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Dairy’s Decline and the Politics of “Local” Milk in Hawai‘i

Abstract This paper uses the case of Hawai‘i’s dairy industry to examine the history of food production in Hawai‘i, contemporary interest in re-localizing Hawai‘i’s food system, and the conflicting agrarian imaginaries that challenge this endeavor. The evolution of the dairy industry in Hawai‘i illustrates how over the past several decades the US dairy industry has become consolidated in the name of economic efficiency, regardless of the potential environmental and human health impacts. As elsewhere in the United States, Hawai‘i consumers are pushing back against this economic transformation, and advocating for greater protection of local dairy farms. Most local food advocates do not value local purely on a geographical basis, but for its potential to capture desirable attributes such as sustainably produced, supportive of local economies and/or freshness. This can make it difficult to establish a local food system when community members hold different visions, or agrarian imaginaries, for how best to produce local food, and for where or by whom it should be produced. I highlight the history and political economy of milk production in Hawai‘i in order to demonstrate both the challenges and opportunities for reforming—and more specifically re-localizing—the dairy industry in Hawai‘i, and in the United States more broadly.