Category Archives: Government

Current Affairs, Food Security, Government, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

In Support of Farmers

I testified in person last week at the Hawai‘i State Legislature in favor of Senate Bill 2467 and House Bill 2261. This bill, which I helped draft, helps address important issues of food security, high oil prices and economic development.

Hawai‘i has two very serious issues right now. The first is food security—we are very vulnerable out here in the middle of the ocean and must ensure we can produce enough food for our residents.

The second is our need to get off oil, which we depend upon both for transportation and for generating electricity. Prior to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) conference in Houston four months ago, little was reported in the press about the consequences of what are tightening oil supplies. (I was the only Hawai‘i resident to attend that conference; the next one is in Sacramento in September). Since the conference, we are increasingly hearing in the media about oil demand exceeding supply.

The answer to this problem is to generate as much electricity as possible from natural sources here in Hawai‘i, and use as much electricity as possible (vs. oil) for transportation.

Here is my testimony in support of SB2467 and HB2261:

Aloha Chairpersons and fellow representatives:

I am in favor of HB 2261—the Hawai‘i Farm Renewable Sustainable Energy Loan Program. This is a bill that accomplishes three things:

1) It addresses our food security issue by encouraging farmers to farm. If farmers make money, they will farm. This bill will help farmers save money by using alternate energy sources as oil costs rise. If the utilities will buy power from farmers in the future, farmers will make money. Further, farmers can qualify for one hundred percent state income tax credits for alternate energy projects.

2) It helps to wean us from dependence on foreign oil. When farmers produce power, that will help us get off foreign oil.

3) It addresses an economic issue of balance of payments. A dollar saved from having to buy foreign oil is a dollar that can revolve in our local economy.

This bill is necessary because energy projects cost money and in many cases, the savings is in the future. In order for farmers starting energy projects to obtain a positive cash flow sooner rather than later, they must have a lower loan payback for doing energy products as compared to present electricity/power costs. A low down payment and long payback period helps to accomplish this.

Alternate energy projects qualify for one hundred percent state income tax benefits though Act 122. While it is true that investors in these projects can qualify for favorable tax treatment, investors require a return on their investment. If investors finance farmers’ alternate energy projects, the project’s value goes to the investors, not the farmers. If that’s the case, farmers will not waste their time starting alternate energy projects in the first place. That is the main reason this bill is so effective.

Aloha,
Richard Ha
President,
Hamakua Springs Country Farms

The reason this bill is so significant is because it positions farmers to sell electricity to the grid. Instead of sending all our money to foreign countries, why not have our own people generating electricity? It keeps our money circulating in our own economy. And it also aids in our efforts to make ourselves food secure—because if farmers can make money, by selling electricity along with their food products, farmers will farm.

I believe this bill will pass “as is,” along with an amendment that expands its scope and does not detract from the original intent. Because it will be incorporated into an existing Department of Agriculture loan program, there will no need to go through the Attorney General’s office for scrutiny. And since there is no request for funding at the present time, it also will not need to go through the House Finance committee or the Senate Ways and Means committee.

On another, related, topic, we are also working with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop alternate energy projects here on the Big Island.

Things are starting to move! I’ll write about those efforts in another post.

What I can tell you now is that it is all very encouraging.

Current Affairs, Government, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

Huge Energy News for Hawai’i

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The U.S. Department of Energy and the State of Hawai‘i announced an unprecedented partnership Monday. The Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative is a brand new partnership between the state and federal governments that aims to have Hawai‘i producing 70 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

At this point everything is still conceptual, but the state has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Energy and this is a major step in the right direction.

I am very much encouraged by this collaboration between the State of Hawai‘€˜i and the U.S. Department of Energy.

It was two years ago that I started noticing creeping price increases. Farmers are some of the first people to see the effects of rising oil prices. Fertilizer, chemicals, irrigation, cooling packaging and transportation costs are directly related to oil prices. A year ago, it started to be very worrisome and I knew there was something serious going on.

