LIHU‘E — Upset with the transfer of Makaweli Poi Mill to Lehua Poi Company, former workers have not reapplied for employment at the new mill, and their former customers — the taro farmers — are boycotting the mill as well.
LIHU‘E — Upset with the transfer of Makaweli Poi Mill to Lehua Poi Company, former workers have not reapplied for employment at the new mill, and their former customers — the taro farmers — are boycotting the mill as well.
Rather than letting the taro go to waste, the farmers said they are planning to give it away in Waimea this week.
Taro farmer John A‘ana, who co-founded Makaweli Poi Mill in Waimea in 1993, said Makaweli poi will not survive the boycott. The farmers don’t want to enter into a business arrangement with the person who stabbed them in the back.
“Makaweli Poi is over, there is no Makaweli Poi anymore,” said A’ana. “We would rather give away our taro to the community, to all the people who supported Makaweli Poi for many years.”
An exact time for the free taro giveaway has not been set, A‘ana added, but it will likely be Friday or Saturday afternoon next to Ishihara Market in Waimea.
The new owner of the mill, Lehua Poi Company owner Allen Arquette said he is willing to buy taro from the former Makaweli Poi and offered to hire back Makaweli Poi’s employees.
A former taro farmer and a customer of Makaweli Poi himself, Arquette said he had planned for the backlash and has hired new employees and obtained taro from supporting farmers, including some in Waimea.
He said he is in a lot pressure right now, and can feel it when he walks the streets in Waimea Town. But he expected it. He said he understands why the taro farmers are upset about losing the mill’s control, and would’ve felt the same way if he lost his business.
“I’ve known these guys for the better part of my years,” Arquette said of Westside taro farmers, adding that they are all nice people. But farming is “taxing,” he said, and you cannot expect to farm and run a business at the same time.
If had he not taken control of the mill, OHA was going to give to somebody else out of town, Arquette said.
“We waited until the last minute,” he said. “If it wasn’t us, it was going to be some outsiders.”
But A‘ana said that blame belongs to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, who had taken over the mill years ago and promised to it turn over to the community. Instead, OHA shut down the mill and gave the equipment to Arquette’s group.
Poi Mill History
In the aftermath of Hurricane ‘Iniki in 1992, the island’s only poi mill shut down and never reopened.
“Basically, we were making poi under the table,” A‘ana said.
So in the following year, A‘ana and his cousin, Rawlins Char, founded Makaweli Poi Mill.
In March 2008, after struggling to make ends meet, the mill was taken over by Hi‘ipoi Mill, LLC, an OHA subsidiary.
“We lost some old time farmers and we had a serious floods that kind of set us back, so we lost a lot of our taro production,” A‘ana said of the mill’s situation four years ago, adding the mill lacked the raw product to be profitable.
That was when OHA approached A‘ana, and offered to take over the mill. OHA was supposed to inject money to start programs with the farmers to increase taro production, he said.
“That was the whole plan of Hi‘ipoi, but they never put any money toward it,” A’ana said.
Now they’re back at the beginning.
“We have no place to sell our taro; they pretty much set us back 20 years,” said A‘ana of OHA. “We’re back to the place we were 20 years ago before we started the poi mill.”
Ka Piko o Waimea
Last May, OHA announced it planned to shut down the mill, and the only way of keeping it open would be for the community to form a nonprofit organization and take it over, according to Kauakea Mata.
In about 48 hours, the community formed Ka Piko o Waimea and elected a board of directors for the brand new organization, said Mata, who was chosen as one of the nonprofit’s board members.
Ka Piko put in months of work meeting with the community. But on Dec. 28, after months of being ignored by OHA, Ka Piko board members heard through the media that OHA had chosen a different company to transfer the mill’s ownership, Mata said.
A‘ana said the mill had just gotten to a point where production was increasing, and had OHA turned the mill over to Ka Piko, they would at least break it even financially.
Former Makaweli Poi manager Bryna Storch said OHA had made various promises to Ka Piko, and provided them with $1,000, for the nonprofit to take off. Ka Piko o Waimea came up with a preliminary business plan and sent it to OHA, which suddenly stopped communicating with the nonprofit without ever giving an explanation, she said.
