Category Archives: How We Do It

How We Do It

It’s About How Fast You Get Back Up

Richard Ha writes:

This letter from Glenn Teves, who is a Moloka‘i extension agent, is full of good, practical advice for new farmers. Over the years I've found that going to your extension agent is usually the best place to start.

It's out of the Hawai‘i Homegrown Food Network newsletter, July 2014.

Letter to Sonny – Creating a Farm Business

WRITTEN BY GLENN TEVES ON 27 JUNE 2014.

In farming, the real test when you fall down is how fast you get up and move forward. Below is a letter I wrote to a Hawaiian homesteader several years ago. He was interested in farming, but for some reason he had a difficult time understanding what he needed to do in order to create a farm business, and also wasn’t realistic about his goals. He was looking for solutions such as setting up a farm to teach others how to farm without having a basic knowledge of farming, or networking with others to get his farm started when he didn’t have any production.

I really had to write everything down to help him understand without dampening his enthusiasm and spirit. I think it may help anyone who’s interested in farming. There are many concepts to grasp, including a few doses of reality along the way. Here it is:

Dear Sonny,

I write this to you to help you focus and see the steps you need to take in order to create a farm business. In life, you need to crawl before you can walk. There’s so much to know, and you cannot ‘skip grades’; you have to start at kindergarten. You have to be diligent in learning all you can by studying, and you have to go at it with both eyes open. Most farmers in Hawaii farm part-time because they cannot earn enough money on their farm, and they also want to have medical coverage for their family. Parttime farming is also a growing trend in the nation.

Motivation

There are certain attributes that must be in place in order to be successful in farming. One is the willingness and motivation to farm and to overcome any adversity. We cannot supply this because it comes from deep within you. If you’re easily discouraged, farming is not for you. This stick-to-it-ness is important especially when things don’t go the way you expected. When the going gets rough, the tough get going. In farming, the real test when you fall down is how fast you get up and move forward.

Break It Down

Gerry Ross and Janet Simpson of Kupa'a Farms, Maui. Farming is hard work and there’s a sequence to things. One thing I’ve learned is I try to focus on a few things at a time because if I try to see the whole picture, it becomes so overwhelming….

Great article. Read the rest here.

Geothermal, How We Do It, Hydroponics

Forcing Change

On Saturday, I spoke at a workshop on soil-less farming, which was put on by the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at UH Manoa. The core group was made up of aquaculture enthusiasts, and the workshop expanded into hydroponics (the growing of crops in soil-less media). About 170 people attended.

WorkshopParticipants

Fred Lau spoke on the challenges that he has faced while developing his aquaponic operation. Tim Mann and Susan Friend spoke on their Friendly aquaponic operation on the Big Island. They sell modular aquaponic systems with complete, how-to instructions.

Tisha Uyehara spoke about marketing produce. She pointed out the importance of growing what is in demand, and in the quantity and quality that retailers need.

I was asked to speak about Hamakua Springs’ hydroponic tomatoes. I started by asking how many in the audience were new farmers or folks who are interested in farming. Maybe 40 people raised their hands. They looked to be younger folks, in their 20s to 30s. I have noticed that lots of folks are interested in farming; they are just trying to figure out how they can make a living at it. I got the feeling that most of the audience was made up of community folks.

Instead of talking about the technical details of our operation, which they could learn by taking courses or getting information from the internet, I decided to share with them the thought processes that went into developing our farm.

I related how my Pop told us small kids to look for three answers to every problem and then find one more. He also said, “There are a thousand reason why no can; I am only looking for the one reason why Can!”

I told them about being influenced by my experiences in the jungles of Vietnam, where the unwritten rule was that “We all come back or no one comes back.” I liked that attitude of taking care of each other. Although I had flunked out of UH earlier, this time I knew I wanted to go into business and so I decided to major in accounting, in order to keep score.

Then Pop asked me to come and run the family poultry farm. I had no money, but really that was a blessing, because then I could not lose money. Instead, I gained experience. We traded chick manure to get banana keiki, and eventually grew to be the largest banana farm in Hawai‘i.

Along the way, we had to change and adapt constantly, and so change is second nature to us. We just look into the future five to 10 years, and force the changes to get us there. I told the audience that this is the secret to our survival. It isn’t rocket science, but is common sense: Being able to adapt and force change are traits that have served us well over the years.

I could tell from the audience’s reaction that they absolutely got it; that they have the tools, or can get the tools, that are necessary to make a difference.

Six or seven years ago, we realized that input costs to our farm were rising due to the fossil fuel component. I went to the Peak Oil Conference to learn about oil and figure out how we would force change so we could adapt our farm to be relevant in the future.

