## Mahi Pono: Land, Water, and "Mālama ʻĀina" ### 1. Opening Vignette %%VIGNETTE NEEDED: Write a 2–3 paragraph scene from the Mahi Pono landscape that establishes the tension between "A Maui Farming Company" and the reality visible on the ground. Candidates: the Mahi Pono billboard on Hana Highway opposite dry taro patches; a food hub stocking Mahi Pono bananas next to smallholder produce; the citrus orchards stretching to the horizon where sugar once stood. Descriptive, non-academic prose — observe, don't analyze. The HC&S closure narrative has been moved to S2 where it belongs as sector history.%% [[mahi vingnette]] ### 2. Sector History & Site Context In December 2016, the smoke of burning cane fields rose over Central Maui for the last time. As the final harvest of Hawaii Commercial & Sugar (HC&S) concluded, the Puunene Mill fell silent, marking the end of "King Sugar" and over a century of colonial agribusiness dominance. For over 145 years, the isthmus had been dominated by HC&S, a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin (A&B). A&B represented the pinnacle of the plantation era: a vertically integrated monoculture nourished by millions of gallons of water diverted from the streams of East Maui to the arid central plains by its subsidiary East Maui Irrigation (EMI) system. The agronomic history of Central Maui is synonymous with the history of industrial sugar in Hawaii. Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar had been the state's last remaining sugar plantation, operating in an industry that had been contracting across the islands since the 1980s as federal price supports were reduced and global competition intensified [CITATION]. When sugar ended in Central Maui, it marked the conclusion of a decades-long decline rather than an abrupt crisis. Hawaii concerns over import dependence and calls for agricultural diversification long predate the end of sugar. Even at sugar's height, voices called for economic diversification. An 1882 editorial observed that in the early and mid 19th century "the financial prosperity of this country depended upon the products of the sea. There was only one crop, and that was \[whale] oil. Now the prosperity of the country is dependent entirely on the soil, and still we have only one crop and that is sugar" [@rhas_1882]. The writer argued that Hawaiʻi should have "a hundred different crops, because we combine the advantages of the tropical and temperate zones," capable of producing "more wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, turnips and other roots and fruits of all kinds, than any other country, temperate or tropical" [@rhas_1882]. As early as 1882, observers noted the peculiarity that Hawaiʻi should "send 4000 miles for supplies of a vegetable which ought to grow here like a weed," characterizing this as "another instance of the way in which almost all of what should be the minor industries of the country are neglected" [@bush_1882]. Over the turn of centuries, headlines continued to make this case: "Beginning To Feed Ourselves" [@histar_1911] and "Territory Should Be Able to Feed Itself" [@drum_1938]. The terminology applied has evolved over time. From the Food Problem in the 1940s [@nippu_1940] to food self-sufficiency in the 21st century [@leung.loke_2008; @lukens_2018; @azizifardkhales_2019]. This historical continuity reveals that contemporary concerns over food import dependence are not new anxieties created by sugar's demise, but represent longstanding tensions inherent in colonial plantation agriculture. The same extractive systems that concentrated land, labor, and capital around export crops simultaneously created the import dependencies that persisted even as specific export commodities shifted. %%EDIT NEEDED: Complete the whaling-sugar-tourism transition.%% State agricultural policy addressing diversification accelerated in the 1990s and 2000s as plantation closures increased. The state-owned Agribusiness Development Corporation (ADC) was established to facilitate the transition of agricultural infrastructure and acquire assets for alternative farming ventures [@act264_1994]. The diversification strategy emphasized production volume and economic development, seeking to replace sugar's economic contribution through new commercial crops [CITATION]. While the state acquired significant tracts of former plantation lands, a central and often challenging component of the policy was the acquisition and rehabilitation of irrigation systems to ensure their continued use for diversified agriculture. EMI's irrigation system had been engineered to deliver large volumes of water across extensive acreages. Though HC&S closed in 2016, this legacy of sugar remained intact. A&B's concentration of ownership of both the agricultural lands and EMI created a bottleneck. Any successor would need to work within A&B's terms for both land access and water rights. Yet, while HC&S closure opened a window of possibility, the "post-plantation" future of Maui suddenly contestable, the scale of the infrastructure and the integrated nature of land and water rights created conditions that favored large-scale private or state purchase over distributed ownership models. Rather than being dismantled, these structures awaited transfer to new operators capable of utilizing the industrial-scale systems while navigating contemporary political and environmental pressures. %%GAP (SQ1): Who framed the post-HC&S vacuum as requiring a single large-scale successor rather than distributed alternatives? Was this A&B's framing? The state's? Media? Documenting this discursive move would show how the "failure" was used to justify a large-scale savior and directly support SQ1 (narrative construction).%% The "post-plantation" moment thus presented both opportunity and constraint: opportunity for new forms of agriculture, but within the structural legacy of systems designed for industrial monoculture. This context would shape the terms under which Mahi Pono would enter and position its operations. ### 3. Ownership, Capital Structure and the Land and Water of Control 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 a Canadian Crown corporation and one of Canada's largest public pension investment managers. In 2018, PSP managed nearly CAD$160 billion in assets, overseeing funds of armed forces and federal employee pensions [@pspinvestments_2018]. PSP's initiating legislative charter outlines its fiduciary responsibilities, stating it shall "invest its assets with a view to achieving a maximum rate of return" [@pspibact_1999, s. 4(1)(b)]. In December 2018, PSP purchased 41,000 acres from HC&S parent company Alexander & Baldwin (A&B) [@pspinvestments_2018]. Prior to its closure in 2016, HC&S was Hawaii's last running sugar plantation, operating since 1882. The purchase included a 50% ownership stake in A&B subsidiary East Maui Irrigation Company (EMI), the price however hinged upon continued access to inexpensive irrigation water from East Maui. 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 though its system of ditches, tunnels, and reservoirs. Mahi Pono's purchase 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 [@alexander&baldwinllcseriesr.etal_2018]. At the time of sale, A&B was operating under temporary permits which ensured water could legally be diverted through the end of 2019 [@act126_2016]. PSP's 2019 annual report classifies Mahi Pono as a Real Assets investment within the Natural Resources tranche of its portfolio, which focuses on long-term investments in timber forestry, and agriculture. The report section on Mahi Pono concluded that by "strengthening and diversifying Maui's agriculture industry, addressing community priorities, and protecting and enhancing the value of PSP's investment over the long term, the deal promises to be a win-win for all involved" [@psp_2019, p.14]. 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]. Pomona Farming holds stake in the production of almonds, pistachios, walnuts, and raisins in California's Central Valley [@pomonafarming_2025; @pomonafarming_2026]. PSP's aforementioned 2019 report listed Mahi Pono among other new agricultural investments, including approximately 12,000 acres of perennial crop operations in Latin America and more than 110,000 acres of cereal and perennial crop operations in Australia [@psp_2019]. Despite this global scope, PSP's launch of the Mahi Pono venture was framed around local alignment. The initial announcement emphasized that there were "no plans to convert any of the lands to non-agricultural purposes" and outlined a plan for the "production of high-quality, non-GMO foodstuffs for local consumption," the "creation of jobs for local residents," and "providing land and water... for use by small, local farmers" [@pspinvestments_2018]. The 2019 report reinforced this, concluding that by "addressing community priorities... the deal promises to be a win-win for all involved" [@psp_2019, p.14]. This "win-win" framing reveals the structural tension at the heart of the enterprise. The subsidiary's operation is legally and financially predicated on PSP's statutory mandate to "achieve a maximum rate of return," yet its public viability depends on satisfying local expectations for stewardship. Any gap between the financial imperatives of the distant pension fund and the localized promise of its venture could imperil the firm's legitimacy, and thereby threaten the politically contingent water rights crucial to meeting that financial mandate. Failing to secure and maintain a social license to operate could put the entire venture at risk. This necessity drives the firm's robust legitimation strategy. ### 4. Social License: The Legitimation Narrative Social License to Operate (SLO) refers to the ongoing acceptance of a company's business practices by its stakeholders, extending beyond legal compliance to