In October I was the only person from Hawai‘i at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) conference in Houston, where I learned more about Peak Oil’s consequences than I ever wanted to know. Because Hawai‘€˜i is 90% dependent on foreign oil, I knew we were dangerously vulnerable.

I returned from that conference knowing that we in Hawai‘i needed to wean ourselves from fossil fuels or else would go into an unimaginable downward spiral. So I volunteered to sit on the Hawai‘€˜i County Energy Commission. I also volunteered to sit on the Kohala Center’€™s board, because of its good work in the alternate energy field.

Until Monday, though, when the Department of Energy announced its Memorandum of Agreement with the state regarding alternate energy, I really did not see how we could educate enough people in a short enough time to ensure political support for serious alternate energy projects.

This announcement is a very big deal.

I now feel we have enough momentum to start moving forward. In fact, I think we have enough momentum now to do what we need to do in order to protect ourselves from the consequences of Peak Oil.

Government, Renewable Energy Sources

Farm Loan Program

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I’d like to tell you about a Farm Loan program for sustainable alternate energy projects, which we are introducing in this session of the Legislature. It will help Hawai‘i farmers become less dependent on fossil fuel. The money it saves will also make local farmers more competitive with imported produce.

This bill will help to answer the question: “How can we get more farmers to farm?” The answer is: “If farmers make money, more farmers will farm.”

The rapid increase in world population occurred in parallel with the discovery and use of oil in agriculture, all in the last 150 years. Oil provides power to, or is a component of, tractor fuel, fertilizers, synthetic chemicals, plastics, irrigation, cooling, packaging and transportation. Oil provided the food for the world population explosion. If world oil supplies decline, it is reasonable to assume that food production in Hawai‘i will also decline.

We are now starting to realize that oil is a finite resource and that we have reached the point where oil supplies have entered a period of permanent decline. This has serious implications for those of us living in Hawai‘i, out in the middle of the ocean. We import more than 80% of our food.

Although the decline in world oil supplies will likely not occur overnight, we need to start producing more food for ourselves now. If we start now and the worse never occurs, we will have lost nothing. But if we don’t start and the worse does occur and we run out of food, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will never forgive us for our shortsightedness.

Here are the essential elements of the Farm Loan program for sustainable alternate energy projects:

1. It is meant for full time farmers

2. It is limited to $1.5 million dollars per project

3. The term length is 40 years

4. Downpayment is 15%

5. The interest rate is 5%

6. It is to be funded for 10 million dollars

7. Wind, solar, biofuel, hydro and other alternate energy projects qualify

The High Tech Business Investment Tax Credit, Act 221, provides 100 percent state income tax credit for non-fossil, fuel-energy related technology. Although farmers qualify for Act 221, farmers often cannot finance these types of projects by themselves. And obtaining investors to accomplish alternate energy projects often leaves very little of the project value for the farmer.

The Farm Loan program for sustainable alternate energy projects leverages Act 221.

The farmer retains the benefit of the alternate energy project, which goes straight to his bottom line. And he gets 100 percent of the state income tax credit.

If a farmer can make money, more farmers will farm, and this will help us achieve our objective of producing more food locally. It also keeps money circulating inside our economy. The cost-to-benefit ratio of this project is very, very good.

See the proposed bill here.

Government

Farm Bill

I just read an interesting opinion article by Mladen Golubic. It begins:

As a medical resident working in one of the poorest cities in the country, I see firsthand how poverty can contribute to poor health.

The hospital where I work is filled with people suffering from uncontrolled diabetes, high blood pressure, and other problems often exacerbated by a lack of health insurance or income. These problems and their origins are complex, of course. And millions of words have been written about how to fix them. But there is one thing the government could do right now that would make a tremendous difference to my patients and to all the nation’s poor: Reform the Farm Bill currently up for reauthorization in Congress.

Currently, he explains, “this subsidy system rewards farmers for growing foods that contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and other diet-related diseases I treat every day. Wouldn’t our taxes be more wisely spent promoting healthier foods such as fruits and vegetables?”

It’s an interesting topic because there has been very little in previous Farm Bills that benefit fruit and vegetable producers.

