Dole Food Co. has expanded its effort to raise cash by selling Hawai'i land, and is putting 5,000 acres in Wahiawa on the market two months after agreeing to sell 2,000 acres on O'ahu to an unidentified buyer.

The California-based firm with deep roots in Hawai'i said it has hired commercial real estate firm CB Richard Ellis Inc. to market the property for sale.

Dole spokesman Marty Ordman and CB Richard Ellis officials declined to identify the property except to say it is in Central O'ahu.

Most, if not all, of Dole's Central O'ahu land is in Wahiawa, according to county property records.

Ordman said the land is primarily zoned for agriculture and is leased to farmers growing crops or raising cattle, though some is fallow.

None of the land being put up for sale is farmed by Dole, which grows pineapples on 2,700 acres, and coffee and cacao on an additional 195 acres.

The company owned by billionaire David Murdock has said it intends to continue its agricultural operations in Hawai'i, but is shedding nonstrategic or underperforming assets around the world.

O'ahu land held for sale by Dole represents roughly 25 percent of what the company owns on the island, most of which is pastureland, part of the forestry reserve or leased to others largely for farm use.

According to the most recent information from the state Data Book in 2006, Dole was the seventh-largest Hawai'i private landowner with 28,472 acres.

Dole's presence in Hawai'i dates back more than a century as the place where James Dole founded the company in 1901 as Hawaiian Pineapple Co. and made pineapple production Hawai'i's second-largest industry.

Today Dole is still the second-largest pineapple producer in the state. Dole was also once a major sugarcane grower on O'ahu, but it exited the business when its Waialua Sugar Co. closed in 1996.

Dole's land sale plan on O'ahu will add to thousands of acres of agricultural land in the state that has been on the market or sold in recent years.

Much of the prior selloff was the result of major pineapple producer Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. shutting down local operations in 2006.

After Florida-based Del Monte quit pineapple production in Hawai'i, it returned 5,100 acres of leased land in Kunia to local landowner James Campbell Co.

Campbell has sold or received bids for much of the property, including a $31.3 million sale of 2,300 acres last year to Monsanto Co. for seed crop operations.

About 850 acres of Campbell's Kunia land is listed on the market for $9.2 million by CB Richard Ellis.

In 2004, Del Monte also quit farming pineapple on about 2,000 acres in Wahiawa leased from the George Galbraith Trust with an estimated value of $30 million to $50 million that the state has proposed buying.

Hawai'i's largest pineapple producer, Maui Land & Pineapple Co., also has been selling pieces of "noncore" land in recent years. The company, which owns more than 25,000 acres on Maui and grows pineapple on roughly 4,000 acres, sold nearly 3,000 acres of mostly agricultural land in the past few years.

Dole disclosed in December that it intended to sell Hawai'i land, and in March agreed to sell 2,000 acres on O'ahu to an undisclosed buyer for $39 million in a deal expected to close between July and September. That property also was not identified by Dole but is leased to a seed corn producer.

Dole's move to sell land also is occurring outside Hawai'i and would help the financially struggling company pay off what Bloomberg News calculated to be $350 million in bonds maturing next year.

A diverse food producer with global farming operations, Dole is the world's largest producer and marketer of fresh fruits, vegetables and cut flowers, and also markets a growing line of packaged and frozen foods.

Last year, the company reported a net loss of $58 million on revenue of $6.9 billion, down from a $90 million loss on revenue of $6.2 billion in 2006.

To raise cash, Dole last year sold $41.7 million of assets, and at the end of last year held another $76.2 million in assets for sale — including a fresh-cut flower distribution facility in Florida and more than 4,000 acres in California producing almonds, olives, citrus and grapes.