All posts by Richard Ha

Government

National Policy: Supporting Conventional Plant Breeding Programs

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Richard Ha writes:

I am on the USDA Fruit and Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee (FVIAC), which advises the Secretary of Agriculture on issues affecting the Fruit and Vegetable Industry. When we broke out into subcommittees last year, I went onto the grant and research committee.

I want to tell you about one of the issues our subcommittee is talking about, and going to be recommending, because I think it’s significant.

It has to do with the huge decline in conventional plant breeding programs at the country’s Land Grant Colleges. The huge outcry we are seeing now against large seed companies is a protest against a system that is way out of balance. We need to support conventional plant breeding programs, and we are going to recommend this.

It is cheaper and science has come a long way. We have mapped certain plants and we know the characteristics of certain genes now. We have the techniques now to look at seedlings to see if they have desired genes and to select for them at that young stage. This is still conventional breeding, and it saves time and money.

The whole FVIAC meets in a couple of weeks and we will be making national policy suggestions, including on this topic.

You can read more about this below.

Key findings related state-level research on development of regionally adapted and public fruit & vegetable cultivars from the Proceedings of 2014 Summit on Seeds and Breeds for 21st Century Agriculture (2014: Washington DC):

State Breeding Programs are Starved for Resources and Breeders

33% decline in the number of plant breeders in US from 1994-2001; Only eight universities graduated at least seven students in plant breeding per year between 1995 and 2000

Between 1990 and 2010 membership in the Breeder and Plant Physiologist divisions of the Crop Science Society of America dropped 56%

State funding for breeding research has followed federal trend of sharp reductions in public plant breeding

Universities have greatly curtailed investment in public breeding, and are increasingly steering royalty payments to general funds instead of back into breeding programs

Very few universities have even one whole plant physiologist who has the resources to interact with breeders in germplasm identification and enhancement

Budget cuts at land grant universities have resulted in more and more technicians reliant on ‘soft money’ funding that is highly variable and incompatible with the development and maintenance of long-term breeding programs

At most institutions, the value of a program is measured by the value of the overhead monies generated, not by whether it is important and/or productive

Among vegetable crops, only potatoes, tomatoes, cucurbits (and all types combined), berries (all types combined) and tree nuts (all types combined) have more than two programs developing cultivars; carrots, celery, table beets, watermelons, sweet potatoes and sweet corn have only one each

Most produce crops lack significant state check-off programs to fund public breeding programs due to the fragmented nature of horticultural production

Private Classical and Transgenic Breeding Programs Are Not Picking Up the Slack

Private breeding programs remain important in the specialty crop industry, but increasing concentration in the specialty crop seed business has resulted in discontinuation of many lines as larger companies seek economies of scale

The small size of regional specialty crop markets makes them less attractive for significant private breeding programs by large seed companies

Public Cultivar Development is Economically More Efficient

Transgenic variety development typically costs $50 million per released variety, compared to $1 million for a public cultivar

 Recommendations

1. Develop a comprehensive national plan to restore funding and institutional capacity for the development of public plant and animal varieties.

2. Encourage and reward agro-biodiversity on farms and in our commercial seed choices in order to increase resilience against shifting and unpredictable climatic conditions.

3. Address the negative impacts of consolidation and concentration in the ownership of seeds by empowering farmers to save and own seeds and encouraging more independent regional seed companies.

4. Increase farmer and researcher access to innovation in the development of elite cultivars, and confront the negative impacts of utility patents and restrictive licenses.

5. Increase the number of public cultivar developers in each of the seven US climatic regions with a focus on renewing institutional capacity to support future public plant breeders.

6. Create new, innovative partnerships and models to address regionalized and participatory approaches to public cultivar development.

7. Strengthen and democratize public germplasm collection systems and address germplasm access and sharing at an international level.

8. Commit adequate resources to determine critically missing data, budgets and baseline information to better articulate both the challenges and the solutions ahead.

9. Build greater public awareness of the importance of public cultivar development by expanding regional communities of seed advocates and identifying on-the-ground regional priorities and challenges to ensure that solutions meet the needs of stakeholders in each region.

Uncategorized

Farming in the Wild West?

Richard Ha writes:

The Hamakua Coast is becoming the Wild Wild West.

A stop sign on Highway 19 is shot full of holes.

Stop sign

Someone cut through our iron gate with a torch just recently.

Gate

They left a flashlight (by accident?)

Flashlight

We're installing camouflaged infrared monitors at different places on the farm.

Our neighbors at the quarry had fuel stolen and their surveillance camera stolen.