But if the present Farm Bill were to benefit the Women, Infant and Children, Seniors and Food Stamp program recipients by providing fruits and vegetables, this would be a good thing for the recipients. And it would be positive for local farmers. All in all, a good thing.

Community, Government, Sustainability

They Did Have Kukui Nut Oil

Wednesday night I attended a meeting to discuss the Hawai‘i 2050 Sustainability draft plan. There was an article about the meeting on the front page of yesterday’s Hawai‘i Tribune-Herald.

Senator Russell Kokubun is chairman of the 24-member task force. He gave an overview of the plan and I like his approach, which was inclusion and collaboration—an approach from the bottom up, rather than the typical “top down, force-it-through” approach one often sees from ineffective leaders. This is a good sign.

Next, Jane Testa, director of the Hawai‘i County Research and Development department, spoke. She, too, was very patient, respectful and thorough as she explained parts of the plan. Assistant Planning Director Brad Kurokawa followed and he was also positive but deferential and patient. It was evident to me that they are all very invested in this plan. This is a good start.

The objective of this meeting was to expand, contract and give relative weight to particular sustainability issues that are of concern to the community members. They split the audience into five groups, each with a facilitator. We were to make comments and lend color to the sections of the plan.

I came to the meeting with an agenda. I want to see Peak Oil given high priority, and its effects monitored continuously and adapted to as necessary.

It’s important to realize that population, oil and food are related. In the earliest days, one hundred percent of the energy needed to grow food was provided by the sun, and the human population was in balance with how difficult it was to catch and eat mastodons and saber tooth tigers.

Then 150 years ago, we discovered oil and it was cheap—$3 for a 55-gallon drum. Using energy obtained from oil produced inexpensive food. And the world population soared—it was easy to go hunting in the supermarkets.

But with Peak Oil, where oil will start to become expensive and scarce, it will be more difficult to produce food. And then what?

Back to the sustainability meeting. We need to be able to monitor Peak Oil and to take decisive action. We really don’t have time to play around and the last thing we need is flowery prose.

I was pleased to see that there will be a sustainability council. This group of people is a quasi-government group with powers given to them by the legislature. They will be on the job all the time on a specific task. Not like the legislature, which has a year-to-year memory. They will have to report at least annually, if not more frequently, to the public. This group will be the vehicle to monitor and react to Peak Oil for the State of Hawai‘i. I like this!

The part I like most is that one of the five goals is related to Kanaka Maoli cultural and island values. The Hawaiian culture already accomplished what we are now trying to do—they survived, and thrived, without oil. Okay, they did have kukui nut oil. No sense reinventing the wheel.

But with our ability now to harness alternative energy, we should be able to accomplish what the Hawaiians did hundreds of years ago.

Not, “no can.” Can!

Current Affairs, Government, Sustainability

Legislative Visitors

Last week the Hawai‘i State Legislature’s Senate Ways and Means committee visited us. This is the first year we’ve had legislative committees visit us and we were very happy to share with them our history, our philosophy, our present situation and our plans for the future.

I told them we started with no money except for a $300 limit credit card, which I worked hard to qualify for. But Dad had a chicken farm and we were able to trade chicken manure for banana keiki.

I told them something I learned as a former Army office in Vietnam—that leaving someone behind is never an option—and that I carry this forward to my relationships with our employees. We make sure that the most defenseless of our employees are looked out for. And we have profit sharing, so if the farm does good we all do well.

If we are anything, we are survivors. We always ask: “Where do we need to be five years from now?” And we start right away to position ourselves for that future.

I told them that what they were looking at was a result of decisions we made five years ago, back when a barrel of oil cost $30. We all knew then that China was growing fast and would cause oil prices to rise. So we set out to avoid petroleum-based costs as much as possible. But we had no idea oil prices would rise to $80 per barrel.

Today we are looking at Peak Oil, where the demand for oil will eventually exceed the ability to sump that oil. That means prices will rise even further. We are preparing for the possibility that oil will hit $200 per barrel in less than five years.

