Hawaii will be left with just one big grower of pineapple, Dole Food Co., and a handful of small farms next month when Maui Land & Pineapple ends production of what was once the state's single biggest cash crop.

Maui Land announced yesterday that it will exit the business after close to 100 years of plantation-scale pineapple farming on the Valley Isle.

Maui Land's exit from pineapple farming follows the pullout of Del Monte Fresh Produce from the business on Oahu in 2006, and also comes on the heels of the final harvest of sugar cane on Kauai last week by Gay & Robinson, which left just one company growing the other crop that established Hawaii as a major agricultural producer.

Maui Land said it could no longer sustain financial losses that threaten the existence of the company that dates back to 1903, and the area of operations with the worst future prospect — pineapple farming on about 2,000 acres — had to be eliminated.

The company also will transfer management of some parts of its Kapalua Resort to third parties as part of the restructuring plan announced yesterday.

Warren H. Haruki, the CEO of Kauai firm Grove Farm Co. Inc. who has been leading Maui Land on an interim basis since the company's last CEO resigned in May, said in a statement that the decision was incredibly painful but absolutely necessary.

"We realize this ends a significant chapter in Maui's history and an important part of many lives, over many generations," he said. "We express our deep respect and profound appreciation to our employees for their many contributions to the company over the years."

The restructuring will result in 208 employees of Maui Land subsidiary Maui Pineapple Co. losing their jobs as harvesting is halted at the end of the year. An additional 77 employees are to be laid off in the company's land development division and other areas. And 133 employees are expected to be terminated but rehired by firms assuming select resort operations.

In all, Maui Land's workforce will shrink from 624 to 206.

Maui Mayor Charmaine Tavares said the move is sad news for Maui Land workers and the broader community where pineapple farming has employed multiple generations of some families and been a foundation of the island's history.

"I have my own personal memories of summer work in the fields," she said in a statement. "For nearly a hundred years the company's pineapple operations have made our community's character unique."

County, state and federal officials have pledged to do what they can to help displaced workers.

Few employees were surprised at news of the plantation shutting down, but many said they were still shocked to get the word yesterday that they will be losing their jobs at the end of the year.

"I kind of knew this was going on for a while, but this came out of the blue and I didn't expect it to close in 60 days," said Harold Gouveia, 61, who joined the company in 1978 and is the lead mechanic at the Häliimaile Division.

"I think I can retire, but I'm not ready to retire. I want to work," said Gouveia, who's father worked for the company 45 years as a truck driver. "It's sad for the poor people in their 50s and 60s who for 30 or 40 years have come to work in the rain and in all kinds of conditions trying and trying to make the company run."

William Kennison, Maui division director for the ILWU Local 142 union that represents 193 Maui Pineapple employees, shared Gouveia's sense of shock to a decision many suspected might be made.

"We always hoped that this being the last pineapple operation on Maui, that there was a glimmer of hope it might have survived," he said.

STOCK RISES

Investors responded to the news by pushing up the stock price of Maui Land yesterday by 27 cents to $6.52 from $6.25 on Monday. Maui Land shares had traded as low as $5.20 in March and are down from a recent peak of around $47 in early 2005.

The lack of surprise to Maui Land's drastic move in part stems from a warning the company made in July 2008 that it might cease pineapple farming if efforts to reverse losses didn't succeed.

The warning followed a decision at the time by Maui Land to lay off 274 workers then representing more than a quarter of its 1,045-employee workforce, to save $11 million a year. Those job cuts were concentrated at Maui Pineapple where 204 lost their jobs.

Since then, the two other legs of Maui Land's business — tourism and real estate development — have contributed to massive losses for the company, and no progress was made in pineapple.

The company's plan to continue pineapple farming involved moving growing operations from Häliimaile in Upcountry Maui to Ho- nolua in West Maui to reduce operating costs and free up land in Häliimaile for development.

But skyrocketing oil prices last year made it more costly to transport pineapples from Honolua to a Kahului processing facility. Extra fertilizer required in Honolua also added to higher, not lower, expenses. Ultimately the plan was reversed and planting was halted in West Maui in favor of Upcountry.

