Hawaii's last sugar harvest paves the way for a fight over the land's future

As the industry winds down, a new generation of activists are dreaming of replacing sugar with a new agricultural model - and a new political settlement

For one last season, luscious, green fields of sugarcane are animating Maui's landscape.

Hulking trucks are loading pre-burned cane from the Hawaiian Corporate and Sugar Company (HC&S)'s 144th crop into the rust-colored factory where it will be rolled, shredded, squeezed and boiled into molasses. Passenger jets rumbling over the cane fields are a reminder that tourism has overtaken sugar in recent years, and assumed the role of largest industry in Maui.