We doing that by building a hydro-electric plant. We are in the process of decoupling ourselves as much as we can from fossil-fuel based energy. We love and thrive on change. Adversity brings opportunity, and that makes life exciting. We love it!r 

I told them that we are a family farm and that our blog, HaHaHa, represents three generations of Ha’s working on the farm. I told them that without my mom—who, in the old days, worked late at night packing bananas so we could take the only trailer we owned and refill it the following day—we would never have made it.

I told them I was reluctant to tell them that story because it might appear that I was enslaving my mother. And yet I also told them that I had to admit I still buy Mom dumbbells, treadmills and stationery bikes so she can keep on working hard. She’s 82 years old now. We had a good laugh.They all knew that I do it for Mom’s health.

It was great to meet these people who will make the decisions that direct Hawaii’s future. It seemed like they were happy to see an organization positioning itself to be able to feed Hawaii’s people, in an environment of rising fuel prices, because it was the right thing to do. My impression was that they are very sharp and will do the right things for our future.

Food Security, Government, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Looking to the Future

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Yesterday, the House of Representatives’ Agriculture, Economic Development & Business and its Tourism & Culture committees visited us at Hamakua Springs. First I gave them an orientation and then we took them on a tour of the farm.

The overriding theme of my orientation and tour was a look at how we are positioning ourselves for events that will happen five or more years from now. Along that line, our main topics these days are 1) food security and 2) decoupling ourselves from energy costs.

I included this note in the booklet we prepared for each member:

It will take all farmers—big and small, conventional and organic, rainy-side, dry-side, low elevation and high—to make Hawai‘i secure in its food supply.

As our contribution to the food supply, we have chosen intensive hydroponic production. From 15 acres we produce more than 2 million pounds of tomatoes. We have 600 acres, which we own. Land is not a limiting factor.

We think that the decreasing supply of fossil fuels is opening up a great opportunity for all of us here in Hawai‘i. We have the prospect of using our natural resources to generate electricity.

In our case, we are developing a hydroelectric plant. And we plan to utilize the “free” electricity we generate to replace as many internal combustion engines as possible. We could install labor-saving devices, such as conveyors. We could even install pumps for water filtration, temperature control, etc. We could probably duplicate many of the conditions at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) with our “free” electricity.

But our main stumbling block is financing. It is true that there is a 100% state tax credit for some energy projects. And it is so attractive that we know we could easily get investors who would jump at the chance to be a part of a “guaranteed” investment. But then the value would flow to the investors, not toward our goal of producing cheaper food.

Perhaps funding a state farm loan category specifically for renewable energy would work. This would, in effect, be betting that oil prices rise, making the payback of the loan safer as time passes.

As oil prices rise, renewable energy sources become more attractive and local farmers utilizing these resources would become more competitive and produce more food on less land. This is doable.

Hawai‘i’s lack of food security — our extreme dependence on imported food — may truly become a crisis as fuel prices continue to rise. But our concentration in the present on developing renewable energy sources can only pay off in the future as we both remove ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels, and ensure that Hawai‘i will always have easy access to the food we need to feed our people.

Government

A Trip to the Farm

On Wednesday, members of the House of Representatives’s Finance Committee, whose chair is Marcus Oshiro, visited our farm. Representative Dwight Takamine escorted the committee members as they made a series of visits in the Hamakua District, working their way down the coast to Hilo. We had a lot of fun when they stopped at the farm.

I told the committee members that we are a three-generation family operation. My mom, Florence Ha, is 82 and still works at the farm part-time. June runs the office and is in charge of Human Resources. Our daughter Tracy is our special project and marketing person and her husband Kimo, is the Farm Manager. We are all very proud of our farm operation.

I told them that June and I are mainly in charge of R&D, and we have to travel all over the world researching tomatoes, bananas and melons. It’s a tough job.

We took the group to our tomato packing house, where I gave them a quick orientation to our philosophy, which is sustainable farming as it relates to our employees, our community and the environment.

As an example of what we mean by “sustainable farming” in terms of our workers, I told them we offer profit sharing; and that although we would like to be liked by everyone, what we can control is that we are always fair. Because of my Vietnam experience, where “leaving someone behind was not an option,” we particularly focus on and look out for the most defenseless of our workers.

