Editorial: Changes at Dole Plantation

The Dole Plantation in Wahiawa started as a purely agricultural enterprise 67 years ago — a fruit stand in the middle of productive pineapple and sugar cane fields. 

Since then, it has morphed into a more typical visitor attraction, with a restaurant, kitschy souvenirs, a train ride, a giant maze, and the always-enticing Dole Whip. And it’s been a big success, drawing about 1 million visitors a year to an attraction in the middle of mostly fallow farmland. Pineapple nostalgia has replaced pineapple.

So it’s understandable that the owner, Castle & Cooke Properties, Inc., wants to continue the transformation. But it’s stuck with a special-use permit from the city that requires it to host a daily farmers market and kiosks that sell exclusively local agricultural products and crafts — conditions that have proven economically unviable, the company says. So now it wants those conditions removed.

It’s an unfortunate situation. Dole Plantation is a retail business on agricultural land, which is why it needed a special-use permit. With anxiety over the struggles of local farming, it makes sense that the permit wouldn’t allow abandonment of the land’s agricultural purpose altogether. Still, if the location attracts only one farmer and a couple of kiosk vendors, what’s the point?

It would behoove the city to give the company’s request serious consideration and modify the permit to accommodate changing economic realities. But that shouldn’t mean just giving Castle & Cooke what it wants. It may mean working with the company on something we all can agree on — finding better ways to promote local agriculture on Oahu’s fertile but underused farmlands.