Many farmers are reporting product and equipment stolen.

It's not easy being a farmer.

Geothermal, Peak Oil

Hawaii, Shale & Geothermal

Richard Ha writes:

Because Hawai‘i relies so much on oil for its energy, the state will be a major beneficiary of the shale oil phenomenon. Conventional oil development takes a long time – five to ten years – whereas activating a shale oil well takes less than a year.

The result is that whenever the Saudis try to raise the price of oil, our U.S. shale oil drillers will react wherever they can make money.

From The Barrel Blog, the essential perspective on global energy:

Energy Economist: Shale oil’s response to prices may call for industry re-evaluation

Shale oil’s investment cycle is shorter and its decline profile sharper than conventional oil production. Current indicators suggest legacy declines from shale will catch up fast with the industry. This points to a sharp deceleration in US shale oil output. But, while conventional oil takes time to slow down, it also takes time to speed up. It will be shale that is best placed to benefit from any oil price recovery, as Ross McCracken, managing editor of Platts Energy Economists, explains in this month’s selection from the publication. Read the rest

At $70 a barrel, a lot of people make money and at $40, a lot of people lose money. This safety valve is very good for us in Hawai‘i.

This will give us time to make rational energy decisions. Oil and gas are still finite resources. Because two-thirds of our economy is based on consumer spending, we need to find solutions that take care of the rubbah slippah folks. Low prices for them strengthens the economy for all.

Each island has its own basket of energy resources. The Big Island, because of its abundant geothermal resource, has the biggest basket of lowest cost alternatives. O‘ahu has the smallest basket of resources and so it needs help from the other islands—hence, the talk about cabling resources.

The elephant in the room is cabling geothermal resources from the Big Island. That will never happen, though, unless the Big Island residents themselves receive a demonstrated benefit from geothermal.

So now we need to work on getting Big Islanders definite low cost and other benefits from geothermal—like making hydrogen for transportation and even nitrogen fertilizer.

Then we can have a group of Big Islanders, representing the people, sit across the table and negotiate the conditions under which the people would approve exporting energy off island.

I would think education for our keiki might be a good starting point.

Contest

Photo Contest! Where Are Your Slippahs?!

Richard Ha writes:

It’s time for another photo contest.

We want to see your favorite shot of where all the rubbah slippahs gather at your place.

Maybe it’s that spot just outside the back door. You know where it is. The place where everybody leaves their slippahs when they come over.

So take some photos and give us your best shot. Send your favorites to leslie@leslielang.com by Friday, February 6, 2015.

We’ll announce a winner shortly after that.

The prize is the satisfaction of knowing you won.

We can’t wait to see what you’ve got!

TO RECAP:

For the contest, we are looking for a photo of where your slippahs all congregate. Not just a pair of slippahs. Take a photo of that big mess of slippahs right outside the door, when everyone is home or when everybody comes over.

Tomatoes

Community Members Ask If We Would Consider Tomato House Fundraiser

Richard Ha writes:

The response we've been getting from the community since we stopped producing tomatoes has been absolutely overwhelming. We did not expect it.

We knew people liked our Hamakua Springs tomatoes, but none of us anticipated the extent or amount of comments we've been getting. It's really been unbelievable. 

I recently got a note about our tomatoes from a couple in Kailua, on O‘ahu, and I wanted to share it with you. I'm posting it here with their permission:

Dear Richard and June Ha,
 
I read with great dismay that you will no longer be growing tomatoes due to the age of your hydroponic equipment. I don’t know how others feel about this, but my husband and I adored your tomatoes and will be very sad to be without them in the future.
 
I have a suggestion that you may not have considered. I know that I would be more than willing to donate money towards a new system. I imagine that there are others who feel the same way we do and would do likewise.

Is it worth your time to make a plea to the public for funds, stating the goal and having a chart indicating how close you are to that goal? Would the newspaper support your goal and put the information in a box on the front page, keeping track of the progress as well as keeping the public aware of your need?  If there was a bank account or some such place to send funds, you might just receive enough to update your equipment and be back in the tomato business.
 
It is so sad to see HI become more dependent on imported food rather than less, as should be the goal. Anyhow, this has been on my mind since the article was published. I contacted the reporter who said he would pass along the information, but I just had to see if you were even considering the idea. 
 
Thank you for listening. 

That was very nice of them. I had to tell them that we've passed the point of no return at this point. The problem is that costs have gone up, but the energy that drives tomato production – the sun – has not gone up. 

Government

Mina Morita of the PUC is a True Consumer Advocate

Richard Ha writes:

Mina Morita is resigning from her position on the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, Governor David Ige’s office yesterday.