I learned that the world has been using twice as much oil as it has been finding, and has been doing so for 20 to 30 years. That was clearly not sustainable and we set out to transform our farm. We looked into using the water flowing downstream to generate electricity. Soon we will be completely off the electric grid.

We also downsized our farm, and then made up for the loss of production by leasing land to area farmers. The result is that the productivity of our land has actually increased, and the variety of products has increased as well. Another benefit: It strengthens our community.

I talked about how sun energy gives mainland farmers an edge over Hawai‘i farmers. Long summer days result in high production, and as the production follows the sun around the country, this advantage is kept throughout summer.

But I told the audience that we could get an advantage if we were able to use our natural resources to get cheaper electricity. Quite often folks think that fuel is the highest cost of getting farm-grown food to the table. It is actually the cost of electricity that is more important. Keeping the cold chain from the farm to the home refrigerator is actually more costly than the cost to run the tractors.

When oil is $100 per barrel, which is near today’s price, the cost to make electricity from oil is around 20 cents/kWh. However, the cost to make electricity from geothermal is only about 10 cents/kWh, and it will remain stable.

Lloyds of London warns of $200 per barrel oil by 2013. The cost to generate electricity from that oil will rise to 40 cents/kWh, while geothermal electricity will stay at 10 cents/kWh.

The answer to food and economic security is to force change.

I was struck by people’s reactions to my talk. The way that people expressed their appreciation for what I said makes me think that people are getting very worried for Hawai‘i’s future. I think that people felt hopeful, that common sense was more important to survival than any amount of letters after one’s title.

How We Do It, Sustainability, Tomatoes

Pretty Ripe

Richard Ha writes:

I’ve said before that “industrial agriculture” has many shortcomings, and a New York Times article that ran this week illustrates some of them.

The article laments that conventional tomatoes are bred to withstand the rigors of the supply chain and other issues farmers face, with good taste being only an afterthought.

It talks about an unconventional tomato called “Ugly Ripe” that tastes good and is available during the winter. The problem? It’s grown using the ozone-depleting chemical methyl bromide, which kills weed seeds and controls a root-damaging insect. The article says that despite the Ugly Ripe’s good taste, it’s not sustainable because it’s grown using methyl bromide.

By contrast, here at Hamakua Springs we grow tomatoes that taste good year round. And we don’t use ozone-depleting chemicals.

Our tomatoes taste good because we very specifically select varieties for taste over any other quality. We harvest when the fruit is vine ripe, which means complex flavors have already developed. We used weed cloth, so we don’t have to spray weeds. Because our operation is hydroponic—soil-free—we don’t have soil-borne insects. All this adds up to good taste and zero need for ozone-depleting methyl bromide.

When the television program Top Chef taped on the Big Island in December, finalist Marcel Vigneron tasted one of our Hamakua Springs tomatoes while selecting ingredients for the final competitions and immediately loaded up his basket. And one of the show’s chef consultants took some tomatoes with her to eat, saying offhandedly that there were no good tomatoes during the winter where she lives. Amazing.

We were also pleased when our Hamakua Springs cocktail tomatoes were selected in a taste test as “best tomato” by 100 master chefs and culinary students during Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s Tomato 101 seminar in Honolulu. That was just last month—also in the winter.

Good tasting AND sustainable both! We must be doing something right.

Current Affairs, How We Do It

We’re Clean

Richard Ha writes:

E. coli is in the news again, as green onions and now lettuce are now suspected of harboring the bacteria that made many people sick at Taco Bells on the East Coast. This has happened many times before.

We are making sure it doesn’t happen because of us.

Several years ago, we voluntarily became Food Safety Certified. Every year our operations are inspected, and the inspection protocol addresses and eliminates conditions that allow the E. coli bacteria to contaminate food products.

Some of the issues addressed:

There are no domesticated animals allowed in and around our farm.

We use city water for processing and spraying.

Reservoir_5

Our irrigation water source is fenced and otherwise protected from contamination by wild animals. We test the water source quarterly for E. coli and it has never tested positive. We are in the process of voluntarily testing even more frequently than that. We want to make sure our workers, as well as our customers, feel confident about our procedures.

We provide toilet facilities for all our workers; and soap, wash water and paper towels are provided for them.

Our employees are trained in food handling, food safety procedures and personal hygiene, and classes are documented.

Harvest bins are cleaned, sanitized and then documented. Harvest bins are not allowed to be in contact with the ground. Any fruit/vegetable that falls on the ground is discarded.

We are glad we voluntarily became Food Safety Certified. We always want to be proactive and in the forefront of food safety. We want our customers to rest assured that we are trying to do the right thing at all times.

