Richard Ha writes:

In the early 90s, we just grew bananas and were located at Kea’au, where the risk of our farm being hit by Banana Bunch Top Virus disease was high. We decided we needed to develop another farm, in another location, to help spread the risk.

But where? Sugar plantations were closing down and we had alternatives. We could move to Waialua on O’ahu, and that is the advice we were given. It was close to the major market.

There were several alternatives on the Big Island as well. Finally, it came down to Waialua or Pepe’ekeo. Waialua had the obvious proximity to the Honolulu market and it came with a functioning, low-elevation well. Pepe’ekeo had abundant rainfall and not perfect but adequate sunlight.

On the principle of sustainability, we chose Pepe’ekeo due to its free water and adequate sunshine.

Fast forward to 2002. We had developed a new banana farm at Pepe’ekeo and we were looking to diversify even more. But what type of farming would we go into?

There were signs then that China’s strong economic growth would be using a tremendous amount of energy and so it was safe to assume that energy prices would rise. Again, on the principle of sustainability we decided to go into a form of hydroponic production that would take advantage of free sunlight and abundant water supplies. We planned to use the highest tech procedures in a low tech structure. The rationale is: why put in air conditioning when you can orient the house to let the breeze pass through?

Fast forward to 2006. Gas is more than $3 per gallon. In addition to China’s growth, other factors are pushing energy costs higher than we had expected. We are happy that we decided to move our farm to Pepe’ekeo. And boy are we happy we did not go into a high-energy system of production.

There are three streams and three smaller springs on the nearly 600 acres that we bought. The sugar plantation here had been authorized to use six million gallons of water per day from these streams. In addition, the Pepe’ekeo area was, in the past, supplied with drinking water from a large spring that is located on our property. Now it’s just used for back-up in case of emergency. The county is now drilling a back-up well for the community, and the spring and infrastructure will soon revert back to us. This will be another large source of water.

We find ourselves here in this position by following the principle of sustainability. We use it as our primary guiding principle in our business. Whenever we come to a fork in the road, we ask ourselves: “Which fork will take us down the road to a sustainable future?” This has given us a good and dependable compass to follow.