the realm of social legitimacy. Securing this license is an existential necessity for Mahi Pono, not merely a public relations exercise, as the firm's financial mandate depends on maintaining political control over contested water rights. The firm entered Hawaii's agricultural landscape in the wake of a protracted and contentious period of anti-GMO activism that challenged the presence and practices of seed producing agribusinesses [@brower_2022]. This recent history demonstrated that legal standing alone is insufficient to guarantee operational freedom. Community opposition can stall operations, influence regulation, and jeopardize the 'social contract' legitimacy required for public resource use. To avert such an outcome, the firm employs a legitimation strategy that constructs a local corporate identity, signals values alignment, and promises material benefits to the community. This section examines these three interrelated narrative dimensions. First, it analyzes place-based branding choices that cast the subsidiary as a local entity, specifically through the selection of the name 'Mahi Pono,' the use of specific landscape imagery, and the appropriation of Hawaiian language to perform island embeddedness. Second, it investigates environmental and production claims that communicate local values, examining how stewardship narratives are articulated through concepts like mālama ʻāina and "responsible farming." Finally, it documents how the firm utilizes food security narratives to communicate local benefits, presenting its capital investments as aligned with reducing Hawaii's reliance on imports. Together, these dimensions demonstrate how Mahi Pono constructs "localness" as a strategy of securing SLO. #### Local Entity PSP and its California registered, and California-place named, Pomona Farming LLC selected the title Mahi Pono for their Hawaii partnership. Depicting the landscape where much of their land holdings are located, the firm logo (see @fig:mahipono-logo) stylizes Maui's cultivated central plains backed by the West Maui Mountains (*Mauna Kahalawai* or House of Water, the Meeting Place of Waters). These visual elements and supporting text ('A Maui Farming Company') define Mahi Pono's place-based branding strategy. {#fig:mahipono-logo width=60%} In *ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi*, the Hawaiian language, *mahi* means to farm or cultivate, serving as the root for the Hawaiian word for farmer *mahi ʻai*. _Pono_ carries diverse meanings, though it is commonly translated as righteous or righteousness based on its use in _Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono_ (the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness). King Kamehameha III spoke these words in 1843 during the restoration of Hawaiian sovereignty, and the phrase has served as Hawaii's official motto since the Hawaiian Kingdom through statehood in 1959. 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 displayed on the firm's website "responsible farming" (see @fig:mp-landing). Previous iterations of the website offered the additional meaning "to farm or cultivate morally and properly", stating the firm is "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]. This is not the firms only proclamation of ethical environmental and production paired with positive community impact. {#fig:mp-landing width=400px} The use of Hawaiian words as firm names is normative in the islands, demonstrating a desire to be viewed as an entity of the place. However, the selection of _pono_, a term tied to righteousness and moral authority, extends beyond geographic identification. By incorporating this concept of moral correctness into its corporate identity, Mahi Pono positions itself not merely as _of_ the place, but as _aligned_ with its values. This semantic positioning represents the first element in a broader deployment of indigenous values and sustainable agriculture principles as legitimating frameworks. #### Local Values: Sustainable Agriculture & The Promise of "Responsible Farming" Mahi Pono explicitly positions its operational mandate within the framework of sustainable agriculture and environmental stewardship. This commitment is formalized in the company's stated mission to "sustain the well being of Hawai'i 'ohana through responsible farming" and the "responsible use of the natural resources entrusted to us" [@mahipono_2020]. This stewardship narrative is articulated through the adoption of specific Hawaiian values, most notably *Mālama*. In the firm's value statements, Mālama is defined as the "responsible stewardship of Maui's natural resources," specifically citing ʻāina, water & renewable energy [@mahipono_2020]. This rhetoric frames the company not merely as a cultivator of crops, but as a custodian of the landscape. **Defining Sustainability through Negation** Mahi Pono's communications regarding sustainable agriculture focus on practices it does not employ, specifically contrasting its methods with previous plantation-era approaches. In its initial acquisition announcement, PSP emphasized the plan for the "production of high-quality, non-GMO foodstuffs for local consumption" [@pspinvestments_2018]. This specific "non-GMO" pledge was crucial for securing a social license in a community fatigued by anti-GMO conflict. In 2020, responding to allegations of the misapplication of the restricted use pesticide Gramoxone [@rybak_2020], Senior Vice President of Operations Shan Tsutsui published an opinion-editorial titled "Bringing Sustainable Ag to Maui" [@tsutsui_2020]. The piece further defined the firm's practices by what they exclude, specifically highlighting the decision to cease the use of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. Given the history of anti-GMO activism in Hawaii, this rejection of glyphosate served as a primary signal of the firm's break from past industrial models. The company reinforced this distinction in its public communications, explicitly stating in its FAQ that it "does not own any land formerly owned by Monsanto" and that "Monsanto is not a lessee" [@mahipono_2020a], thereby further distancing itself from the specific agrochemical legacies that had mobilized community opposition. **Operational Commitments** While acknowledging that "current and future crops will be grown conventionally," the firm links its conventional methods to a standard of safety rather than standard agroecological practice. The "Bringing Sustainable Ag" editorial pledged that the company would "never produce anything that is unsafe for our consumption, our families and the community" [@tsutsui_2020]. When addressing the externalities of industrial production, such as fugitive dust events, the firm frames these issues as transitional challenges inherent to the restoration of productivity. Operational impacts are positioned as temporary necessities in service of a higher goal: the "mission to increase our state's food security through local, diversified agriculture" [@hnnstaff_2023]. By this logic, the scale of the operation is presented not as an industrial liability, but as the necessary condition for delivering "diversified agriculture" to the state. #### Local Benefits: The Promise of Food Security Mahi Pono's legitimation strategy consistently emphasizes food security. The company explicitly frames its mission as "Growing food to reduce Hawaii's reliance on imported produce" [@mahipono_2025]. In a state importing approximately 90% of its food, the firm positions its operations as a direct solution to Hawaii's reliance on offshore supply chains. **Import Substitution Claims** From its inception, the firm's parent capital explicitly framed the venture as locally oriented. In its 2018 acquisition announcement, PSP stated the plan included the "production of high-quality... foodstuffs for local consumption" and "providing land and water in an agricultural park for use by small, local farmers" [@pspinvestments_2018]. The 2019 PSP annual report reinforced this narrative, claiming their stakeholder engagement "led to a plan that envisions multiple crops, with a focus on local consumption." The report concluded that "by strengthening and diversifying Maui's agriculture industry... the deal promises to be a win-win for all involved" [@psp_2019, p. 14]. This narrative has been consistent in local communications. In the 2020 op-ed, Senior Vice President of Operations Shan Tsutsui defined the operational goal as producing "high-yield, successful food crops that will ultimately help Hawaiʻi achieve food security" [@tsutsui_2020]. Upon planting its millionth tree in 2021, the firm characterized the project as creating "a thriving hub of diversified agriculture and increase[ing] food security for the island of Maui, and the state of Hawai'i" [@mauinow_2021]. **Institutional Validation** Mahi Pono validates this role through participation in state-level sustainability networks. The firm highlights its membership in the Sustainability Business Forum (SBF) of Hawaii Green Growth, noting on its website that as "one of the few SBF members from the food and agriculture industry... one of our priorities within the SBF is to drive the discussion on the State's food security situation" [@mahipono_2025a]. **Resource Justification** Crucially, the firm links this food security mandate to its control over essential infrastructure. In 2025, a company statement explicitly tied its ownership of the East Maui Irrigation system to public benefit, stating that "adequate water is essential for farming and local food security" [@gomes_2025]. By this logic, the firm's exclusive access to public water resources is framed not as a private asset, but as a prerequisite for community resilience. #### Section Conclusion The construction of Mahi Pono as a "local" entity, governed by _mālama_ values and dedicated to food security, constitutes