Who we are?

Our organization specializes in horticultural crop research, including agronomy and plant nutrition, plant physiology, breeding, genetic engineering and tissue culture, and control of diseases and pests through integrated pest management. In addition to serving Hawaiʻi's agricultural industries through research and technology transfer to Hawaiʻiʻs producers.

Mission

  • To develop and demonstrate appropriate technologies in support of production agricultural research in order to promote rural community economic vitality through agriculture
  • To educate the public regarding the scientific research and the practice of agriculture by providing information and training in agricultural and natural resource conservation principles
  • To provide training and rehabilitation programs for agricultural workers
  • To support the development of agriculture in general by development of agribusiness opportunities
  • To perform scientific research in production agriculture

History of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association and the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center

Founded in 1895, the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA), dedicated to improving the sugar industry in Hawaii, has become an internationally recognized research center. 
It was in 1996 when HSPA expanded its research interest besides sugarcane and acquired its current name Hawaii Agriculture Research Center (HARC), expanding its research on tropical crops and forests. Standing now as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, HARC's research and education interest encompasses forestry, coffee, cacao, forages, vegetable crops, tropical fruits, and other diversified crops. 
In 2008, HARC's Experiment Station laboratories and administrative offices relocated from the Robert L. Cushing Building in Aiea, Hawaii to Kunia, Hawaii. The modern laboratories are equipped with state of the art instrumentation and equipment to meet the needs of its staff of agronomists, weed scientists, pathologists, physiologists, molecular biologists, horticulturists, plant breeders, sugar technologists, chemists, and conservationists. An excellent technical library located in the building supports the researchers. Corporate records, correspondences, cultivation contracts, financial records, personnel and payroll records, production records, and miscellaneous records in some cases going back to 1850 and in varying degrees of completeness for numerous plantations were donated to the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library, which created the HSPA Plantation Archives.

A. R. Grammer's "A History of the Experiment Station of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association, 1895-1945" was published in The Hawaiian Planters' Record, Volume LI, Nos. 3 and 4, pages 177-228 (1947). It was followed by D. J Heinz and R. V. Osgood's "Agricultural Progress Through Cooperation and Science, 1946-1996", published in the final issue of The Hawaiian Planters' Record, Volume 61, Issue 3, pages 1-105 (2009). Reports can be found here. 
For more information on the history of sugarcane in Hawaii, click here to visit the Temple University Libraries' website and the dissertation of Lawrence Kessler entitled "Planter's Paradise: Nature, Culture, and Hawai'i's Sugarcane Plantations.