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More accurately, it’s fixing us who have failed to care properly for kalo. From the perspective of Hawaiian belief, as the younger brother, we’ve shown very little respect for the elder. In recent decades, disease has become a critical issue, and crops are failing. Poi demand goes up while supply goes down. Water issues only exacerbates this problem. But, the agriculture around commercial kalo isn’t focused on the ancient wisdom of the Hawaiians - kalo is treated like a corn crop. Is it kalo’s fault? We are what’s different in this equation - and that bears some examination from the viewpoint of solution seeking.

http://pono.taroandti.com/2008/10/10/fixing-kalo/

Aside from abandoning traditional soil enrichment techniques, a big challenge to kalo is that it is cultivated with little thought to where it wants to grow. Different varieties prefer slightly different environments and locations. In the day of the Hawaiians, kalo was grown where it desired to grow - where it performed the best. Today, it is grown by farmers desperate to pay their bills - and without regard of where it desires to grow. Farmers want to grow what’s hot on the market. In this manner, kalo is forced into environments where the water is too warm or too cold, where the soil is too dry in upland, or where organic media is nearly absent from the soil. Up until recently, the kahuna were able to cultivate kalo without the catastrophic disease problems for centuries that are plaguing us today. And with our supposedly superior knowledge and technology, we can’t seem to get a grasp of it today? Kalo is not the problem - we are. And we can fix it.

http://pono.taroandti.com/2008/10/10/roots-of-kalo-diseases/