Poor sugar sales soured third-quarter profits for Alexander & Baldwin Inc., which suffered a 35 percent decline in net income for the three months ended Sept. 30.

Honolulu-based A&B announced Thursday that it earned $7 million in the quarter, down from $10.8 million in the same period last year.

Revenue slipped 6 percent to $144.7 million from $153.4 million.

The company said its divisions outside farming — real estate leasing and development as well as quarry product sales and road paving — performed well.

But agribusiness operations, mainly represented by the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. on Maui, suffered a $9 million operating loss. That was up from a $7.3 million operating loss in last year’s third quarter.

“With the exception of our agribusiness segment, operating performance in the third quarter was solid,” Stan Kuriyama, A&B chairman and CEO, said in a statement.

Chris Benjamin, A&B president and chief operating officer, said during a conference call with stock market analysts that the loss from agriculture for the full year is expected to be three times as big as last year’s $11.8 million agribusiness operating loss, or about $35 million — an unacceptable result that will bring change to the Maui sugar plantation.

Benjamin, who will take over as CEO for the retiring Kuriyama on Jan. 1, said the company is exploring two avenues of relief. One is determining whether one major customer can enhance contract purchases of sugar from A&B. The other is defining an alternate business model for the plantation. A decision, according to Benjamin, will be made before A&B’s full-year earnings announcement, which is expected in early March.

The poor sugar plantation results in the third quarter were due to extremely heavy rainfall. A&B said Central Maui received 300 percent of normal average rainfall, which created muddy fields that made harvesting and milling sugar cane “difficult if not impossible.”

As a result, A&B produced 42,500 tons of sugar in the quarter, down 37 percent from 67,000 tons a year earlier. The heavy rain also continued into October.

“These abnormal weather conditions hit our farming operations hard,” Benjamin said. “Unfortunately, we can’t catch a break.”

Sugar sales also were hurt because A&B reduced the capacity on its sugar ship so that it also can carry molasses to the West Coast after because former subsidiary Matson Inc. quit hauling molasses after a pipeline leak polluted Honolulu Harbor in 2013. Sugar sales in the quarter fell 23 percent to 58,000 tons from 75,200 tons a year earlier.

A&B’s loss from agribusiness for the first nine months this year almost equals the loss for all of last year. However, this year’s full loss for agribusiness is expected to be three times greater than last year’s agribusiness loss. That’s because A&B spreads its high fixed costs for farming sugar over the whole year based on projected production, so lower-than-projected production in the last two quarters means the company must recognize additional costs for sugar sold earlier this year.

Fortunately for A&B, real estate and quarry and road operations earned more money than agribusiness lost in the third quarter.

A&B’s quarry and road paving subsidiary Grace Pacific produced a third-quarter operating profit of $7.5 million, up 27 percent from $5.9 million a year earlier. The company said the increase was largely due to increased aggregate and other construction-related material sales despite fewer road paving days due to wet weather and a lower price of asphalt sold due to lower oil prices.

Operating profit from real estate leasing at shopping centers and other commercial property owned by A&B totaled $12.5 million in the third quarter, up from $12.1 million a year earlier. A&B said occupancy in its commercial property portfolio was 93 percent in Hawaii and 96 percent on the mainland in the recent quarter.

Operating profit from real estate sales that include land and homes was $11.2 million in the third quarter, down from $11.4 million a year earlier. Sales in the recent quarter included 11 acres at Maui Business Park sold for $18.7 million to Lowe’s for a new store, seven residential units on Hawaii island and five residential sales at A&B’s Kauai golf resort property Kukui‘ula.

A&B said it has sold all 450 tower and midrise units at The Collection, a condominium high-rise under construction in Kakaako, for an average $663,000 per unit. Another five of 14 townhomes at the project have been sold for an average $1.9 million. The Collection sales, however, won’t be recognized as revenue until the tower is complete in late 2016.

The results for the Collection led A&B to invest $35 million in the development of a Kakaako tower called Keauhou Place being built by developer Stanford Carr. This project, where about 343 of 423 units have been sold, broke ground Oct. 30.

A&B also said its board of directors last week approved moving ahead with developing a residential subdivision in Kihei. This project, called Kamalani, with 630 homes, is expected to break ground early next year and have initial homes finished in late 2017.

A&B said it is pursuing more investments in real estate as well as in renewable energy.

“We continue to make investments to build our development pipeline, as well as continue to seek new investments in Hawaii,” Kuriyama said.

Shares of A&B stock closed Thursday at $38.61 before the earnings announcement. A&B shares over the past 52 weeks have closed between a high of $43.52 April 6 and a low of $33.34 Sept. 1.