Hawaiʻi’s 6,500 farms range from small operations that produce food and raise livestock for their families and their communities to large companies that supply big box stores and export coffee, macadamia nuts, and other luxury foods.
However, like most states, they have had trouble defining a farm, and as a result, fake farms still reap the benefits of lower taxes, regardless of what or how much they grow.
Some celebrities use them for tax benefits.
Illegitimate and unproductive agricultural operations have rankled Hawaiʻi for decades, with some developers explicitly targeting farmland for new housing. Mansions interspersed with fruit trees, classified as orchards, or a handful of goats, deemed a ranch, are among the many examples cited by critics.
Many farms are just scenic grassland. “They’re nothing approaching what any reasonable person would say is an agricultural use,” former Land Use Commission chair Jonathan Likeke Scheuer said. “You have the absurdity of people who say, ‘I’m growing turf’ because they just have a large lawn.”
Hawaii is trying to pass a bill to stop it. They’re working on it. Several states, including New Jersey and Kentucky, have struggled to define farming. In previous years.
Fake farms are an FTC violation.