Ka Piko sent OHA emails and certified mail but got no responses. Ka Piko kept working with the community, doing fundraisers, community awareness, and even printed T-shirts, but OHA continued to ignore communication from the nonprofit.
She worked at Makaweli Poi until November, when OHA fired her while on vacation.
But still, Storch said she wants people to feel good and healthy about eating poi, and is hoping something positive comes out of the situation.
“We want them to feel good about the culture, and to feel like they’re part of something that’s really positive and powerful,” she said. “We don’t want them be thinking negative or drama.”
Lucia Bartels was one of the approximately 15 staff who did not seek re-employment. She used to stand on her feet all day, and it took her a little to get used to the hard work. She used to clean and cut the taro, wash the equipment and bag the poi.
Despite the hard work, Bartels said she would proudly tell everyone about her employment at the mill.
“I don’t know what made OHA decide that Ka Piko o Waimea wasn’t the appropriate nonprofit group,” Bartels said.
“I do think it was an injustice that they weren’t selected, and I wish it could have been a ‘people’ choice versus an OHA choice.”
Bartels said Lehua Poi did offer the employees a chance to reapply, but decided not to for personal reasons.
“It saddens me that Makaweli Poi Mill is no more,” she said.
Lehua Poi Company
Arquette, a Waimea resident, said his plans are to keep making poi, starting with about 800 to 1,200 pounds a week to test the market. An increase production is forecast for March.
But he also has plans to diversify.
“I want to go like, lolo; taro chunks, hashbrowns, French fries, taro flour, ice cream,” he said. “We’ve got a whole wide range of stuff.”
Arquette said not all taro is made for poi. It is grown globally, but only Hawaiians make poi out of it, said Arquette.
He added he would have welcomed Makaweli Poi’s former employees, but he anticipated this scenario.
The mill is already producing poi for local restaurants, and, by Jan. 23, they expect to have one-pound poi bags available to the public.
Arquette said that initially he planned to offer a space for taro farmers to come in and produce poi twice a week. But after he heard the negative remarks about his company in the media, he changed his mind. However, he said he is not upset with the farmers and would welcome taro from them in case they decide to halt their boycott.
OHA was “on a rescue mission” and was paying for all the bills of Makaweli Poi, Arquette said. Otherwise, the mill would have closed a long time ago.
“But we’re not going to have this; after two months, OHA is out,” he said. “It’s sink or swim.”
OHA’s decision
OHA has not divulged why they chose to pick Arquette’s Lehua Poi over Ka Piko O Waimea. They have not answered Ka Piko’s request for an explanation, and — after an eight-month process, the transition happened within a two weeks, from announcement to transfer.
“We turned the mill over to the nonprofit Supporting the Language of Kaua‘i, and then, they in turn entered in a management agreement with Lehua Poi Company,” said OHA’s spokesperson Garrett Kamimoto.
As far as OHA’s reason for choosing the nonprofit, Kamimoto said all he could say was already in OHA’s press release.
In the release announcing the transfer, OHA representatives thanked Ka Piko O Waimea for its hard work and dedication, but said that they were confident that Lehua Poi Company and their management agreement with Supporting the Language of Kaua’i, Inc., would be a success.
No mention of the reasoning behind the decision was made.
“I don’t think we are going to get into specifics at this point,” Kamimoto added when pressed.
In the June 2012 edition of Ka Wai Ola, OHA’s monthly publication, Kamimoto wrote that Makaweli Poi was in the process of transitioning to a community-based group.
“We know that local decision-making is important for our Hawaiian community … So our transition plan is intended to make that happen,” OHA Chief Executive Officer Kamana‘opono Crabbe is quoted in Kamimoto’s article in Ka Wai Ola.
Trustees had been pressing OHA’s subsidiary Hi‘ipoi to turn in a profit, but after hearing from the community, they said they saw their role with a new perspective, according to Kamimoto’s article.
“Instead of looking at this as a business, maybe we should look at this as preserving our culture, preserving our lifestyle and preserving the interests of the community,” OHA Trustee Oswald Stender is quoted in the same article.
Apparently, however, the Lehua Poi’s business plan won out.
Phone calls and an email asking for comments from Kaua‘i’s OHA Trustee Dan Ahuna received no response by press time.
• Léo Azambuja, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or lazambuja@ thegardenisland.com.