a comprehensive legitimation strategy. Through place-based branding, environmental stewardship narratives, and food security commitments, the firm forwards a corporate identity aligned with community values and priorities. The following section examines how these narrative claims were deployed in specific policy arenas. ### 5. Policy Actions: The Institutional Mechanism The acquisition of agricultural land in Central Maui was contractually and operationally inseparable from the acquisition of water rights. The mechanism for securing these rights involved a multi-year progression through private contract law, state legislation, administrative permitting, and judicial review. #### 5.1 The Purchase Agreement and Water Valuation The financial structure of Mahi Pono's entry into Hawaii explicitly valued water access. The December 2018 purchase agreement between Alexander & Baldwin (A&B) and Mahi Pono, involving 41,000 acres of land and a 50% stake in East Maui Irrigation (EMI), included specific performance clauses regarding water delivery. The sale agreement placed a premium on the availability of irrigation water. Public disclosures revealed that the deal valued the land significantly higher if water access was guaranteed. Specifically, the contract stipulated that if EMI was unable to deliver a minimum of 30 million gallons per day (MGD) of water, A&B would owe Mahi Pono a rebate on the purchase price, estimated at up to $62 million [@alexander&baldwinllcseriesr.etal_2018; @kay.etal_2023]. This contractual clause effectively monetized the state's water permitting process, creating a direct financial liability for A&B contingent upon favorable regulatory outcomes. #### 5.2 Legislative Bridges: Act 126 and HB 1326 At the time of the sale, A&B's right to divert water relied on "holdover" permits, and the water rights inherited by Mahi Pono relied on a legislative stopgap. Following a 2016 court ruling that invalidated the perpetual renewal of temporary permits held by Alexander & Baldwin, the Hawaii Legislature had passed **Act 126 (2016)**. This measure retroactively legalized the "holdover" status of these permits for a three-year window, allowing diversions to continue while a long-term Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was prepared. As the Act 126 window approached its expiration in 2019, just months after Mahi Pono's entry, the firm lobbied for **House Bill 1326**, which sought to extend the temporary water permits. The firm argued that the extension was essential for agricultural operations, stating that the "diminished value" of the land without secured water would impede farming efforts. The bill encountered significant opposition, generating over 1,000 pieces of testimony. In April 2019, the Senate Ways and Means Committee deferred the bill, allowing the legislative authorization to expire. The firm's legislative testimony explicitly deployed the legitimation narratives constructed in Section 4. In written testimony to the House Water, Land and Hawaiian Affairs Committee (February 8, 2019), Senior Vice President Shan Tsutsui stated: "At Mahi Pono, we are stewards of the land and water and take that responsibility very seriously. We will prioritize conservation and natural resources management." The testimony further claimed the firm was "committed to high-quality, non-GMO foods for local consumption," was "exploring regenerative and traditional Native Hawaiian farming practices," and would be "providing land and water in an agricultural park for use by small, local farmers" (HB1326_TESTIMONY_WLH_02-08-19.PDF, pp. 10-11). Crucially, the testimony framed water access as a matter of public need rather than corporate interest: "We need this legislation to ensure a continuous source of water: (1) to farm; and (2) for the County of Maui for its upcountry Maui community." The firm also positioned itself as merely one among many affected parties, noting it was "one of 10 water permit holders" facing the deadline, and that "fellow permit holders include neighbor island utilities, ranchers and small farmers." These claims were amplified by institutional allies. The Hawaii Farm Bureau's Brian Miyamoto testified that "HB 1326 is essential for hard-working local farmers and ranchers statewide" and that "small farmers and ranchers especially, do not have the time, legal or financial resources" to obtain long-term water leases. Mayor Michael Victorino submitted a six-page letter with maps arguing that "this measure is vitally important to the people of Maui" and warning: "if EMI did not have access to East Maui water to supply Mahi Pono's efforts to develop diversified agriculture... I'm not sure if EMI would stay in the business of operating and maintaining the East Maui watershed ditch system." The Land Use Research Foundation argued that "if there is to be any chance of an agricultural future for Central Maui," water access "must be sustained." The legislative opposition systematically contested these narratives. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs testified that "only A&B would meaningfully benefit from these measures" and that "there is no legal reason why water service to Upcountry Maui water would need to be disrupted." Following the bill's deferral on April 4, 2019, Senator Gil Riviere stated publicly: "The Upcountry water issue is a non-issue. They've got the water. There is zero chance Upcountry water will be affected" (Maui Time, April 12, 2019). Senate Water and Land Committee Chair Kai Kahele acknowledged HB 1326 HD2 as "special interest legislation" and introduced an amendment deleting A&B from the bill entirely, characterizing the original version as serving the corporation rather than the farmers it claimed to protect (Maui Time, April 12, 2019; Civil Beat, April 3, 2019). #### 5.3 Administrative Continuity: The BLNR Revocable Permits With the legislative route closed, the mechanism for water access shifted to the executive branch via the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR). In September 2019, despite the lack of a legislative extension, the BLNR voted to issue new one-year **Revocable Permits (RPs)** to A&B and Mahi Pono. This administrative mechanism maintained the status quo of diversion. The 2019 permit not only continued access but authorized an annual average diversion of 45 MGD. This practice of annual renewal continued through 2020 and 2021, bridging the gap between the expiration of Act 126 and the completion of the long-term lease application. The same legitimation narratives were transposed from the legislative arena to the administrative one. At BLNR hearings, the firm continued to frame water access as essential for "local food security" and presented its operations as stewardship of agricultural land. The framing proved effective: even as the firm's actual water usage averaged well below permitted levels, the board consistently renewed permits at higher caps based on projected agricultural need. The food security and community dependency narratives were reinforced by County officials at BLNR proceedings. In December 2024, Mayor Richard Bissen supported the permit renewal as "vital to supporting the county's agricultural, municipal and emergency needs," echoing Victorino's earlier legislative testimony. The consistent deployment of the same narrative framework — agricultural necessity, community water supply, infrastructure dependency — across both legislative and administrative arenas demonstrates its function as a portable legitimation tool, adapted to whichever institutional setting governed water allocation at a given moment. Opposition advocates noted the pattern. Sierra Club attorney David Kimo Frankel told the BLNR in December 2023: "What they have done consistently is exaggerate their needs to you." At the same hearing, the DLNR's own staff had recommended only 27.4 MGD — significantly less than the 38.25 MGD the board ultimately approved after incorporating Mahi Pono's projections. #### 5.4 Judicial Intervention: Carmichael v. BLNR The administrative reliance on temporary permits faced judicial challenge. In March 2022, the Hawai'i Supreme Court issued a ruling in *_Carmichael v. BLNR_*. The Court held that the state's practice of repeatedly renewing temporary revocable permits for decades without environmental review effectively bypassed Hawaii's environmental laws (HEPA). The ruling confirmed that the temporary permits were subject to environmental assessment requirements. Following this decision, and the subsequent completion of a Final EIS in 2021, the BLNR restructured the permits in December 2022. The new consolidated permit capped diversions at 31.25 MGD for Mahi Pono's agricultural use, distinct from domestic county usage. #### 5.5 Pricing Disparities and Lease Valuations The administration of water access involved distinct pricing structures for the firm compared to other users. Operational data indicates that East Maui Irrigation (EMI), managed by Mahi Pono, charges Maui County $0.06 per 1,000 gallons for water delivered to Upcountry residents. Historical lease records show the state originally acquired this water for approximately $0.0018 per 1,000 gallons [@environmenthawaii_1997; @mahipono_2025a]. Furthermore, an independent review of the proposed long-term lease terms identified a significant pricing differential. The lease application sought water rates at approximately "1/200th of the price that local small-scale farmers pay for water on the island" [@kay.etal_2023, p. 12]. These pricing terms were central to the firm's financial modeling for the proposed 30-year water license. #### 5.6 The Long-Term Lease Deferral (2024-2025) By September 2024, the process for a 30-year long-term water lease appeared near completion, with the BLNR scheduled to vote on a license potentially granting up to 85 MGD. This lease was intended to replace