After noting “many in the energy industry had applauded [then-Governor Neil] Abercrombie’s appointment of Morita, who is known as a strong advocate and expert on clean energy,” Pacific Business News wrote:

But some questioned her leadership in a PUC decision denying the Aina Koa Pono project’s 20-year Big Island biofuel supply contract with Hawaii Electric Light Co.

I can’t let that slide.

We in the Big Island Community Coalition applaud her leadership. We do not question her leadership in the slightest, and we regret that she is resigning.

It is because of Mina Morita’s leadership that the Aina Koa Pono (AKP) project didn’t go through, and that is a good thing.

If it had been approved by the PUC, we rate payers would have been saddled with subsidizing AKP to the tune of $200/barrel by 2015 – this year. Today, oil costs less than $50/barrel. We would have been screaming when we saw our electric bills every month.
(This is also a fun time to review The Legend of the Horse That Was Really a Unicorn.)

Here’s what I wrote about this back in 2012. I saw the potential for disaster back then, and so did Mina Morita. It’s because of her Aina Koa Pono didn’t succeed and this didn’t happen. That’s true leadership. She is a true consumer advocate.

Lowering Electric Rates

Climbing the Bamboo Pole: Why We Formed a Co-Op Steering Committee

You know the Wayne Gretzky quote about skating to where the puck is going to be, not where it is? It refers, of course, to planning ahead.

My Pop’s story about climbing the bamboo pole taught me a lesson about planning ahead, too. He told me about fishing for aholehole with some friends at Maku‘u. They stuck a bamboo pole into the rock and hung a kerosene pole on it when, suddenly, they saw white water coming straight for them. It was going to cover the rocky point where they were fishing.

“What you going do?” my Pop asked me when he told me this story. I had no idea. He told me he climbed up the bamboo pole, hand over hand, lifted up his legs, and let the water go under him. Then he dropped back down and used the pole to fish his friends out of the water.

Before the white water arrived, he already knew what he would do. He had a plan.

NextEra is proposing to purchase the Hawaii Electric Company (HECO) grid, and this is a good time to compare alternatives. HECO has been having a tough time making necessary changes. NextEra looks like they can make the changes, but they’re not from here.

We have seen how the Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) has done over the last 12 years. Each meter has one vote. KIUC has nearly $100 million in retained earnings that would have gone off island, but has stayed in the state instead. And they are flexible and can make changes in a timely manner.

The Big Island Energy Utility Cooperative steering committee we’ve created – to look into forming a Big Island Energy Co-op here on the Big Island – is our way of skating to where the puck is going to be, or climbing the bamboo pole. We are planning ahead.

We are doing all the legwork and research and information gathering now so that if there is an opportunity, we will be in position. If we don’t do this, we won’t be in the game.

The goals and benefits of a Big Island Energy Cooperative are:

  • Local, democratic control over one of the most important infrastructures and public goods on the island. This would provide more benefits to island residents, with any profits staying at home.
  • Community over off-island, corporate shareholder priorities, as the cooperative would work for sustainable development of the island’s communities through policies approved and accepted by its members.
  • Lower electric costs through greater efforts to develop island-based energy sources, improve energy efficiency and an accelerated adoption of smart grid technologies.
  • Greater overall energy independence and sustainability through a comprehensive and integrated approach to all energy-consuming sectors on the island.
  • Development of island-produced fuels to provide an energy source for both electricity generation and transportation.

If not here, where? If not now, when? If not all of us, who?

Geothermal, Peak Oil

Government Says ‘Plenty, Cheap, No Worry!’ But Others Say, ‘Worry’

Richard Ha writes:

This is a really good graph that shows three projections for future gas production through the year 2040. Click on this postcarbon.org graph and you'll see the black line shows a University of Texas study, the red line shows David Hughes's projection and the blue line represents the government's EIA projection. 

The government projection shows nothing to worry about. Plenty, plenty, plenty!

But the others show an entirely different story. They suggest we better start making some other plans.

Conventional oil, which is our regular oil supply like from Russia and OPEC, hit its max in 2005. It's shale gas and oil that has increased our oil and natural gas supply in the last few years. But it appears that shale gas and oil will start to decline soon and if so, we need to start down the road to adapting to what will soon be again-rising oil prices. 

On the Big Island, geothermal can replace oil and LNG. Not many other places are as fortunate. We just need to be smart and figure out what works.

Geothermal works. We don't have to get there tomorrow, and we don't have to get there in a straight line. We just have to get there. 

