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Woman smiles at camera in front of an avocado tree.
Land & Water Stories

Farm Bill Funds Help Maui Farmer Rise from the Ashes

After her farm was devastated in the Maui wildfire, Anne Carter turned to the Farm Bill for support.

At about 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 7, 2023, the power went out at Anne Carter’s house on Kulamanu, a nine-acre farm of citrus groves and herb gardens perched on a mountainside on the island of Maui, Hawai‘i.

“By 11 o’clock, I could smell smoke. At 12:30 a.m. I saw the glow of the fires,” Carter recalls. “By 1:45 a.m. I looked to the south and saw billowing smoke and the pastures were on fire.”

As Carter and her 16-year-old daughter fled, cat and dog in tow, the fire was burning the tall eucalyptus trees that bordered her farm. By morning, the fire had moved downslope, where it burned a neighbor’s house to the ground. The wildfire, fueled by dry conditions and driven by winds from a hurricane, would sweep across Maui for a total of four days, destroying thousands of structures across the slopes of Haleakalā and in the town of Lahaina and killing more than 100 residents.

Wildfire smoke moving over a beach with a big building on the left side of the image.
Wildfire Smoke Wildfires burn over the town of Lahaina as seen in the neighboring Kaanapali Alii resort. The wildfire, which is the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, spread quickly around the island due to high winds. © 2023 Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty Images
Aerial view of a town with all buildings burned down in a wildfire.
Lahaina Wildfire An aerial image taken on August 10, 2023 shows destroyed homes and buildings on the waterfront that were burned to the ground in Lahaina. Over 100 people died and thousands of buildings, homes and acres of land were destroyed. © Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images
Wildfire Smoke Wildfires burn over the town of Lahaina as seen in the neighboring Kaanapali Alii resort. The wildfire, which is the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, spread quickly around the island due to high winds. © 2023 Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty Images
Lahaina Wildfire An aerial image taken on August 10, 2023 shows destroyed homes and buildings on the waterfront that were burned to the ground in Lahaina. Over 100 people died and thousands of buildings, homes and acres of land were destroyed. © Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images

Carter is one of the more fortunate survivors of the devastating fires. Her family survived and her house, though smoke-damaged, was spared. But the fire caused significant damage to her certified organic farm, where she cultivates citrus trees, avocados and herbs. She lost her extensive irrigation system, her tree nursery and fencing that is crucial for keeping out browsing deer and rooting pigs. She saved most of her mature avocado and citrus trees by hand-watering them for months.

“I was ready, honestly, to quit farming,” says Carter. “I thought, this is the writing on the wall.”

She wasn’t alone. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the August fires on Maui caused about $23.1 million in agricultural damage. And after the fires were over, federal programs funded by the Farm Bill helped many farmers, including Carter, get back on their feet.

Green fields with burned trees in the background.
The Maui wildfires caused significant damage to the eucalyptus trees that bordered Anne Carter's farm.
a bile of burnt wood and debris.
The wildfires fortunately spared Anne Carter's home but destroyed her extensive irrigation system that helped sustain her certified organic farm. The cost to rebuild was daunting, until she received help from the Farm Bill.
The Maui wildfires caused significant damage to the eucalyptus trees that bordered Anne Carter's farm.
The wildfires fortunately spared Anne Carter's home but destroyed her extensive irrigation system that helped sustain her certified organic farm. The cost to rebuild was daunting, until she received help from the Farm Bill.
Man carrying two trays of harvested greens at sunset.
The Blaney Farm James Toner harvests bok choy on the Blaney Farm in Ohio. Here, TNC works with farmers to farm in ways that support nature, people and the climate. © ©Alex Snyder/TNC

What is EQIP?

EQIP is a popular Farm Bill program and NRCS’ flagship conservation program. It helps farmers, ranchers and forest landowners integrate conservation practices into working lands including farms like Anne Carter's. EQIP provides technical and financial assistance to producers and helps outline and implement conservation activities that address their unique natural resource concerns while improving their agricultural operations.

Carter, born in Hawai‘i and a lifelong conservationist, didn’t want to give up on her farm. She works some of the richest soil in the island chain but, faces challenges including deer and pigs (both of which are non-native and invasive) that go after her plants, beetles that kill trees and the vagaries of unpredictable weather, made worse by climate change. She’s been running her farm for 25 years and is closely tied to the local economy, with most of her produce and herbs sold to restaurants and health food shops in nearby Pa‘ia Town.

She’d never used federal farm support programs in the past, but as she began to pick up the pieces of her business, she realized she wasn’t going to rebuild without help.

“Between the fencing, the irrigation and the smoke damage to the house—it was just too much.”

A program administered by the USDA’s Farm Services Agency, specifically targeted at women and minority farmers, helped her replace her fences with new, fireproof material. She’s also working with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, which will cover some of the cost of replacing her irrigation equipment through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. EQIP provides U.S. farmers, ranchers and forest landowners with technical and financial assistance to prevent soil erosion, protect water quality and conserve natural habitat. The federal government’s largest agriculture conservation program for working lands is routinely oversubscribed. There are far more applicants than available funding, leaving many producers without critical support.

Learning of these programs was a great relief, Carter says.