the temporary revocable permit structure that had been in place since the firm's entry. However, on September 26, 2024, Maui Mayor Richard Bissen formally requested a deferral of the decision. The Mayor cited the need to collaborate with the newly established East Maui Community Water Authority, a county-level board created by voters in 2022 to manage water resources. The BLNR granted this deferral, removing the long-term lease from the agenda [@lyte_2025]. Consequently, the firm entered 2025 continuing to operate under the temporary revocable permit system rather than the secured 30-year lease it had pursued. #### 5.7 Conclusion: Localization as Policy Instrument The progression from private contract to public permit reveals that "localization" functions as more than a marketing strategy; it is a potent policy instrument. The regulatory pattern reveals a reciprocal relationship: the firm provided narratives aligned with state agricultural policy goals, while state agencies provided regulatory continuity that supported the firm's operational requirements. This dynamic enabled the conversion of temporary permits into a de facto water allocation system that persisted across multiple administrative cycles. The state's willingness to repeatedly extend temporary permits, even in the face of judicial rebuke in _Carmichael_, suggests a "policy-for-legitimacy" trade-off. The state accepted the firm's self-presentation as a steward of local agriculture and, in exchange, suspended standard environmental compliance mechanisms to ensure the firm's capital viability. By framing the continued diversion of East Maui water not as corporate extraction but as a prerequisite for "food security," the firm successfully converts a public trust resource into a private asset. The $62 million valuation gap in the purchase agreement effectively put a price tag on this political success: the "local" narrative was the key that unlocked millions in asset value, transforming the abstract promise of "farming pono" into the concrete reality of secured water rights. As the preceding subsections demonstrate, the same legitimation narratives — stewardship, food security, indigenous farming practices, community water dependency, and the small farmer shield — were deployed verbatim across legislative testimony (5.2), administrative permit hearings (5.3), and the long-term lease process (5.6). The narratives were not merely background branding; they were the operational currency of each policy exchange. The firm offered "local food security" and "mālama ʻāina" as justification; the state provided continued water access in return. When opposition voices contested these narratives — OHA calling the upcountry claim "unfounded," Senator Riviere declaring "zero chance" of disruption, CWRM finding allocations "excessive and unsubstantiated" — the administrative default still favored continuation. The legitimation narrative did not need to be believed by everyone; it needed only to provide sufficient cover for the institutional actors who controlled renewal. ### 6. Material Outcomes: Realities and Risk #### 6.1.1 Material Outcomes: Operational Realities and Regulatory Infractions While the firm's public narrative centers on stewardship and sustainability, the material record of operations—measured in chemical inputs, regulatory infractions, and planting data—demonstrates a reliance on industrial methodologies. **The Standard of Sustainability** 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]. **Chemical Substitution and Pesticide Use** In contrast to this integrated system standard, public records indicate a continued reliance on restricted-use herbicides for land preparation. In 2020, following the public controversy over chemical odors, it was confirmed that Mahi Pono had purchased approximately 240 gallons of paraquat-based herbicide (Gramoxone) [@rybak_2021]. Operational records show this chemical was applied across nearly 1,000 acres of fields [@rybak_2021]. This reliance on chemical weed management has resulted in regulatory enforcement actions. Between 2020 and 2022, the Hawaii Department of Agriculture's Pesticides Branch cited the operation for four separate violations of pesticide laws [Source: HDOA List of Repeat Violators]. These infractions challenge the firm's assertion that conventional practices are being managed to a standard of safety exceeding industry norms. **Fugitive Dust Violations** The ecological consequences of managing these lands at an industrial scale were further documented by the Hawaii Department of Health (DOH). In 2023, the DOH Clean Air Branch issued a Notice of Violation and Order against Mahi Pono, assessing a penalty of $9,600. The investigation, triggered by numerous community complaints, found that on four separate days in August and December 2022, the firm's operations caused "visible fugitive dust to become airborne without taking reasonable precautions" [@riker_2023; @hdohcleanairbranch_2023]. These violations indicate that the removal of ground cover for large-scale planting left the central plains vulnerable to wind erosion, impacting the very communities the firm pledged to "mālama." **Landscape Simplification** Production data reveals that the "diversified agriculture" strategy has manifested as a new form of monoculture. While the firm's crop maps suggest a mosaic of produce, planting statistics show a heavy concentration in single-crop blocks. In late 2021, when Mahi Pono announced the planting of its millionth tree, press reports clarified that over 600,000 of these were a single genus: citrus [@tanji_2021]. This large-scale planting of citrus orchards represents a biological simplification of the landscape. Rather than an integrated agro-ecological system using biological controls, the operation has established vast, single-species blocks that require external chemical inputs to manage pests and fertility—replicating the structural vulnerabilities of the sugar plantation it replaced. #### 6.1.2 Material Outcomes: Production Realities and Market Orientation While Mahi Pono's public rhetoric focuses on import substitution, an analysis of crop planting data and regulatory filings reveals an operational emphasis on export commodities. **Production Composition** The 2021 report by the Maui ESG Investment Project noted that "the crops that Mahi Pono is planning on growing, namely coffee, citrus, macadamia nuts, and beef (by using the land for cattle grazing), are export crops" adding that such crops "help little with Maui's food security needs" [@mauiesg_2021, p. 13]. Analysis of the September 2025 crop map data hosted on the Mahi Pono website [@mahipono_2025a] reveals just how stark the gap between food security rhetoric and operational reality has become. [Table @tbl:crops]. provides additional detail. Of the 33,190 acres mapped, Mahi Pono has dedicated 1,386 acres, or 4%, to row crops contributing to Hawaii's produce markets. By contrast, citrus production blankets 15,800 acres, nearly 50% of the total production acreage. An additional swath of nearly 10,000 acres are designated as "Future Crop," expansion plans for common export crops including coffee (1,269 acres planned), macadamia nuts (1,244 acres), and avocados (1,101 acres), albeit each with their own local markets as well. | Crop Type | Total Acres | % of Total | | ------------------ | ----------- | ---------- | | **Citrus** | 15,800 | 47.6% | | **Cattle/Forage** | 8,581 | 25.9% | | **Coffee** | 2,538 | 7.6% | | **Macadamia Nut** | 2,424 | 7.3% | | **Avocado** | 1,411 | 4.3% | | **Row Crops** | 1,386 | 4.2% | | **Tropical Fruit** | 280 | 0.8% | : Mahi Pono Crop Distribution by Acreage (September 2025) {#tbl:crops} **Developing the Export Channel** Mahi Pono executives have acknowledged this dual focus. Ryon Paton, former president of Pomona Farming and Executive Chairman of Mahi Pono, stated that "the overarching goal is to provide clean foods to the local Hawaiian market and for export" [@segal_2021]. The intent to export is further evidenced by the firm's engagement with federal regulatory hurdles. Under USDA-APHIS regulations, most fresh produce from Hawaii is prohibited from interstate movement due to fruit fly quarantine restrictions [@usda7cfr_2025]. To overcome this, the USDA Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) conducted specific studies to determine if Mahi Pono's lemons [@follett.etal_2025] and limes [@follett.etal_2024] could serve as pest hosts. In October 2025, the USDA announced that "Hawai'i-grown Lemons and Limes [are] Ready for Export," confirming that non-damaged fruit posed a low risk [@ryan_2025]. This regulatory clearance, achieved through federal research resources, effectively unlocks the continental U.S. market for the firm's largest crop category. **Resource Competition** The allocation of water resources to support this export-oriented production has generated direct conflict with local food producers. While the firm argues that "adequate water is essential for farming and local food security" [@gomes_2025], legal challenges highlight the competition for water between the firm's operations and traditional kalo (taro) cultivation. Sierra Club attorney David Kimo Frankel noted the contradiction, citing "kalo farmers, or people who would like to be growing kalo, who have no water," while the firm seeks to "expand their operation while people are suffering" [as quoted in @gomes_2025]. This conflict demonstrates that while "food security" is used to legitimate water diversion, the material outcome is the redirection of island water resources toward export crops, potentially at the expense of indigenous agricultural systems. #### 6.1.3 Material Outcomes: Water Infrastructure and Resource Allocation While policy actions maintained the legal flow of water, the material management of that water reveals discrepancies between