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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, June 26, 2009

A&B first landowner to use new perpetual farmland law

Advertiser Staff

Alexander & Baldwin Inc. has become the first owner of farmland in the state to voluntarily devote property to perpetual agricultural use under a controversial law passed last year.

The Honolulu-based company has preserved 30,878 acres on Maui and Kauaçi under cultivation of sugarcane, coffee, seed corn, rice, taro and cattle grazing.
The move, approved by the state Land Use Commission yesterday and in March, allows A&B to seek financial benefits from the state that could help shore up what have been money-losing agricultural operations for the company.
A&B, however, precluded itself from taking a controversial benefit allowed under the law that allows owners of prime agricultural land to convert land equivalent to 15 percent of the acreage protected for urban or rural use such as housing.
The Hawaiçi Farm Bureau Federation applauded A&B for dedicating a “significant infusion” of high-quality ag land for perpetual farm use, and expected that more landowners large and small will use the so-called Important Agricultural Lands law.