Hawaii ranked worst state to make a living

[pahoated]

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Originally posted by Newgirl

The world is changing. This area has something most agricultural lands don't....water. The sheer number of California farms faltering from the drought could put plenty of pressure on price of produce, so much so, that coupled with even cheaper oil for transporting it, you can probably secure contracts for something you agree to grow. There is some major USDA regulation on exports to overcome, but the rules that protected California growers will likely have to be relaxed to fill the need on the mainland. There's also a big growth in fresher food grocery chains like Sprouts and Whole Foods that would be ideal customer for everything grown here.

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Well, despite being "new", you are going down tired old tracks. There is a lot of fresh water on the east side, there are drought conditions on the west side. Bananas grown here locally are about 25% more than being imported from South America which are first imported into the US, then exported with a resale markup plus transportation cost. Many things don't grow here naturally. Grapes, strawberries (not in an open field), apples, cherries, asparagus, so on. Mangoes from Mexico are 99 cents each on the mainland, $2.99 per pound here. If you look at the coconut water in the store, almost all of it is from Thailand. Even coconut water is cheaper to import from thousands of miles away rather than be produced locally.

The ground water around the whole planet is disappearing, at least from where it was originally located. This is looking like the evaporation caused by global warming, evaporating fresh water from the land and dumping it into the ocean. There are going to be multiple long term trends from this, early indicators already happening. The Marshall Islands has about 70 square miles above sea level across hundreds of populated islands. Those are starting to experience the higher sea levels first, whole villages starting to be washed over by high sea waves.
http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-940/h--/q-9...ds-001.jpg
Many Micronesians are migrating to the mainland if they can. The government is very quietly relocating Micronesians to Hawaii, that is why the homeless rate in Honolulu is skyrocketing. There is planning going on to start relocating displaced Micronesians to southern Hawaii island. Vanuatu is also starting to be regularly flooded with high sea waves and they are looking to relocate to another island.

All organic farming means is fertilizing with manure. Organic farming is monstrously inefficient with water usage. The large scale farming in California is highly dependent on massively inefficient use of water, wells to pump up fresh water, open irrigation ditches, giant sprinklers from there. The other news that is being kept quiet is many of these wells are going dry, they are having to drill deeper, and empty aquifer roofs are collapsing, causing sudden sink holes. Existing methods of farming assumed there would be unlimited fresh water forever. Looks like forever may be about 20 years from now.

Being dependent on west coast produce is going to start becoming more and more expensive, on top of the import transportation cost. It would benefit Hawaii island to wean itself off this addiction. There are solutions but they won't be done by people from Puna, since technology is involved. Others are proceeding ahead and they will benefit. Also, there is ground water, which even Hawaii has a decreasing supply, but there is water that is not being talked about, probably because just the word drilling causes many people in Puna to lose their minds.

"Aloha also means goodbye. Aloha!"