Drought Crushes Beef Industry in Hawaii

Audrey McAvoy Updated: Oct 4, 2012, 4:05 PM EDT Associated Press

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AP PHOTO/AUDREY MCAVOY

Dean Jitchaku, an apprentice meat cutter, hands a package of grass-fed beef to a customer at the Whole Foods Market Kahala store in Honolulu on Sept. 28, 2012. National trends in locally grown foods and grass-fed beef have caught on in Hawaii, but crushing drought has made it difficult for ranchers to keep enough cattle in Hawaii to capitalize on the demand.

HONOLULU -- Hawaii's beef market is backward. Nearly all the beef eaten here - 95 percent - arrives packaged on container ships from the U.S. mainland. At the same time, Hawaii cattle ranchers ship 40,000 live cattle each year to California, Kansas and other states, while just 4,000 are slaughtered for meat sales in Hawaii.

The economics made sense for decades. Huge slaughterhouses elsewhere could process beef more efficiently than smaller ones in Hawaii, and it's cheaper to send cattle to the mainland to be fattened than to bring in corn or other grains to feed calves after they're weaned.

Now, national interest in locally grown food and grass-fed beef have caught on in Hawaii - offering ranchers plenty of reason to get out of this paradox. But the opportunity comes as crushing drought has made it difficult to keep enough cattle here to capitalize on the demand.

http://www.weather.com/news/drought-affects-hawaiian-beef-20121004