According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the amount of Kaua'i land being farmed dropped 23 percent from 1997 to 2002. The market value of production from those farms dropped 40 percent in that time.

Of the 565 farms on Kaua'i in 2002, more than 100 had fewer than 50 acres and another 300-plus had fewer than 10 acres, the USDA says.

The Kaua'i County Planning Department isn't sure how much of the county is in working farms, Director Ian Costa said via e-mail. Almost half the island is under the state's agricultural classification, although that doesn't necessarily mean it was ever farmed.

A 2005 state law requires counties to designate the highest-quality agricultural lands as "important" and to give landowners incentives to keep that land in farming. Whether lesser-quality agricultural lands should be reclassified as "rural" and developed for nonfarm uses is a point of contention between landowners and developers and conservation and planning groups, said Jeff Mikulina, director of the state Sierra Club chapter.

Almost as many condominium house lots — 1,359 — were approved for Kaua'i agricultural land from 2000 to 2005 as the 1,620 residential units on urban-zoned land in Kaua'i's towns, said Diane Zachary, president of the nonprofit Kaua'i Planning and Action Alliance.

Zachary said she doesn't support a moratorium on development of agricultural land, but she does support changes in the way Kaua'i allows growth.

"We've got a freight train moving, and we've got to find a way to slow it down," Zachary said. Her group's research shows that 5,163 residential units and 6,142 resort units are already zoned for development for the next five years on Kaua'i, she said.

Kaua'i County is at a "defining moment" in its evolving use of land since sugar plantations starting closing in the 1970s, said Randall Francisco, who was born and raised in Hanapepe and who returned to the island two years ago as its Chamber of Commerce president.

There are people who want to farm but can't afford to buy or lease the land they need because agricultural land costs have been driven up by rural housing developments, Francisco said. Such "gentleman's farms" don't maximize the land use, and "there's less available land to be used for true farming," he said.

Other problems include the loss of open space and difficulties in providing adequate water, fire protection and emergency services to far-flung ag developments, Zachary said.

Government should seek a balance between respecting private landowners' right to do as they please with their property and the public's desire to channel growth in appropriate ways, Baptiste said.

Anahola farmer Don Mahi said he is grateful to be farming on lower-cost Hawaiian Homestead lands, but he realizes many farmers don't have that option.

Mahi supplements his income with a vacation rental and is working to produce other products to increase his farm's profits, such as making soaps from farm-grown neem oil.

Small farmers who aren't wealthy have to do such things to make ends meet, he said.

Since Kapa'a farmer Kahili is unlikely to find suitable land before his cacao seedlings get too big to transplant, his best hope of making any money off them is to sell them to gentlemen farmers.

"I'd love to plant them," he said. "But I'm hoping just to sell them, at a discount price, to people who want to place them in their backyard."