I told them the history of our farm in Pepe‘ekeo. When C. Brewer put all its Hamakua lands up for sale a few years ago, we had to buy the 600 acres on which we were farming bananas or it would have been subdivided and sold from under us. We made an offer to purchase the land with a very small downpayment, and then would be required to come up with a huge balloon payment in four years.

I remember going in to talk to Willy Tallett, the C. Brewer land officer. I had to puff myself up and make “big body”—like, “Oh yeah, where do I sign?”

I came out weak-kneed and sweating. Oh my God, how was I going to convince June that we could come up with that huge balloon payment in four years?

Land prices at that time had been relatively stable for years. But just a couple years later, land prices jumped eightfold. We sold off parcels, refinanced and instantly became really smart. If people only knew.

We told the committee that we are always moving in order to be positioned for the future. Right now it’s about energy cost and labor. So we are choosing cropping systems and inventing things to help us in those areas.

We all jumped into Kimo’s and my pickup trucks, and June’s SUV, and we headed out to the fields. Some of the legislators rode in the back of the trucks. We farmers have great respect for people who are willing to jump in the truck and then go walking around to see the crops. The legislators were all animated and very interested in what we were showing them. They were all right in our book!

At the greenhouses, we explained to the committee that we take the essential aspects of greenhouse growing and then adapt it to our Hawaiian style. We do very careful measurements of the plants’ environments and make precise adjustments as necessary. (It was bright and sunny that day, for instance, and Photosynthetic Active Radiation—the accumulated part of sunlight that plants use—was 42 mols.)

 

I explained to them that the most important thing to us is “taste.” We grow what we like to eat, and we measure sweetness and make adjustments weekly.

We walked through the hot and humid germination houses, and our greenhouses filled with lettuce, watercress and green onions. I explained how we are working on integrating our hydroponics with aquaculture in such a way that we control the quality of the run-off water.

The legislators were very inquisitive and asked good, probing questions. Kimo, Tracy and I had our hands full fielding their questions. We really enjoy talking to people who are engaged, as they were.

As we went along, we pointed out how our next step is to use hydroelectric power to decouple ourselves from dependence on fossil fuel energy. And how we are going to use our excess electricity to do some cutting-edge things in Hawaiian agriculture.

Our caravan returned to the banana packing house, where Tracy had set up a small display of the things we grow. She set out different kinds of heirloom and grape tomatoes to sample, as well as cucumbers. The walking must have made our guests hungry, as they enjoyed quite a lot of the samples.

We took photos and talked story. By the end, we were all like good friends. It was a great visit.

Community, Current Affairs, Eating Locally, Government

Volatile Situation

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At a recent planning commission meeting, I testified in favor of Councilman Stacy Higa’s initiative to ban superstores on the Big Island. Let me tell you why.

On any given day, 70 percent of Hawai‘i’s food is imported. And it is estimated that we have only seven to 10 days of food in the pipeline. We live on islands in the middle of the Pacific and it’s clear to me that we need to produce MORE foods locally, not less.

I have no objection to importing 100 percent of our computers, TV sets, stoves and cars. We cannot make these items here in Hawai‘i. And even if shipping was interrupted, we could adapt or make do without them.

But it is quite a different story with food. If shipping is interrupted for any length of time, and our food supply is cut off and people become desperate, we could have a very volatile and dangerous situation.

We depend on food for our very lives. Therefore, we must try to become as self-sufficient in food production as we can. We must grow as much of the food that we can here in Hawaii.

Superstores are not committed to supporting local agriculture production.They are geared to providing cheap food. Small farmers cannot meet the high-tech, steady supply requirements necessary to supply superstores with cheap food.

If the cost of that “cheap food” is that small, local farmers are forced out of business and Hawai‘i has to import even more than 70 percent of the food it consumes, that cost is way too high!

