Don't be misled by the Big Island's barren lava fields. Here you'll find a virtual Garden of Eden planted in all manner of crops, from coffee and macadamia nuts to vanilla and cocoa beans. This island's $500 million agriculture industry is the largest in the state, and the bulk of Hawaii's agricultural products are grown and processed here.
Some crops—like cacao trees, Kona coffee trees and orchid-producing vanilla beans—are unique to the island and yield products available nowhere else. The Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory, for example, produces its chocolate from cocoa beans that grow on cacao trees in the company's orchards.
Hooking up with Big Island growers is a fascinating experience if only for the wide variety of small, sustainable crops that are being cultivated successfully throughout the island. See how taro grows and is pounded into poi, find out how to crack a macadamia nut, how vanilla beans are pollinated. Walk through a field of tropical flowers, visit a winery, taste fresh produce in the farms that supply local restaurants, visit a hog farm. Get a lesson in Hawaiian culture at a farm that specializes in teaching hula, buy Noni Juice, tour a honey farm, or sit a while and watch mushrooms grow.
Gradually, Big Island farmers are finding ways to open their operations to the public. Merriman's, a Waimea restaurant specializing in Hawaii Regional Cuisine, conducts half-day tours of the farms that supply its menu and then wraps it up with a four-course dinner using ingredients sampled on the farms earlier in the day. The farm visits are part of the Hawaii AgVentures project.