How We Do It

Be Gone

1 Comment

Richard Ha writes:

At Hamakua Springs Country Farms, we use techniques of Integrated Pest Management to control insects and plant diseases.

Integrated Pest Management is a program of prevention, monitoring, and control. It lets us drastically reduce or even eliminate the use of pesticides, and also means we minimize the toxicity and exposure of any pesticide products we do use.

Say, for instance, we find an insect tunneling through the tomato leaves, and that there are so many of them the leaves are drying up, causing the tomato plant to shrivel up and die.

First we send an insect sample to the Extension Service office for identification.

Having identified the insect, we learn as much as we can about it, such as its life cycle, enemies, likes and dislikes. Then we figure out how to encourage insects that feed on that pest, while also looking for ways to make it difficult for the pest to grow. If we have to spray, we choose the least toxic chemicals as we know that sooner or later insects become immune to chemical sprays. That’s another reason it’s not good to rely on chemicals alone.

The leaf miner, for instance, tunnels through a tomato leaf and causes yields to decrease drastically. But we know that there’s a tiny wasp that will lay its eggs next to or on the leaf miner larvae, and as the wasp eggs develop into adults they feed on the leaf miner larvae. This is all in miniature, as the leaf miner is about 1/16 of an inch long, while the wasp is approximately 1/8 of an inch.

So our job is to encourage the wasp (by not spraying it with chemicals). After a time, the wasp and the leaf miner will find a balance. At that point the leaf miner will no longer be an economic problem.

This is an example of how we deal with one problem insect at the farm. It’s been a success—leaf miners are no longer a problem for us.

Still, it’s a big leap of faith to go from chemical control to Integrated Pest Management. From time to time, I will write about how we use these methods to control other insects.

Company News, How We Do It, Science

Green Goddess Monitors the Salad

Leslie Lang writes:

Charlotte Romo, who recently started working with us at the farm, is new to the islands and tells us she keeps having to fill out forms that ask for her job title.

Charlotte_3

“I’m still not sure what my title is,” she says. “I put ‘Plant Scientist,” though I’m probably more of a Greenhouse Research Technician. But I prefer ‘Greenhouse Goddess.'”

She says she’s thrilled to be working with Hamakua Springs. “I love the farm and I’m so impressed at what they have created in such a short time. These people move really fast!”

She jokes that her job is to walk around and make shade for the plants, but it’s a bit more than that. Right now her research technician/plant scientist/goddess work revolves around data collection, in order to evaluate plant growth and yield and determine how to fine tune things so the operation will be as efficient as possible. Sometimes she works with a lysimeter.

“A what?,” you inquire.

I had to ask, too.

Charlotte Romo writes: A lysimeter is a fancy, scientific term for a bucket, which we use to collect and measure the drainage coming out of the growing bags.
Bucket_2

We also have a collection bottle to monitor the input of the nutrient solution we put on the plants to make sure that the nutrients are getting from the mixing tanks to the plants just the way we want them. We need to maintain at least 20% drainage of what we put on the plants to make sure we flush any excess nutrient salts through the root zone. If we get too little drainage we know we need to increase irrigation, and vice versa.

By monitoring what goes in and what comes out of our plants, we make sure the plants are using the nutrients we give them and that we are using our fertilizer efficiently.

By controlling the nutrients we use intensely, we also prevent our fertilizer from becoming a burden on the natural environment around the farm. We keep in mind that this land of heavy agricultural use is surrounded by fragile coral reef ecosystems that are extremely sensitive to excess nutrient runoff that can result from agricultural practices.

Bananas, How We Do It

How We Do It: Toys

5 Comments

Richard Ha writes:

Workers in Central and South America who harvest bananas have to carry the heavy bunches more than 100 feet to a cable for transporting.

Compare that to our workers, who harvest bananas using ATVs pulling trailers. We designed these units so the harvesters take only about seven steps with the banana bunch on their backs. The height is such that they don’t have to bend their backs too much when placing the bunch onto the trailer, and the tires run on five pounds of pressure, which prevents bouncing.

Aren’t we brilliant to have designed such a system? NOT!!

I’d like to think so, but here’s how it really came about: About fifteen years ago, when I used to ride off-road dirt bikes for fun, the first 3-wheelers came out. I just had to have one of those new toys.

So I mentioned to June how the farm could use one for spraying. I could strap on the backpack sprayer, I explained, and by riding on the 3-wheeler instead of walking I could get more spraying done.

I got the impression her reaction was, “Yeah, right.” But we got one, and it was as fun as I thought it would be and we did actually use it for spraying.

And then the 4-wheelers came out. They had lots of power and great suspension, so of course I had to have one of those, too.

“I know what!” I told June. “We’ll use it to pull a trailer when harvesting bananas.”

We’ve used them ever since.