Doug MacCluer, a former Maui Pineapple vice president and agronomist who retired in 2002 after 39 years with the company, said the move was part of what he views as a string of poor management decisions.

"It didn't have to be this way," he said. "In my opinion, they shot themselves in the foot."

MacCluer is especially critical of Maui Land's decision in 2007 to cease canning pineapple, which also cut off juice sales, to instead focus solely on fresh fruit sales.

Gouveia, the Maui Pineapple mechanic, also blames the plantation's downfall on a series of bad decisions and lack of support for agricultural operations by managers under the leadership of David Cole, a high-tech entrepreneur turned organic farmer who led Maui Pine from 2003 until the end of last year.

Cole was recruited by AOL founder Steve Case, who became Maui Land's largest shareholder in 1999. Cole returned Maui Land to profitability for several years, but also sold a company plantation in Costa Rica and hundreds of acres of fertile land in Häliimaile.

After Cole resigned, Robert Webber, the company's chief operating officer, assumed the CEO position but resigned in May.

'COMPANY TRIED'

Ryan Churchill, Maui Land's senior vice president of corporate development, said the company made a wholehearted effort to stay in the pineapple business.

"The company tried, and gave it its best shot," he said.

Churchill said large-scale agriculture has been extremely difficult to sustain in Hawaii over the past couple of decades.

Ten years ago, Maui Land employed 1,480 people in pineapple production and farmed about 6,000 acres.

High land and labor costs have made Hawaii pineapple growers less competitive with producers in Costa Rica, Mexico, Ecuador and other countries.

Maui Land said that since 2002 it has invested $20 million in a new fresh-fruit packing facility but has lost $115 million on pineapple operations with no turnaround in sight.

The company explored ethanol production as an alternative use for its farmland, as well as ways to diversify with other crops such as koa. As a last-ditch effort, an employee-led buyout of Maui Pineapple was considered, but that failed, too.

MacCluer, who was part of the buyout group, said the hui didn't have enough time — only about a month — to find investors willing to pay a price acceptable to Maui Land. The deadline for a deal expired Monday.

Pineapple farming may have survived at Maui Land had its other businesses been able to offset farm losses. Alexander & Baldwin Inc., the state's last sugar cane grower, has sustained years of agribusiness losses from profits from ocean transportation and real estate development and investing.

But other business divisions of Maui Land have undermined the company's ability to support pineapple.

During the first nine months of this year, Maui Land's real estate development division reported an operating loss of $61.2 million, compared to an operating profit of $21.5 million in the same period last year.

Resort operations for Maui Land recorded an operating loss of $11.4 million this year through September, compared to a $13.1 million operating loss in the same period last year.

Agricultural operations were responsible for an operating loss of $12.6 million, compared to a $19.3 million operating loss in the same comparable period.

RESTRUCTURING

The company said it expects its investments in its resort and land development business to eventually recover along with the economy, but that there was no hope for such recovery in pineapple.

However, Maui Land is also restructuring other parts of its business. The company plans to find partners to manage the 206-unit Kapalua Villas hotel-condominium, run its Kapalua Adventures zipline, provide resort shuttle and security services, and operate the 188-acre Kapalua Farms producing organic pineapples, produce, herbs, fruits and eggs from pasture-raised chickens.

After the restructuring, Maui Land will be engaged in land development and management of its golf courses, retail and land.

Previously, Maui Land has taken other steps to keep it afloat, including selling one of Kapalua Resort's golf courses in March for $50 million and leasing it back.

Though Maui Land will harvest its last pineapple under its Maui Gold brand name, there still will be considerable pineapple plants in the ground maturing over the next couple of years. Churchill said it's possible that smaller farm operators could continue farming on Maui Land property under the Maui Gold name.

Churchill also said the company will seek to keep the pineapple land in agriculture, and that there has been interest by others to use the land for cattle and crops for food and energy.

Maui Land owns about 24,000 acres on Maui, including 11,800 acres zoned for agriculture, 11,600 acres in conservation and 900 acres for urban use. The company also has no plans to change its name.