THE EGG INDUSTRY AND FORMED VILLA ROSE EGG FARM. SINCE THEN, VILLA ROSE HAS BEEN COMMITTED TO SUSTAINABILITY AND MAKING KEY DECISIONS THAT FOLLOW THAT MODEL. > > OUR FARM WAS BUILT TO GENERATE POSITIVE, MEASURABLE SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT, GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY AND LAND THAT HAS HOSTED IT. VILLA ROSE HOPES THAT IT CAN BE AN EXAMPLE TO OTHERS AND CAN BE USED AS A MODEL OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE. THE GOAL OF VILLA ROSE IS TO HELP HAWAII RELY LESS ON IMPORTS FROM THE MAINLAND AND WISHES TO REPLACE ALL OF THE EGGS COMING FROM THE MAINLAND. > > THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS HOLD A SPECIAL PLACE IN HISTORY AS THE HOME OF ADVANCED CULTURES WHO FLOURISHED IN AGRICULTURE AND SUSTAINABILITY, WORKING ONLY WITH WHAT WAS AVAILABLE TO THEM ON THE ISLAND. AS TIME WENT ON, AND TOURISM SURGED, THE ISLANDS BECAME MORE RELIANT ON IMPORTS TO MEET THE RISING LEVEL OF DEMAND AND THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCAL AGRICULTURE WAS LOST. CURRENTLY OVER 85% OF GOODS ARE IMPORTED AND THE RECENT PANDEMIC SHED MORE LIGHT ON JUST HOW VULNERABLE THESE PRECIOUS ISLANDS ARE. AS MAINLAND FARMS STRUGGLED TO MATCH THEIR OWN STATES DEMAND, IT BECAME MORE DIFFICULT TO SHIP GOODS OUT TO THE MOST ISOLATED ARCHIPELAGO IN THE WORLD, HAWAII. > > CURRENT INEFFICIENCIES FUELED INSPIRATION AND LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OF DEVELOPING A FULLY SUSTAINABLE FARM ON A LARGE SCALE TO SUPPORT ALL OF HAWAII FROM A LOCAL LEVEL. THUS, VILLA ROSE WAS BORN AND WAIALUA FRESH WAS CREATED. WITH THE WAIANAE MOUNTAIN RANGE BEHIND US, THIS PARCEL WAS STRATEGICALLY CHOSEN FOR ITS NATURAL DEFENSES AGAINST THE ELEMENTS, FRESH TRADE WINDS, AND FAVORABLE CONDITIONS TO ENSURE THE OPTIMUM ENVIRONMENT FOR THE HEALTH OF OUR CHICKENS. NOT TO MENTION, ALL OF OUR CHICKENS ARE CAGE-FREE. See @winter_2003 and ![[Hong Annotated Bibliography#^714f07]] **Scale Discontinuity Evidence**: - Social scale transformation in land relationship from cultural connection to business asset - Shift from local/traditional knowledge systems to corporate/technical knowledge systems - Cultural appropriation of local symbols and language **Narrative Evolution Through Crisis**: - COVID-19 positioning as "essential services" and supply chain resilience - Policy advocacy messaging during regulatory opportunities - Community relationship management during consolidation phases - Strategic hiring (Shan at Mahi Pono, Brandi at Hawaii Meats, etc) %%AI- totally. i don't know if relevant here, it is also interesting to note how different communities respond - from an external business perspective this may be a signifier pointing to recognition and valuing not only of generalized local community but of *hawaiian* community. and yet these hires also (perhaps as side effects) form rifts and mistrust inside of specific communities, exacerbating the social harm that these firms bring about by entering the business of "localizing" %% #### [[Concluding Legitimation Narratives]] ### E. Market Restructuring and New Risk Landscapes > [!alert] [[2023-10-24 - systemic risk , cascading failures]] #### Risk Restructuring Ideas from [[2025-11-05 autarky & self-sufficiency]] ^44baf8 In each case the risk topology moves as a result of shifting from diversity to consolidation: 1. **Market Concentration Risk** - Legitimated by "efficiency" and "scale necessary for self-sufficiency" - @labendowicz_2021 monopolization pattern - Outline the hollowing out of the now middle scale of agriculture in Hawaii 2. **Decision-Making Displacement Risk** - "Local values" rhetoric masks mainland/offshore control - @helleiner_2021 political autonomy rationale inverted 3. **Capital Flight Risk** - Closure and Departure Risk a la pine and sugar In individual cases distinct risk movements also emerge: 1. **Mahi Pono: Production Concentration Risk - Single breadbasket concerns restore prior potential for drastic disruption due to environmental hazards 2. **Hawaii Meats: Infrastructure Dependency Risk** - Single processor/distributor = new chokepoint - @zeleny_1997 : heteropoietic systems need external maintenance 3. **Waialua Fresh: Supply Chain Movement Risk** - Import exposure shifts up supply chain rather than disappearing - If Waialua Fresh eclipses prior local production a novel risk emerges through the disruption not of continental egg production or shipping but of grain. - also **Production Concentration Risk** - Single breadbasket concerns restore prior potential for drastic disruption due to environmental hazards #### Apparent Benefits vs. Hidden Vulnerabilities **Apparent Benefits**: - Increased local production capacity across all three sectors - Infrastructure development and job creation - Alignment with state food security goals **Hidden Vulnerabilities**: - **Market Concentration**: Reduced resilience and consumer choice - **Single Points of Failure**: Consolidated processing (Hawaii Meats), land concentration (Mahi Pono), retail control (Villa Rose) - **External Financial Dependency**: Reliance on mainland/international capital for ongoing operations - Interlock with external investments - PSP returns, bird flu, etc - **Loss of Community Control**: Democratic participation replaced by corporate decision-making **Systemic Outcomes** / **Risk and resilience**: How regime shift creates new vulnerabilities even as it promises resilience - Economic