allocated volumes, actual usage, and infrastructural efficiency. **Allocations vs. Consumption** Regulatory filings indicate a persistent gap between the water volumes requested by the firm and the volumes actually consumed by crops. In 2019, the BLNR authorized diversions up to 45 MGD based on projected needs. However, subsequent operational reports frequently showed lower actual usage. By the third quarter of 2024, EMI reported usage of approximately 32 MGD, significantly below the capacity sought in long-term lease applications (up to 85 MGD). This disparity, seeking allocations nearly triple the actual usage, suggests that water rights were being pursued as an asset rather than a strict agronomic necessity. This was highlighted during the Nā Wai 'Ehā proceedings in 2021, where the Commission on Water Resource Management (CWRM) reduced Mahi Pono's allocation from a requested 15.65 MGD to approximately 9.125 MGD. The Commission found the initial request "excessive and unsubstantiated," noting that the projections overstated true requirements [@cwrm_2021]. **Infrastructural Efficiency and System Loss** The physical condition of the water system—legacy infrastructure from the plantation era—remains a material constraint. The diversion system relies on miles of unlined ditches and reservoirs. During contested case hearings, testimony indicated that millions of gallons of diverted water are lost daily to seepage and evaporation before reaching crops. Judge Jeffrey Crabtree, in an April 2021 ruling regarding East Maui permits, noted that while the transition took time, there were valid concerns regarding "waste" within the system. The reliance on unlined reservoirs meant that high diversion volumes are required not just for irrigation, but to maintain hydraulic head in a leaking system, effectively subsidizing infrastructural inefficiency with public trust resources. **Structural Governance Change** The most significant material outcome of the water access controversy has been the creation of a counter-structure for resource governance. In November 2022, Maui voters approved Charter Amendment 12, establishing the East Maui Community Water Authority. Unlike previous regulatory shifts, this represents a structural change in the material control of the resource. The Authority creates a public entity empowered to acquire and manage the water systems previously held by private plantation interests. By 2025, the Authority had seated its board and begun active negotiations with state agencies, effectively breaking the century-long monopoly of private management over the East Maui water collection system. #### 6.1.4 Material Outcomes: Market Structural Changes **Retail Distribution and Shelf Capture** By 2025, Mahi Pono had established a retail distribution network under the **Maui Harvest** brand that spans virtually every major grocery chain operating in Hawai'i. The brand's products — lemons, limes, sweet onions, watermelon, bananas, and other crops — are carried by Costco, Safeway, Foodland, Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, Tamura's, KTA Supermarket, ABC Stores, and Island Grocery [@mahipono_2025a; @pomonafarming_2026a]. The firm also distributes through FreshPoint, a subsidiary of Sysco, the dominant institutional food service distributor in the state, and through local food hubs including Farmlink and Local Harvest. This distribution footprint is significant not for what it adds to the local food system, but for the structural position it occupies. Prior to Mahi Pono's entry, Hawai'i's locally grown produce section in major retailers was supplied by a distributed network of mid-sized commercial farms. The firm's capacity to supply multiple retail chains simultaneously — at industrial volumes, with the logistical consistency that chain procurement requires — provides a single-supplier alternative that retailers have adopted. The firm's Chef's Corner program, which provides 40 acres of curated plots to high-profile Maui chefs including Roy Yamaguchi and Beverly Gannon, extends this market position into the restaurant supply chain [@mahipono_2025a]. **The Small Farmer Promise: Proportional Reality** In its 2018 acquisition announcement, PSP stated its plan included "providing land and water in an agricultural park for use by small, local farmers" [@pspinvestments_2018]. This commitment was reiterated verbatim in Tsutsui's HB 1326 testimony. The material outcome of this commitment is measurable: in 2019, the firm opened 40 acres of community farm lots in Puʻunēnē at $150 per acre per year (Maui Now, July 23, 2019). In 2023, 15 acres were leased for a GoFarm Hawai'i training site operated by the University of Hawai'i extension program (Maui News, May 2023). These 55 acres represent **0.13%** of the firm's 41,000-acre land holdings. The remaining 99.87% is dedicated to corporate production — primarily export-oriented citrus orchards and macadamia nut plantations. While the community farm lots are functional and provide genuinely affordable land access for a small number of farmers, the proportional reality reveals the small farmer promise as a legitimation device rather than a material restructuring of land access. **Structural Competitive Advantages** The firm's market position is reinforced by structural cost advantages unavailable to independent producers. As documented in Section 5.5, the firm accesses water at approximately 1/200th of the rate paid by small-scale farmers on Maui [@kay.etal_2023, p. 12]. This pricing disparity is not incidental — it reflects the institutional inheritance of plantation-era water rights, which the firm acquired through the A&B purchase agreement. Combined with control over 41,000 acres of prime agricultural land and a 400-person workforce (with a target of 800 at full harvest), the firm operates at a scale and cost structure that no independent Maui farmer can match. **Water Displacement as Market Displacement** The resource concentration documented in Section 6.3.1 is not merely an environmental or cultural harm — it functions as a form of market displacement. Mahi Pono's continued diversion of East Maui stream water perpetuates a resource deprivation that directly constrains competing agricultural producers. This is not a novel displacement attributable to Mahi Pono's entry; it is an inherited one, actively maintained through the firm's annual permit renewals and legal contestation of stream restoration. The material consequences are documented in the regulatory record. In 2009, a CWRM field investigation in Wailua Valley found that taro farmers had been forced to substitute pumpkin for kalo due to insufficient stream flow — a crop transition imposed not by market competition but by upstream water capture [@cwrm_2009]. By 2025, East Maui residents reported that Hoʻolawa Stream remained dry approximately 70% of the time due to EMI diversions (Garden Island, July 18, 2025). The firm's acquisition of full EMI ownership in June 2025, with A&B paying Mahi Pono $55.3 million to assume the system, consolidated this resource control under a single entity. The displacement thus operates through resource deprivation rather than market competition: potential producers in East Maui cannot compete with Mahi Pono not because the firm offers a superior product or lower price, but because the firm controls the water those producers would need to farm. This represents the conversion of a public trust resource into a competitive barrier — what the Nā Wai ʻEhā court characterized as "passive failure to protect the public trust" operating as an active market advantage. **Competitive Landscape: Production at Unprecedented Scale** Beyond water-mediated displacement, the firm's crop portfolio positions it within markets where its sheer scale introduces competitive dynamics unprecedented in Hawaiʻi agriculture. The most striking example is citrus. By 2025, Mahi Pono had planted approximately 8,000 acres of Persian limes — enough, by the firm's own projection, to supply 20% of the US lime market (Fresh Fruit Portal, September 10, 2025). There is no historical precedent for commercial-scale citrus production in Hawaiʻi; the Mediterranean fruit fly effectively ended earlier commercial attempts in the early twentieth century. The firm is thus not displacing existing Hawaiʻi citrus producers — there are none at this scale — but creating an entirely new export commodity from land and water previously oriented toward sugar production and, before that, toward indigenous food systems. The firm's coffee operations, though currently modest at 80–240 acres, are positioned within a market undergoing structural contraction. Kauai Coffee Company, at 3,100 acres the largest coffee farm in the United States, issued WARN Act notices to 141 workers in January 2026 as its land lease expires in March 2026 (Civil Beat, January 2026). The potential loss of Kauai Coffee's approximately four million pounds of annual production creates a market gap that Mahi Pono is positioned — though not yet scaled — to fill. The firm's use of disease-resistant Castillo cultivar coffee plants has itself generated controversy, with Maui coffee farmers publicly questioning how Mahi Pono obtained these plants while independent growers could not (Maui Now, January 10, 2025). The lime operation is particularly significant for the accumulation by localization framework. The firm deploys "local food" legitimation narratives to secure water access and social license, but its largest single crop category — 8,000 acres of Persian limes for the US mainland market — is an export commodity by design. The local food narrative thus operates as a legitimation device for an operation whose material output is overwhelmingly oriented toward mainland and global markets, reproducing the export logic of the plantation system it claims to have replaced. %%EVIDENTIARY GAP (SQ3): The preceding paragraphs document structural conditions for market displacement (retail shelf capture, cost advantages, scale asymmetry, water-mediated resource deprivation) and competitive positioning (unprecedented citrus scale, coffee market contraction). The following evidence would further close this gap: - Named mid-sized commercial farmers who lost wholesale contracts or retail shelf space after Mahi Pono's entry (requires interview/survey data) - Before/after market share data for specific crops (bananas, papayas, limes, onions) at Maui retailers - Farmlink and Local Harvest sourcing data: did these food hubs shift procurement from small/mid farmers to Mahi Pono? - Wholesale price impacts: did Mahi Pono's industrial volumes depress farmgate prices for competing producers? - Proportion of Mahi Pono's total production sold locally vs. exported to mainland/international markets (the 8,000-acre lime operation suggests the ratio heavily favors export) - The analytical implications of this evidence are developed in Section 6.3.2.