We have a way to do this on the Big Island: Geothermal. It's a gift. 

This podcast with David Hughes, author of the recent report Drilling Deeper for the Post Carbon Institute, talks more about this. 

It's all common sense. It’s about data and science—water does not flow uphill, no matter how much we wish it would. Nothing about this is beyond the average person. I find that rubbah slippah folks understand all this in a few minutes.

Peak Oil

Why LNG is Such a Bad Risk

Richard Ha writes:

We are getting ready to make huge liquified natural gas (LNG) decisions, and LNG is a big risk. We need to understand the risk and who’s going to be left paying the price.

The first time I heard about shale oil and gas was at an Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) conference. I attended five of those conferences, the only person from Hawai‘i to do so. Hawai‘i County paid for the trip to the 2010 ASPO conference, held in Washington D.C., and is still benefitting from that small investment.

That discussion about shale oil and gas though was at the 2009 ASPO conference, in Denver, and it turned into a sharp discussion between the geologist Art Berman and a drilling company executive.

Art said he had studied data from 4,000 wells in the Barnett Shale and found that the average well gave off 72 percent of its production in the first year.

The executive countered that his figures showed a hyperbolic curve indicating that production lasts for 22 years.

Somebody was wrong. Later I learned that hyperbolic curves only mean that the following year is less than the one previous.

I didn’t know the definition then, but common sense told me that at the end of 22 years, maybe just a gallon might be coming out per hour. I felt like the executive was just trying to sell stock.

Later, a study of 19,000 wells showed that the average well gave more than ninety percent of its production in its first five years. This was not rocket science – even a banana farmer could tell that you would need to replace one-fifth of the wells each year just to stay even. More if production is higher in the first few years.

As of 2010, it was common knowledge that the average shale oil and gas well depleted in a short time, and it was a subject of intense discussion among those of us who attended the ASPO conferences.

In the meantime, some of the folks out there trying to sell stocks were using the terms “resource” and “reserves” interchangeably in describing what was available. The phrase “Saudi America” started to be thrown around.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) finally estimated that the U.S. had an economically accessible shale oil supply of about 100 more years.

But David Hughes, a Canadian geologist, challenged the availability of the Monterey Shale oil due to its geological characteristics. Instead of being flat, the resource rock was wavy and squished. It was hard to access via horizontal drilling.

And then this March, the EIA quietly changed its estimate. In a low-key announcement, it readjusted its estimate of Monterey Shale oil availability – which was two-thirds of our national recoverable supply – downward by an amazing 96 percent.

I saw the announcement and realized its significance immediately. Readjusting the estimate of the US supply of oil downward by two-thirds was a huge, huge deal. But the news kind of just slipped by.

Shale gas has the same characteristics of shale oil – it depletes rapidly. If you ask me who I believe about shale oil and gas? Based on his track record, I believe the data and conclusions of David Hughes.

He based his studies on the same historical data and information the U.S. EIA used, but analyzed it in a more meticulous and targeted way. His data shows natural gas declining much, much faster than does the EIA. A recent University of Texas study agrees more with David Hughes than with the EIA.

This Peak Prosperity podcast features an interview with David Hughes talking about shale production and how he did his analysis. It’s a good interview (47:24). Alternately, you can read the transcript here.

On p. 300 of his report, in figure 3-116, Hughes shows an interesting graph of the EIA’s forecast for shale gas projections and how, in the long term, they are greatly overestimated.

At the end of Hughes’ study on natural gas, he cautions (click to enlarge) :

David Hughes report

Here on the Big Island, based on the precautionary principle, I would rely on geothermal rather than liquid natural gas for our electricity generation. A faster decline probably means a faster rise in natural gas price. If we rely on LNG, the rate payer will assume that risk.

And in Hawai‘i we do not have methane underground. So the bad effects of fracking does not apply to us at all. We have drilled 85,000 wells by now. It’s a mature industry that deals with H2S routinely.

In the future, geothermal could also help us solve our transportation problem by providing hydrogen for fuel-celled vehicles. The cost of hydrogen comes from either natural gas or from passing electricity through water. Eventually, the cost of making hydrogen from natural gas will pass the cost of making hydrogen from electricity from geothermal. Then we will have a permanent advantage over the rest of the world. That’s what we want!

Geothermal is climate change-friendly and as infinite as we can get—we will sit for 500,000 to a million years over the “hot spot.” And we are one of the few places in the world with these circumstances and this opportunity.

We have truly come to a crossroads in our history. We must put our personal agendas behind us and do the right thing for ourselves and future generations.