Loʻi Kalo

A loʻi kalo is an irrigated terrace for growing kalo, the Hawaiian word for taro. It is the oldest form of agriculture in these islands and, for most of Hawaiian history, the one that mattered most.

How it works

A loʻi is a shallow, level basin bounded by earthen walls, kept under a few inches of moving water. The water arrives through an ʻauwai, a channel diverted from a stream above, and leaves through an outlet at the lower end that returns it to the stream below.

The moving water is the point. It keeps the root zone cool, suppresses weeds, and carries nutrients through the system. Water taken from a stream for a loʻi is not consumed. It is borrowed, used, and given back, which is why loʻi systems could operate at scale for centuries without exhausting the streams that fed them.

A working system is a network rather than a single field. ʻAuwai branch and rejoin, loʻi are terraced down a slope so that the outflow of one becomes the inflow of the next, and the whole arrangement depends on the people upstream and downstream of you doing their part. Kalo cultivation was a shared undertaking by design.

Why kalo

Kalo is a staple crop, and it is also a genealogical one. In the Kumulipo and in the moʻolelo of Hāloa, kalo is the elder sibling of the Hawaiian people. The relationship is one of kinship rather than ownership, and the obligations run both ways.

The word ʻohana, family, derives from ʻohā, the young corm that grows from the parent plant. The language holds the idea directly.

Loʻi in Wailua

The Wailua ahupuaʻa ran from the mountains to the sea, and its people farmed the fields along the Wailua River. An ahupuaʻa was organized so that a community had access to what it needed across that whole range, from upland forest to reef, with the river system tying it together.

Loʻi kalo were part of how that worked here, as they were across the islands wherever there was reliable water and workable land.