%% #### 6.3 Risk Dislocation: The New Topology of Vulnerability The transition from "King Sugar" to Mahi Pono has been marketed as a restoration of stability for Maui's agricultural landscape. However, analysis of the firm reveals a fundamental remapping of the island's risk topology. Through legal instruments, market consolidation, and financial structures, the firm has effectively "de-risked" its global capital investment while introducing systemic vulnerabilities into the local food system. This dislocation manifests across four distinct domains: resource concentration, market fragility, financial volatility, and democratic displacement. ##### 6.3.1 Resource Concentration: The Persistence of Dispossession While Mahi Pono frames its crop transition as a water-saving measure, the concentration of water resources in the East Maui Irrigation (EMI) system perpetuates a century-long transfer of hydrological risk from the central plains to the farmers of East Maui. This is not a new risk, but the continuation of a plantation-era conflict under new management. The structural impact of these diversions is documented in the long history of resistance from East Maui communities. 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] As the current court cases readily demonstrate [CITATION], this struggle remains active. In 2009, a field investigation in the Wailua Valley found that taro farmers were forced to plant pumpkin instead of kalo (taro) due to the lack of flowing water [@cwrm_2009]. While Mahi Pono highlights its own crop transition as a voluntary strategy of efficiency, East Maui farmers have been forced into crop transitions as a direct result of stream water reduction from EMI diversions. The "zombie infrastructure" of EMI thus carries forward the legacy of dispossession [@kay.etal_2023], ensuring that the risk of drought is borne by the watershed's original inhabitants rather than the firm's export orchards. 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 veneer. ##### 6.3.2 Market Concentration: The Hollowing of the Middle The firm's entry has undeniably increased the aggregate volume of locally grown produce. Through initiatives like "Chef's Corner," Mahi Pono now supplies bananas, papayas, and row crops to local retailers and restaurants [@pomonafarming_2026a], creating a tangible supply for island markets. However, this surge in volume introduces a more subtle risk: the structural polarization of the local food system. To meet its fiduciary goals, Mahi Pono must secure dominant control over wholesale and retail market share. This necessity places the firm in direct competition not with smallholders, but with Hawaii's mid-sized commercial farmers the historic backbone of the island's food supply. While the vast majority of the firm's acreage is dedicated to export commodities, the fraction of production directed locally is sufficient to destabilize the island's pocket markets for specific crops. While Chayanov suggests that smallholder family farmers will persist due to their unique capacity for self-exploitation, Kautsky's analysis highlights the precarious position of mid-sized commercial farms in the face of financialized capital consolidation. These operations rely on wage labor and stable wholesale contracts to survive, margins that are easily eroded by an industrial competitor. Mahi Pono's ability to flood the local market can displace producers from the distribution channels they depend on. Retailers, prioritizing the logistical efficiency of a single large supplier over the complexity of managing dozens of smaller accounts, enable the firm to capture local retail markets. Even local food hubs, distribution channels traditionally focused on smallholders, have taken to carrying Mahi Pono products. This dynamic threatens to hollow out the agricultural middle-scale, leaving a polarized landscape defined by a single dominant corporate actor on one end and marginalized subsistence growers on the other. Market consolidation can yield a **localization paradox**: higher production volumes coinciding with reduced food system diversity. While grocery shelves may carry more locally grown produce, the concentration of supply within a single operation has eliminated the redundancy that multiple independent producers once provided. The apparent success of increased local output obscures the systematic displacement of the commercial farming sector that historically buffered the island against supply disruptions, creating a more brittle system perceived as increased abundance. This centralization creates a structural trap. The prior risk was defined by a simple deficit: Hawaii imported 90% of its food. The new risk is defined by a foreclosure: Hawaii still imports 90% of its food, but its capacity to solve this problem — the prime acreage of the Central Maui plain — is now locked into a multi-decade export cycle for a Canadian pension fund. ##### 6.3.3 Financialization Risks: The Specter of Capital Exit The most profound risk introduced by the firm is the integration of Maui's land base into the volatility of global finance. Mahi Pono's operations are not merely agricultural; they are an asset class within PSP's global portfolio. This creates an interlock where local resource decisions are dictated by the fund's mandate for returns and its performance in other geographies. Through integrating Hawaii's land, water, and food resources into their global portfolio, PSP more tightly embeds the islands into the vagaries and vulnerabilities of global systems that food system localization portends to avert. A drought impacting almond yields in California, pest problems with coffee in Brazil, or cereal production crop failure in Australia can thus now have material impacts not just on Hawaii's shelves but in the prices Mahi Pono sets for land, water and food. Adding to the danger of this financialization is the risk of capital exit, which could leave a production void similar to the departures of sugar and pineapple. This is not a hypothetical scenario but a documented trend in the sector. The 2024 bankruptcy of Trinitas Partners offers a stark precedent. While Trinitas collapsed, its assets were transferred to PSP-owned Pomona Farming prior to bankruptcy, with the filing stating Pomona was "unaffiliated with the Debtors" [@caine_2024]. This maneuver illustrates the structural opacity of the arrangement. Pomona Farming is Mahi Pono's operational partner, yet legal firewalls allow global capital to insulate itself from local failure while retaining control of the resource. Furthermore, recent discussions regarding the potential closure of Kauai Coffee due to portfolio realignment [@gomes_2025a] underscore the fragility of these arrangements. If Mahi Pono's returns fail to meet PSP's benchmarks, the firm can exit, again leaving the community with abandoned infrastructure and fallow fields. ##### 6.3.4 Decision-Making Displacement: The Democratic Deficit Finally, the "localization" of the firm has paradoxically resulted in the displacement of local decision-making. The rhetoric of "local values" masks a reality of offshore control, where the state loses the capacity to legislate the pricing or operational priorities of its largest agricultural actor. As control shifts from democratic participation to shareholder primacy, local knowledge is replaced by corporate technical systems, and community accountability mechanisms are dismantled. As a Canadian Crown corporation, not a publicly traded company, PSP is insulated from both market discipline and local democratic pressure. Its primary oversight is a designated minister in Ottawa [@pspibact_1999], not the communities of Maui. 