dependency on external capital despite "local" production - Production concentration in fewer hands despite increased volume - Social disconnection from community decision-making and accountability - Food system that appears more local but is less autonomous #### Mahi Pono - new #### Hawaii Meats - academic work on consolidation outcomes - bad for farmer, bad for consumers, bad for labor ###### Welcome to The Jungle? - bad for labor, Upton Sinclair #### Waialua Fresh - Risk moves up the supply chain from - Industrial scale bird loss from disease - avian flu - market manipulation & lawsuits - @volmert_2023 - Cyberattacks and food price - September 2025 ransom attack - @lee_2025 - "In 2021, JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, faced a ransomware attack that threatened the U.S. meat supply chain and drove up prices." - @petkauskas_2025 ### F. Towards a Grounded Theory - **Grounded theory**: Iterative development of multi-dimensional theoretical framework through cross-case pattern identification, followed by systematic application across cases ([[Sharetaker Case Study Format]]) - **Framework validation**: How consistently do cases demonstrate the key dimensions (capital scale, infrastructure control, policy influence, sign value legitimation, and market restructuring)? --- ## V. [[Neo-Productivism and State Support]] ==Was state action "central to the formulation of hegemony" [@jakobsen_2021, p. 4] ?== - Pre-regime: - 1st regime: yes? the regime literally took over the state.. - 2nd regime: IDK - 3rd regime: See below - state (Gov Ige) certainly seems to be leaning in on neo-productivism - Legislature didnt intervene on meat processing consolidation - Egg standards pushed by Villa rose in legislature - Water rights fights with Mahi Pono ### A. Policy Alignment with Sharetaker Interests - Role of state policies in legitimizing Sharetakers - State goal to "double local food production" as rationale for large-scale investment - Regulatory frameworks favoring economies of scale over community control - Contrast with both present and historical discursive support for diverse, small-scale agriculture - Alignment with doubling local food production goals - Policy frameworks favoring large-scale operations - the HDOA report to the legislature, pursuant to the aforementioned Act 151 (2019), highlighted large scale private investments as having promise to soon significantly increase local production [@hawaiidepartmentofagriculture_2019]. None of the listed firms were Hawaii based. Governor Ige's January 2020 State of the State address further muddied the field, on the one hand emphasizing transitioning from plantations to diversified smallholder production, while on the other forwarding billionaire and financial firm backed large scale agribusiness investment as signs of progress [@ige_2022]. ### B. Varying Forms of State Support - Vocal action from Governors vs no action from legislatures - **Executive Support**: Governor Ige's vocal backing of large-scale investments - Doubling - @ige_2019 highlights potential CostCo greenhouses - @ige_2020 notes Mahi Pono & Sensei - - **Legislative Patterns**: Non-intervention in market consolidation (Hawaii Meats) - **Regulatory Capture**: Industry influence on standards and compliance (cage-free mandate, water rights) - Example of prior approach by Larry Jefts for pesticides - **Governance implications**: Need for policy intervention to support diversity and resilience ### C. Unintended Consequences of Local Food Advocacy - How local food goals became rationale for corporate agribusiness investment - Democratic participation vs. corporate policy influence - Public interest vs. private benefit tensions [[2025-11-19 The 500 Farms Future]] --- ## VI. Analysis: The Localization Paradox ### A. Accumulation By Localization Assessment - **Framework validation**: How consistently do cases demonstrate the 5-step sequence across capital scale, infrastructure control, policy influence, sign value legitimation, and market restructuring? - **Pattern matching**: Cross-case comparison reveals both common patterns and case-specific variations ([[September 2024 Outline#Pattern Matching]]) - **Empirical refinement**: Framework adjustments based on systematic case application - **Capital Scale Achievement**: External capital successfully enabled market dominance while shifting social control from community to shareholders - **Infrastructure Control Success**: Physical chokepoints established across sectors, transforming production relations and community resource control - **Policy Influence Effectiveness**: Regulatory advantages secured with significant implications for democratic participation and community voice - **Sign Value Legitimation**: Localist narratives effectively masked fundamental social scale transformations while securing political and consumer support - **Market Restructuring Outcomes**: New dependencies and vulnerabilities created despite increased local production **Double-edged sword**: Sharetakers as both solution and source of new risk %% TRANSITION TO NEXT SECTION%%] ### B. The Central Paradox - **Global capital "going local"** while creating new dependencies on external systems - **Increased local production** alongside reduced local control and community autonomy - **Food security rhetoric** masking food system vulnerability and concentration - **Community-oriented narratives** despite community displacement and disempowerment ### C. New Risk Landscape > [!llm] > - **Regime Shift Detection**: Use @angeler.etal_2023 to discuss the application of discontinuity analysis in detecting regime shifts in Hawaii's food systems. > - **Assessing Dynamic System Structure**: Reference @angeler.etal_2016 and @roberts.etal_2019 to assess the dynamic structure of Hawaii's food systems and the creation of new dependencies and vulnerabilities. **Systemic Vulnerabilities**: - Consolidated systems with single points of failure - External financial dependency for "local" food production - Loss of democratic participation in food system governance - Market concentration reducing adaptive capacity and resilience **Resilience trade-offs**: - How regime change shifts the locus and type of risk - Increased local production - Food price and production at scale - Network effects (agglomeration economy) - manure, land access, etc --- ## VII. Implications and Conclusions > [!llm] > > - **Resilience and Vulnerability**: Discuss insights into resilience and vulnerability using @stow.etal_2007 and @sundstrom.allen_2019. Highlight the importance of these insights for policy and governance. > - **Future Research Directions**: Suggest future research directions with references to @garmestani.etal_2009 and @sundstrom_2018, focusing on further applications of discontinuity theory and panarchy. ### A. Theoretical Contributions - Accumulation by localization as novel third regime strategy ([[2025-01-12 accumulation through localization]]) - Scale discontinuity analysis for understanding food system transformation ([[Scale Domain Analysis Framework for Hawaii's Sharetaker Transitions]], [[2024-09-17 discontinuity and scale domains]]) - Sharetaker concept for analyzing corporate local food investments ([[Sharetaker Case Study Format]]) - **Risk and resilience**: New insights for food regime and resilience theory ### B. Policy and Governance Implications - Need for scale-appropriate support for genuine local food systems - Democratic participation requirements in food system planning - Community control mechanisms in agricultural development - **Governance for resilience**: Policy recommendations for managing risk in the new regime - @russo.etal_2011 on market power in policy design #### Mahi Pono - Water rights management #### Hawaii Meats - COOL labeling - federal MCOOL - state label program and governance of "local" term use - Monopoly regulation - adress abdicated state role #### Waialua Fresh - CAFO regulations - @kulkarni_2019 on state and federal action - @ashwood.etal_2023 on right to farm law changes ### C. Future Research Directions - Long-term outcomes of sharetaker consolidation - Comparative analysis with other island and peripheral food systems - Community resistance and alternative development strategies - Quantitative approaches - Apply discontinuity theory informed analyses - Herfindahl-Hirschman Index for market concentration - @howard_2016 for use and critique - @deteix.etal_2024 on use, limitations, and future research direction > [!llm] ### Conclusion: Risks of Localism Without Autonomy > > What appears as a renaissance in local food is in many cases a rebranded form of agribusiness expansion. *Accumulation by localization* allows external actors to dominate under the guise of community investment and sustainability. This not only reconfigures risks but also constrains the space for truly autonomous, community-led food systems. > > Understanding these dynamics is essential to designing policy and governance structures that preserve resilience, diversity, and local control—rather than trading them for the appearance of local food in an extractive system. --- ## Research Methods & Data Sources ### Primary Sources - Corporate filings and financial reports - Policy documents and legislative records - Media coverage and press releases - Interview subjects and community voices ### Secondary Sources - USDA NASS agricultural census and survey data - State agricultural statistics and reports - Academic research and industry analyses ### Analytical Approaches - **Grounded theory**: Iterative development of multi-dimensional theoretical framework through cross-case pattern identification, followed by systematic application across cases ([[Sharetaker Case Study Format]]) - **Grounded theory with theoretical sampling**: Framework emerges from empirical case data rather than imposed a priori - Scale discontinuity analysis across production, economic, and social domains ([[Scale Domain Analysis Framework for Hawaii's Sharetaker Transitions]], [[2024-09-17 discontinuity and scale domains]]) - Pattern matching and incorporated comparison ([[September 2024 Outline#Pattern Matching]]) - Policy process tracing and influence mapping - Narrative and discourse analysis ([[2024-11-16 sign-value and "local" food]]) --- ## Author Positionality Statement >[!warning] Add a note about my work on behalf of Mahi Pono and Villa Rose > Highlight that the chapter is intended as analysis not indictment > *Acknowledgment of > - consulting work for Mahi Pono and Villa Rose (2020), > - lobbying work against various Sharetaker bills > - previous leadership role in Sierra Club which has lawsuit with EMI > > *Emphasize that focus is on the analytical rather than advocacy intent of this research.* >[!warning] Add a note about my work on behalf of Hawaii Farmers Union >Testimony against most of the bills proposed.. ## [[Projecting a Sharetaker Adaptive Cycle]] ## References