Nothing says Hawaiʻi quite like two scoops of rice, a cultural mainstay on every plate lunch across the state. Surprisingly, Hawaiʻi grows none of its own, importing more than 140 million pounds of it every year. A new partnership between the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience (CTAHR) and the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) is looking to change that by exploring the potential to bring rice farming back to the islands.
In September, the organizations held a rice taste test at UH Mānoa with three different rice varieties, including one grown by Kauaʻi farmer Jerry Ornellas, a former CTAHR research technician. It was an “experiment to see customers’ preferences of three different rice varieties,” according to CTAHR professor Tomoaki Miura.
For Ornellas, the question is not “Can Hawaiʻi grow rice?” but “Can Hawaiʻi grow rice again?” The state’s history with rice dates back to the 1860s, with production once thriving in areas such as Wailua on Kauaʻi and Waikīkī. The crop was second only to sugar, with more than 10,000 acres dedicated to its cultivation.
The industry declined due to the influx of immigrants who preferred imported short–grain rice and the inability of local, hand–labor methods to compete with mechanized production in California.
The rice for this event, a Japanese variety, took only three months to mature on Kauaʻi and be ready for harvest. The first harvest yielded more than 400 pounds of rice, which Shunsuke Adachi, an associate professor from TUAT, described as “very successful” and “surprising.” Adachi noted that the long–term goal of the project is to feed the people of Hawaiʻi and improve the state’s food security.
This was the first rice–tasting event of its kind at UH, marking a significant step in exploring the viability of local rice production.
