Like the culture, which was suppressed as the islands came under increasing Western influence and control in the 19th century, the crop has dramatically declined , from an estimated 35,000 acres pre-contact to 310 acres last year, according to Department of Agriculture statistics. But in the past two decades, farmers have increasingly turned to taro to protect both the land and the Hawaiian way of life.

I grew up in Hawaii, but I’m not Hawaiian: That term belongs only to the kanaka maoli, whose ancestors lived in the islands before Captain James Cook’s arrival in 1778. And although I still think of myself as a kama‘aina, or child of the land, the fact that I now live in New York and write for The New York Times sometimes made it difficult to persuade locals to talk to me.

Hawaii, for all its reputation as paradise — and perhaps because of it — rarely makes national news, beyond reports of natural disasters or a false missile attack alert. So the people who live there may be justifiably wary of mainland reporters seeking to tell their stories. For example: In 2016, I wrote a review of New York restaurants specializing in poke, a Hawaiian dish that was still a novelty on the mainland. In keeping with the way some of the restaurants spelled poke in their names, the editors put an accent on the letter E throughout so readers would know how to pronounce it. (The accent has since been removed from the online article.) People back home rolled their eyes; I thought I’d never live it down.

Then, last year, I wrote a longer story about poke, this time accentless and focused on the history of the dish in Hawaii. I must have at least partially redeemed myself because one of the most vocal critics of the earlier piece, the chef Mark Noguchi, reached out to me on Instagram. We started talking, and he told me about the struggle to bring back Hawaiian food ways — and about the disappearance of hundreds of varieties of taro that had once flourished in the islands.

I wanted to know more. Mr. Noguchi put me in touch with local farmers and cultural practitioners, vouching for me, and they in turn put me in touch with others. Some were still initially skeptical and concerned about what story I would tell: Was this just about taro, or did it involve the larger fight for native Hawaiian rights?