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 the Crown Lands Commissioners. The value of production that once accrued to missionary families now flows to Canadian pensioners, creating an even greater distance between those who labor on the land and those who profit from it. The community has traded the potential for democratic control for a "benevolent" corporate stewardship that answers to a fiduciary duty thousands of miles away. Far from creating resilience, the firm's establishment has hardened the island's dependency while simultaneously eroding the viability of the independent farming sector. The risk of hunger remains local; the profits of production are global; and the cost of failure has been pre-negotiated to fall on everyone but the investor. ### 7. Analysis: Accumulation by Localization in Practice The preceding sections documented three dimensions of Mahi Pono's operations: a legitimation narrative grounded in local identity, stewardship, and food security (Section 4); the institutional mechanisms through which that narrative was converted into access to publicly held resources (Section 5); and the material outcomes that diverge systematically from the firm's stated commitments (Section 6). What remains is to identify the structural relationship among these three dimensions and to articulate the theoretical contribution that emerges from their interaction. The central finding is that the contradictions documented in the preceding sections are not incidental—not failures of execution by a well-intentioned venture—but structurally constitutive of the accumulation strategy itself. The narrative, the policy, and the material outcomes do not merely coexist; they form a recursive mechanism in which each element depends upon and reproduces the others. #### 7.1 The Recursive Mechanism The Mahi Pono case reveals a three-stage process through which global capital captures local food system resources. In the first stage, the firm constructs a local corporate identity through place-based branding, the appropriation of indigenous values, and the articulation of food security commitments aligned with the state's *permanent crisis* discourse. This performed locality generates social license—the political capital necessary for resource access. In the second stage, social license is converted into material concessions through the state's regulatory and legislative apparatus: multi-decade water lease negotiations at subsidized rates, legislative efforts to extend temporary water permits (HB 1326), and an institutional framework that equates production volume with food security regardless of ownership or market destination. The firm entered an institutional environment already shaped by Alexander & Baldwin's prior legislative success—Act 126 (2016), which retroactively legalized holdover diversion permits—and the purchase agreement's $62 million water contingency clause effectively priced the continuation of that accommodation into the deal. In the third stage, the resources secured through this process are deployed in an operational model oriented toward export production and portfolio returns, diverging from the local commitments that justified access. Critically, the third stage does not undermine the first. The gap between narrative and outcome is not self-correcting, because the legitimation claims operate in a different register than the material outcomes. The food security narrative addresses a public audience through press releases, community engagement, and legislative testimony; the portfolio logic addresses a fiduciary audience through annual reports, asset classifications, and return mandates. These two registers rarely intersect. The Maui ESG Investment Project [-@mauiesg_2021] attempted such an intersection, characterizing the venture as "a land grab dependent on successfully executing long-term water arbitrage" (p. 17). No official response was issued [[email protected]_2024]. The firm's accountability structure—a Crown corporation lacking publicly traded equity, securities regulation, or shareholder activism mechanisms—ensures that the gap between legitimation and operation remains institutionally insulated from correction. The mechanism is therefore recursive: legitimation secures resources, resources generate returns, and returns validate the institutional arrangements that permitted resource access. The loop is sustained by the state's *neoproductivist* orientation, which treats aggregate production metrics as a proxy for food security and thereby renders questions of ownership, market destination, and distributional equity analytically invisible within the policy framework. #### 7.2 Accumulation by Localization This recursive mechanism constitutes what this dissertation terms *accumulation by localization*: a strategy in which global capital captures public resources and local market value by co-opting narratives of self-sufficiency and community benefit. In this framework, "local" functions simultaneously as brand identity, policy justification, and regulatory shield—but not as a description of the firm's capital structure, fiduciary obligations, or primary market orientation. The concept addresses a gap in the existing literature. Food regime analysis has documented the historical incorporation of local food systems into global commodity chains [-@mcmichael_2009; -@friedmann_2005], but has been less attentive to the reverse movement: the deployment of localization discourse *by* global capital as a strategy of enclosure. Accumulation by localization identifies this reverse movement as a distinct mechanism. It is not the subsumption of the local into the global, but the appropriation of the *sign value* of the local as an instrument of global accumulation. The Mahi Pono case instantiates this mechanism with particular clarity because of the semantic duality embedded in the firm's name. As Pukui and Elbert [[email protected]_1986] record, *pono* denotes both "righteousness" and "assets, property, fortune"—yielding the alternative reading of *Mahi Pono* as "cultivating assets." The dual meaning is not merely ironic; it encodes the operational logic of accumulation by localization, in which the cultivation of moral legitimacy and the cultivation of financial returns are not separate activities but the same activity viewed from different subject positions. The concept also clarifies the firm's structural novelty relative to earlier forms of agrarian capital in Hawaii. The plantation-era firms were explicitly extractive and export-oriented; they required no legitimation narrative of local benefit. Small-scale diversified agriculture, by contrast, is genuinely local in capital structure and market orientation but lacks the scale to capture public resources at the level Mahi Pono commands. The firm occupies a position between these poles—deploying the narrative of the latter to perpetuate the resource control patterns of the former. It is, in the terminology of this dissertation, a *sharetaker*: an entity that captures market share and the sign value of local identity while externalizing systemic risk to the community and the public trust. #### 7.2b The Institutional Contradiction: The State as Facilitator %%NEW SUBSECTION — Per the Case Study X template (7.2 institutional contradiction), the state's neoproductivist facilitation deserves explicit analysis, not just a mention.%% %%This subsection should address: - The state's role as "trustee" of public resources was compromised by the firm's accumulation by localization strategy - The state's neoproductivism (subsidizing industrial scale) is fundamentally at odds with genuine resilience - How state agencies (BLNR, DLNR, DOA) prioritized the firm's needs over smaller competitors or community alternatives - The state accepted the firm's SLO claims in S4 as valid justification for granting exclusive access to public resources - Compare Local Benefits claims (S4.3) with Risk Outcomes (S6.3): the state prioritized "industrial scale" over "community resilience" - The shift from the state as "trustee" to the state as "risk manager" for private capital%% #### 7.3 The Localization Paradox If accumulation by localization describes the mechanism, the *localization paradox* describes its systemic consequence: interventions legitimated as responses to import dependence introduce new, more opaque forms of financialized risk rather than reducing overall food system vulnerability. The prior risk topology of Hawaii's food system was characterized by *logistical* exposure—dependence on shipping lanes, fuel costs, and continental supply chains. These vulnerabilities are visible, legible, and widely understood; they animate the permanent crisis discourse that justified Mahi Pono's entry. The post-intervention topology does not eliminate this logistical risk (the islands remain 85–90% import-dependent for food) but layers upon it four additional forms of vulnerability: *Production concentration risk.* Single-entity control of 41,000 acres planted predominantly in citrus monoculture restores the "single breadbasket" configuration of the plantation era. Biological simplification at this scale reduces the response diversity essential for absorbing environmental shocks [-@holling_1992]. *Financial exposure.* Dependence on a foreign pension fund's portfolio decisions introduces risk entirely absent from the prior configuration. The Trinitas Partners bankruptcy [-@caine_2024]—in which a former Mahi Pono partner's California operations collapsed, with water rights transferred to PSP-owned Pomona Farming prior to proceedings—demonstrates how financial restructuring in distant boardrooms can reshape local resource control. *Institutional path dependency.* The regulatory accommodations secured through the legitimation narrative—legislative bridges, permit extensions, favorable lease terms, reanimated plantation-era water infrastructure—constrain future governance options by locking the state into a trajectory in which public resources remain subordinated to a single large-scale operator. *Accountability displacement.