Governor Linda Lingle came to visit us at the farm a couple of days ago. The first thing I wanted to be sure of was that Grandma would be there. And I wanted to tell the governor that we could not have done this without June’s help and support.
In the picture, I think Grandma and the governor have their arms around each other, and June is holding Grandma’s other hand. That made me smile.
First we went to see the tomato packing house workers, and the varieties of tomatoes we grow. I explained that our view of sustainability involves our workers, our community and the environment; and that food security is about farmers farming. “If farmers make money, farmers will farm.”
The Governor loves Hamakua Springs tomatoes
Ted Liu, Director of the Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism, asked me to give the governor an overall view of our farm. I explained that we have approximately 60 workers and that the farm consists of 600 fee simple acres in production. We have an annual rainfall of 140 inches and we have three springs and three streams running through the property. On our farm, we have the equivalent of about one-thirds of the water that flows through the Waiahole ditch to supply the Ewa Plains on O‘ahu. And we are in the process of building a hydro-electric plant, which will provide all the farm’s electricity. It will be able to continuously power fifteen 40-foot Matson reefers.
I explained that we started banana farming by trading banana pulapula for chicken manure and that we have transformed our business many times in our 30 years of business. So transforming ourselves is second nature to us.
When gas prices went up in mid-2008, several of our workers asked to borrow money for gas. That was very worrisome.
So we are transforming ourselves again. Instead of being the only large farmer on 600 acres, we are leasing land to area farmers. In the future, we won’t have many workers that live far away. And we won’t need to worry about workers’ housing.
We are offering area farmers a reasonable rent, and we are intending to provide water and electricity to the farmers at a very reasonable price. We know that if the farmers can make money, the farmers will farm. And if they make money, then we can make money distributing their products and then the retailers will get a steady supply of product to feed Hawai‘i’s people. With cheap electricity from the hydro plant, we can control our, and the farmers’, cooling costs.
We went over to look at the tilapia we are experimenting with. We think that in a future of rising oil prices, fish food will not be cheap and transporting frozen fish around the world will be expensive. So we are experimenting with growing fish using free running water, so we won’t need to use electricity for aeration or hormones and antibiotics. We are experimenting with using waste from our farm operations for feed. At some point in the future, this will become economical to do. We have all the natural resources and the vegetable waste to use. We plan to use the fish waste for fertilizer for downstream plants. When the time is right, we can scale up to any size that makes sense.
We went back to the main packing house, where June introduced the governor to some of the farmers, who then had a chance to chat with her. I explained that Kimo Pa is the farm manager, and that he and our daughter Tracy represent the next generation of farmers.
Governor Lingle with Ida Castillo
I told the governor that we are pushing for geothermal by having community meetings and talking to people, as we did early on for the TMT. She agreed that geothermal makes a lot of sense and said she would support us.
She mentioned to Ted Liu that we were “actually doing it.” I took it to mean that she thought we are doing something about Hawai‘i’s food security, rather than just talking about it. It was a nice, pleasant visit that we all enjoyed.
Congratulations! You are getting it done. An inspiration for the rest of us.