In contrast, some of our local supermarkets have consistently supported local farmers for many, many years. KTA Supermarkets has its Mountain Apple brand, which identifies items grown or produced locally. We farmers all know how committed KTA is to its local farmer program. It is what the company does, not just what it says, that resonates.

Foodland Supermarkets is also committed to supporting local farmers. Foodland has recently kicked off its Island Market program to showcase locally grown products.

When supercenters establish themselves in Hawai‘i, though, these local supermarkets cannot grow. And if they cannot grow, local small farmers cannot grow. Ultimately, the result is that we grow even less of the food we eat here, and are forced to depend even more on imports.

Clearly, this cannot go on indefinitely. For me, the time to stand up was at that recent planning commission meeting.

Government, Seal of Quality, Sustainability

Seal of Quality

Richard Ha wrote:

Our farm is one of 12 founding members of Hawai‘i’s “Seal of Quality” program, which includes some of the state’s most progressive farmers in partnership with seven of its highest profile chefs.

After nine months, we now have 26 farmers in the Seal of Quality program and more are coming on board.

This Department of Agriculture program aims to brand high quality, locally grown products in such a way that farming in Hawai‘i is a sustainable occupation.

Govsoq_1

Founding farmers, at a luncheon with Governor Lingle to kick off the Seal of Quality program

That’s a pretty heavy concept. And it’s one that all the farmers involved are taking pretty seriously.

I attended a meeting recently of the 12 founding members, all farmers. I looked around the conference room at the Department of Agriculture on O‘ahu and it struck me, hard, that this is a group of “do-ers.” Each is successful in his or her own right and I have tremendous respect for each one.

It’s a group of dynamic entrepreneurs and some synergy is starting to happen. None of those people had to be there at that meeting. They were only there because they considered there to be some real benefit to being there.

The Seal of Quality members are feeling like this might be the start of something really important and big.

To give some history on this Seal of Quality program, let me tell you a story.

Many years ago, when “Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine” chefs were just starting out, chefs over in Kohala, like Peter Merriman and Alan Wong, couldn’t get fresh produce locally. They had to import produce from the mainland.

The chefs made it known that they would pay well for fresh produce grown locally. They encouraged local farmers to start growing specifically for them, and to just come to the back door where they would pay them directly. That was pretty revolutionary at the time, and it was the start of Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine.

So what was being grown locally started being diverted to the chefs. Farmers started making more money and so they could afford to grow their businesses. What was happening gave farmers hope that they could produce a good quality product and be sustainable.

At that time I heard that Peter Merriman, who was working at one of the Kohala Coast resorts, said, “I’d like to see one of my farmers drive up in a Mercedes Benz.”

What was happening over there didn’t affect me at the time, as I was growing bananas on the other side of the island in Hilo. Peter probably had no idea who I was. But I was so impressed by his statement and what it represented that I called Peter at home and thanked him on behalf of farmers everywhere. We both remember that day many years ago.

If you fast-forward 15 years, now there’s a market for fresh local produce, and a big movement to support local produce—and it’s driven by those same Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine chefs. Are there farmers driving Mercedes? I don’t know! What I do know is that the Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine chefs have changed the way we eat as well as how consumers perceive locally grown products.

Weigartlingleaionasay

Lani Weigert, co-owner & marketing director, Ali‘i Kula Lavender; Governor Linda Lingle; Lieutenant Governor Duke Aiona; Speaker of the House Calvin Say

And now, 15 years later, seven of those top Hawai‘i Regional Chefs are officially partnering with and supporting this group of Seal of Quality farmers, as they have supported so many farmers since those early days.

Maybe ten years ago, Chef Sam Choy did a free cooking demonstration at the Pearl Harbor Commissary with us. Our grandson was walking around in a banana suit then. (Recently, the military buyer there asked me to have our grandson wear the banana outfit again. I told her that Kapono was 4 feet tall then; he is 6 feet tall now. I don’t think he is into banana costumes any more.)

Roy Yamaguchi did a segment on our banana farm for his cooking show more than 10 years ago, and our picture and a description of what we do appear in his cookbook. He has done similar things for many other farmers.