* Corporate layering (PSP → Pomona Farming → Mahi Pono Holdings → Mahi Pono LLC) and Crown corporation status create intermediations that obscure responsibility. As one investment advisor observed, "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, quoted in -@segal_2021]. The paradox, then, is this: the discourse of food security and self-sufficiency—mobilized to justify public resource transfer—produces not resilience but a new topology of vulnerability. Risk has not been eliminated; it has been *dislocated* from the visible domain of logistics to the opaque domains of finance, ecology, and institutional lock-in. Under the conditions of accumulation by localization, the "local" ceases to function as a buffer against global shocks and becomes instead the site through which those shocks are internalized. #### 7.4 Evidence Table Table 7.1 aligns the firm's stated claims against the empirical record across the dimensions of legitimation, policy, and risk. Each row juxtaposes corporate narrative, documented evidence, and the analytical finding that their contradiction reveals. **Table 7.1: Legitimation Claims, Empirical Evidence, and Analytical Findings — Mahi Pono** | Dimension | Corporate Claim | Empirical Evidence | Analytical Finding | | :---------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Identity** | "A Maui Farming Company" [-@mahipono_2025]. | PSP Investments (Canada), CAD$160B+ Crown corporation. Joint venture with California-based Pomona Farming. Classified as Real Assets/Natural Resources portfolio investment [-@psp_2019]. | Place-based branding functions as social license acquisition, not a description of ownership or fiduciary obligation. | | **Values** | *Mālama* (responsible stewardship); sustainable, "responsible farming" [-@mahipono_2020]. | Paraquat application (~1,000 acres); four pesticide violations (2020–22); fugitive dust fines (2023); monoculture citrus (47.6% of acreage) [-@rybak_2021; -@riker_2023]. | "Sustainability" defined through negation (non-GMO, no glyphosate) rather than agroecological practice. Operational externalities reframed as transitional costs of a beneficial mission. | | **Food Security** | "Growing food to reduce Hawaii's reliance on imported produce" [-@mahipono_2025]. | 4.2% of acreage in local row crops; 47.6% export-oriented citrus; USDA export clearance obtained [-@ryan_2025; -@segal_2021]. | Food security discourse secures the political conditions for resource control; it does not describe the material destination of output. | | **Water** | "Adequate water is essential for farming and local food security" [-@gomes_2025]. 50% reduction vs. sugarcane. | $62M contractual valuation of water access; lease rates ~1/200th of local small-farmer rates; East Maui taro farmers unable to cultivate [[email protected]_2023]. | Water "stewardship" masks water arbitrage. The 50% reduction benchmark (sugarcane) obscures comparison to community water needs or ecological flows. | | **Community** | "A win-win for all involved" [-@psp_2019]. | No community governance mechanisms; no response to ESG critique [-@mauiesg_2021; [email protected]_2024]. | Community benefit claims do not translate into accountability structures. Returns flow to Canadian pensioners; externalities are borne locally. | | **State Role** | Agricultural support through water access facilitation. | A&B secured Act 126 (2016) retroactive permit legalization prior to sale; Mahi Pono lobbied for HB 1326 extension over 1,000+ opposing testimonies; production metrics count export crops as "local food" [-@act126_2016]. | The state facilitates private accumulation under a neoproductivist logic equating production volume with food security. Act 126 prepared the institutional conditions for the asset transfer; Mahi Pono inherited and sought to extend them. | | **Risk** | Scale creates resilience and food security. | Single-entity control of 41,000 acres; monoculture concentration; dependence on distant capital decisions; Trinitas partner bankruptcy [-@caine_2024]. | Consolidation dislocates risk from logistics to finance, ecology, and institutional lock-in. The localization paradox: "local" production internalizes rather than buffers global systemic risk. | The pattern across these dimensions is not additive but recursive. The identity claim enables the food security claim; the food security claim justifies the water claim; the water claim secures the state's facilitative posture; and the state's posture validates the identity claim. The evidence table renders visible this recursive structure, demonstrating that the contradictions between narrative and outcome are not anomalies but the constitutive features of accumulation by localization—a strategy that requires the performance of local identity precisely because the material operation serves different ends. --- ### 8. Conclusion: The Plantation Did Not End In December 2016, the Puunene Mill fell silent and the smoke of burning cane fields cleared over Central Maui for the last time. The moment invited a familiar narrative: the plantation era was over, and a new chapter of local agriculture could begin. Within two years, 41,000 acres of former sugar land and half of the East Maui Irrigation system had been transferred — not to the community, not to a cooperative of diversified farmers, not to a land trust — but to a Canadian Crown corporation managing $160 billion in global pension assets, operating through a California intermediary whose portfolio template was drawn from Central Valley almond orchards. The plantation did not end. It was *translated*. Its infrastructure was inherited, its water claims perpetuated, its concentrations of land and capital preserved. What changed was the legitimation regime. Where HC&S and Alexander & Baldwin operated under the explicit logic of export monoculture, Mahi Pono operates under the sign of *pono* — righteousness, stewardship, local food. The cane fields became citrus orchards. The plantation brand became "A Maui Farming Company." The extraction of Maui's land and water for the benefit of distant capital continued, repackaged in the vocabulary of mālama ʻāina. This chapter has documented that repackaging as a structured process — not a failure of execution, not a gap between good intentions and imperfect implementation, but a coherent strategy of capital accumulation in which the language of localization is the primary instrument. The forensic record is clear. A firm branded as local is owned and governed by global capital whose statutory mandate is maximum return (Section 3). A legitimation narrative invoking indigenous values, environmental stewardship, and food security constructed the social license necessary for resource access (Section 4). That social license was converted, through legislative bridges and regulatory accommodation, into control over publicly held water at rates approximately 1/200th of what local farmers pay — a conversion so thoroughly monetized that a $62 million rebate clause priced the likelihood of favorable regulatory outcomes into the purchase agreement itself (Section 5). The material production that followed — 48% citrus for export, 4% row crops for local markets, USDA export clearance actively pursued — confirms an operational logic oriented toward commodity returns, not community provisioning (Section 6). And the state, rather than exercising its constitutional trust obligations to balance public and private claims on water, operated as a facilitator of industrial-scale capital entry under a neoproductivist logic that equates production volume with food security regardless of who owns the output, where it goes, or what public resources are consumed in its production (Section 7). The theoretical finding of this chapter is the identification of *accumulation by localization* as an empirically observable mechanism. Global capital does not capture local food system resources despite the discourse of localization — it captures them *through* it. The "local" is not incidental to the accumulation strategy; it is the strategy. Without the narrative, there is no social license. Without the social license, there is no water lease. Without the water, there is no return on the $267 million investment. The entire chain of accumulation runs through the production of localness. The *localization paradox* compounds this finding. The intervention that was legitimated as a response to Hawaiʻi's import dependence — the *permanent crisis* of a state importing 90% of its food — has not reduced vulnerability. It has *transformed* it. Where the prior risk topology exposed the islands to logistical disruption visible on the docks, the post-intervention topology embeds financial, ecological, and institutional risks within the productive base itself. Monoculture concentration restores the single-crop vulnerability of the plantation era. Dependence on a foreign pension fund's portfolio decisions introduces financial exposure with no precedent in the prior food system. And the regulatory accommodations that secured the firm's water access have created institutional path dependencies that constrain future governance options long after the specific claims of stewardship that justified them have been contradicted by the operational record. The "local" is no longer a buffer against global shocks; under the conditions of accumulation by localization, it becomes the site through which those shocks are internalized. #### Transition This Mahi Pono case demonstrates accumulation by localization in the domain of land and water, the foundational productive resources upon which agriculture depends. But food systems are not governed by acreage and irrigation alone. Between the field and the plate lies a second domain of control, processing infrastructure, where the power to determine who can bring product to market, at what cost, and under what conditions is concentrated not in deeds and water leases but in kill floors, cold chains, and USDA stamps. A rancher who cannot slaughter cannot sell, regardless of how many acres of pasture they command. The following chapter examines this domain through the case of Hawaiʻi Meats, where an Idaho billionaire's vertically integrated operation has captured the critical chokepoint of livestock processing. The public resource at stake is not stream water but slaughter capacity, and the "local" promise is not food security but the bolstering of ranching tradition long undermined by the absence of adequate in-state processing. The mechanisms of accumulation by localization, this dissertation argues, adapts to these different domains while maintaining its essential structure: the construction of local legitimacy as the instrument through which global capital captures local food resources. ## References