PUUNENE, MAUI >> “Maui potato” isn’t an established and prestigious brand like Maui onion or Maui pineapple — but that could soon change.

Mahi Pono LLC, the partnership that bought 41,000 acres of mostly fallow Central Maui farmland last year after Alexander & Baldwin Inc. quit growing sugar cane there in 2016 after 146 years, is focusing on ordinary white, yellow and red potato varieties as part of its first new piece of an ambitious diversified agriculture development plan.

Mahi Pono is focusing on white, yellow and red potato types as their first crop of a progressive, multi-faceted farming development plan.

Mahi Pono LLC Hopes Former Sugar Plantation Land Will Yield Signature Crops

Mahi Pono, LLC, on Maui delivered a shipping container full of Maui-grown potatoes to the Hawaiʻi Foodbank on Friday.

Nearly 30,000 pounds of potatoes were harvested from Mahi Pono’s test crop and and were taken to the Hawaiʻi Foodservice Alliance for distribution on Oʻahu and Kauaʻi.

Mahi Pono is working to transform 41,000 acres of vacant former sugar cane land into a hub of diversified agriculture.  The farming company began planting test crops of white, red and yellow potatoes last August, as part of its diversified agriculture development plan.

“We are extremely grateful to Mahi Pono for its generous donation, and we thank Chad Buck from Hawaiʻi Foodservice Alliance for shipping the 15 tons of potatoes to us,” said Ron Mizutani, CEO and President of Hawaiʻi Foodbank. “We are also excited about Mahi Pono’s focus to raise food for consumption statewide. Investments in agriculture are critical to increasing agricultural productivity, and sustainable food production systems need to be a part of the conversation to address hunger.”

Mahi Pono Donates 30,000 lbs. of Potatoes to Hawaii Foodbank

Company narrows list of crops to grow on old HC&S sugar fields.

PUUNENE — Wind whipped through the central plains Wednesday morning and a team of Mahi Pono officials looked out at an expanse of empty land being worked by tractors.

As blades tilled the soil, this field signaled a turning point in agricultural history — from 150 years of sugar cane monocropping to an array of non-GMO crops to be used to bolster the county’s food supply.

The new season starts Friday when Mahi Pono, a joint venture between Pomona Farming and PSP Investments, holds a blessing and a first planting of red potatoes on about 40 acres in Puunene.

The planting will mark the first nonsugar crops going into the ground after the company purchased 41,000 acres of fallow fields from Alexander & Baldwin in December. After more than a century of production, A&B’s sugar endeavor, Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., ceased Maui operations in 2016...

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Mahi Pono LLC Hopes Former Sugar Plantation Land Will Yield Signature Crops

Mahi Pono Donates 30,000 lbs. of Potatoes to Hawaii Foodbank

Mahi Pono Set to Begin First Plantings