10-20-2024, 08:01 AM
(09-29-2024, 02:13 AM)Durian Fiend Wrote: They undermine Ag because vacation rentals are much less work and more lucrative than producing a crop is.
This logic is backwards in terms of encouraging agriculture though. Farming is mostly unprofitable, and without the ability to subsidize their income through agrotourism and farmstays, people will simply quit farming, not devote more work to it. Encouraging that is part of how places like Australia and Italy maintain a lot of small farms.
Granted that's not really relevant to Puna where most of these lots aren't actual farms (and can't reasonably be), but since this is a statewide ruling it applies to other places as well, like Hamakua, South Kona, and Kula on Maui.