The state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands broke ground Friday on a new agricultural homestead community near Akaka Falls in Honomū on Hawaiʻi Island.
While much of DHHL’s past attention has focused on developing residential lots, these new agricultural lots aim to allow Native Hawaiian beneficiaries to become self-sufficient through farming.
The new Honomū project is among the expanded options the agency is exploring to give Native Hawaiian beneficiaries an opportunity to not only return to the land, but farm it as well.
When beneficiaries first apply for the Hawaiian Home Lands program, they get to sign-up to receive offers from two of the three homesteading options: residential, agricultural, or pastoral. On Hawaiʻi Island, the waitlist for an agricultural lot is now longer than its residential counterpart.
For decades, the department's agricultural lot offerings required beneficiaries to bring a product to market. This posed a challenge for beneficiaries who had no interest in running a business, but perhaps wanted to farm a small garden and raise a few chickens for eggs and goats for milk.
DHHL Chair William Ailā Jr. has said in the past that these lots will allow beneficiaries to cultivate their land while producing locally-grown food for themselves and their families.
This first phase of the Honomū project will include 16 subsistence agriculture lots ranging from 1 to 3 acres, and will be offered to the first 500 applicants on the Hawaiʻi Island Agricultural Waitlist.
Upon full buildout, DHHL anticipates the Honomū Subsistence Agriculture Homestead Community will include up to 375 lots. The department broke ground on agricultural lots in Pana’ewa last year and is moving forward on agricultural offerings on Maui and Kaua’i.