And Chef Alan Wong recently invited several Seal of Quality members to attend his birthday party, where contestants from Top Chef, the country’s top-rated reality cooking show, prepared the food as the show’s semi-final competition. An estimated two million viewers across America saw the farmers on TV.

The Seal of Quality group was also invited to bring its products to the Top Chef final competition—the program’s finale, aired a week later—which taped in Kona at the Hilton Waikoloa, and where Chef Roy Yamaguchi was a guest judge. I represented the Seal of Quality producers who could not attend at a mock “farmer’s market,” where the contestants sampled and selected ingredients for their final competitions. Other Seal of Quality members set up their own displays.

As the Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine chefs profoundly changed the way we eat, this partnership between the chefs and Seal of Quality farmers has the potential to change the way Hawai‘i farms.
Farmers_and_chefs_poster

The very high-profile chefs use our products when they make their presentations to their guests. What they are doing is giving us a venue to show off our products, which adds a lot of value to our products.

And the effect of that is it makes farming sustainable.

What do I mean by "sustainable?" People say that the next generation doesn’t want to farm. But I believe the next generation would be more than willing to farm if they saw a vision for the future that was profitable.

A lot of our vision for farming goes beyond the traditional fertilizing of the plant and harvesting the fruit. The next generation is looking for something exciting—and watching plants grow is not exciting. We’ve got to stretch their imaginations; give them hope and things to look forward to. This is what will pull the next generation along, and this, I think, is the biggest benefit of the Seal of Quality program.

 

When I look around at the founding Seal of Quality members, most run family farms with children who are actively involved in the company. These farmers’ children see their parents’ vision for the future. They have learned that it’s possible to shape that future and also be profitable and successful.

Soq_doa_photos_020


Dean Okimoto of Nalo Farms; Rep. Ryan Yamane, Chairperson of the House Tourism Committee; Speaker of the House Calvin Say; Dr. Cal and Kay Lum, North Shore Cattle Company.

We Seal of Quality members are also trying to make decisions for our mutual benefit. For instance, one of the Seal of Quality members is Jim Reddekopp, who owns the Hawaiian Vanilla Company. In addition to farming he organizes farm tours, and recently he asked if we would host a group of 20 people at Hamakua Springs for an hour. I would normally have declined, just due to the logistics of it, but because he’s a Seal of Quality member, I said sure. I would make similar decisions for other members, too, as the opportunity arises.

Building alliances is another tool that will help agriculture in the future.

What is the Seal of Quality exactly? On one level, it’s a sticker.

Seal of Quality products are, by definition, “Genuine, Hawaii Grown, Hawaii Made, Premium Products.”

I’ve heard that tourists from Japan are told about the Seal of Quality label and they look for it. When they see a product that doesn’t have the label, they think it must be off grade or something. So the message is getting out. I’m realizing we cannot get lazy and forget to label any of our products!

We’ve had labeling programs before that started out standing for quality, but you’re only as strong as your weakest link. In the Seal of Quality program, we don’t have any weak links.

Together, the Seal of Quality farmers can influence consumers to purchase locally grown products instead of imported ones. They can also influence decision makers on important issues concerning Hawai‘i agriculture.

Richardjuneericcliftontsuji

Richard and June Ha of Hamakua Springs Country Farms; Eric Tanouye of Green Point Nurseries; Clifton Tsuji, Chair of the House Agriculture committee

It’s a program our legislators should support as they work to make Hawai‘i agriculture sustainable into the future. A bill in the legislature right now would deposit the proceeds from Seal of Quality labels into a special fund, rather than have them go into the general fund. This will allow the program to use those funds for advertising and marketing activities, and to draw down federal matching funds. They will be monies from members, to members, and for members – A self-sufficiency concept.

Most importantly, it would allow the program to plan long term. Monies would likely be available consistently, in good times as well as tougher ones, which is precisely when targeted marketing is important. In other words, it will allow the Seal of Quality program to operate like a business.

The Seal of Quality stands for quality, and we plan to maintain and defend that quality.

Click here for a list of the founding Seal of Quality farmers and chefs.