The last dairy on the Hawaiian island of Oahu will shut down on Feb. 15, leaving the island's 910,000 residents dependent on imported milk.
That's a concern, because the shuttering of local dairies makes Hawaii more dependent on the mainland and more vulnerable in an emergency, according to Chin Lee, a dairy extension specialist at the University of Hawaii.
"The bottom line is in the event that we have any kind of disruption of any kind of transportation, this time around there will be no local supply to tide us over until the issue is resolved," Lee said.
The closing of Pacific Dairy in Waianae Valley will leave Hawaii with just two dairies, both on the state's Big Island, which produce milk almost exclusively for that island. It's unclear how the closing of Oahu's dairies will affect milk prices, which have been rising because of increased feed and transportation costs.
Do "you think there will be a chance for price gouging?" without local milk producers, asked Jeri Kahana, commodities branch manager for the state Department of Agriculture. "I don't know."
Milk is already considerably more expensive in Hawaii than on the mainland. Whole milk sold at supermarkets and convenience stores can range from $6.50 to $8 a gallon in Honolulu, vs. about $3.50 a gallon in California, which is Hawaii's largest out-of-state provider.
As recently as 1980, Hawaii had about two dozen dairies and was totally self-sufficient in milk. Since 1999, four dairies on Oahu and three on the Big Island have closed. Pacific Dairy will be the eighth to shut down. The decline in Hawaii's dairy sector is the result of rising feed, shipping and land costs, environmental regulations and stagnant sales, Lee said.
Milk production in Hawaii has been in decline for several years. In November, the most recent month for which data are available, production plunged 50% from November 2006, to about 230,000 gallons, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Annual milk production, at about 12.2 million gallons in 2001, had dropped to about 6.5 million gallons by the end of 2006.
