HONOLULU – The owners of Hawaii’s last sugar plantation say they’re getting out of the sugar-growing business.

Miles of sugar cane fields once spread across the islands, providing work to thousands of immigrants and shaping Hawaiian life. Soon, they’ll be gone.

Here’s an explanation of why sugar grew to dominate Hawaii and why it faded.

Sugar was farmed on a relatively small scale in the islands until the US Civil War when the conflict cut off the North from sugar grown in Louisiana, leading to a surge in imports from Hawai‘i.

In the 1870s, the US and what was then the Hawaiian Kingdom signed a treaty that eliminated US tariffs on sugar and rice and Hawaiian tariffs on cotton and other products.

Plantation profits almost doubled. Sugar cane growing expanded further after the US annexed Hawaii and property rights for plantation owners became more secure.

Acres planted with sugar cane exploded from 15,000 in 1876 to 238,000 in 1941.

Entrepreneurs from the US, Britain and beyond – including several descendants of Protestant missionaries to Hawaii – got into the business.

They brought in labourers from China, Japan, Portugal, Puerto Rico and elsewhere for the crushing work of plowing, planting and cutting cane.

A distinct language, Hawaiian pidgin or Hawaiian Creole English, emerged as immigrants and Native Hawaiians looked for ways to communicate.

Sugar growers began diverting vast quantities of water from wetter parts of the islands to drier areas with arable land.

The Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company, which ran the plantation that plans to harvest its last cane this year, has been diverting water from 19 streams in east Maui and several others in central Maui to irrigate its 36,000 acres.

Some of the old plantation irrigation infrastructure today supports housing subdivisions and golf courses on arid land.

Plantations started to close in the 1950s. The pace accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s.

US tariff and quota protections for sugar began declining in the decades after World War Two amid broader trade liberalisation.

Plantation workers first began to organise effective unions in the 1930s, which helped build Hawai‘i’s middle class but also made the industry less competitive compared with other countries.

Then Hawai‘i’s land values began to spike as the introduction of passenger jets reduced travel times to Hawai‘i and launched a tourism boom.

Many landowners found they could make more money building hotels and homes than growing cane.

The last Maui plantation’s parent company, Alexander and Baldwin Incorporated, lost $30 million on its agriculture business last year.

Sumner La Croix, a University of Hawaii economics professor, said the end of the sugar industry is a watershed moment for Hawaii – but not a surprise.

- Associated Press