Community, Schools

Go FISH!

The other day, when Richard found himself sitting on a yellow school bus surrounded by a bunch of fifth graders dressed in red shirts and Santa hats, he says he looked around and thought, “What am I doing here?”

Sounds like it took him only moments, though, to answer that question.

What was he doing there? Karyl Ah Hee’s Kaumana Elementary School class had invited him along on its annual excursion around Hilo to show appreciation to people who serve this community.

“The first thing that impressed me,” says Richard, “was that the principal came up before we left the school and talked to the children. He said, ‘Now you’re going to represent our school…’ He reinforced the teachers. It was a big deal.”

The kids took down posters they’d made and hung them in the windows of the bus.

First the bus took them to Hospice, where the kids gave out candies and told the people there how much they appreciate what they do.

The reactions, he says, were amazing. “I’m pretty sure that having done this is going to have a real impact on the kids’ lives,” he says, “because the feedback everywhere we went was incredibly positive. People were really touched by the kids and what they do.”

Then to the fire station. “They brought everybody out and maybe three kids gave a presentation,” he says. “It was a talk about their FISH philosophy, making people smile, making people’s day. That sort of thing.”

The FISH philosophy, according to the handout the kids gave (with candies) as they went around Hilo, began at Pike’s Place Fish Market in Seattle.

It is used as a business philosophy, but we have adopted it into our classroom. We have NO class rules…we swim with the FISH. Philosophy for life!

The FISH PHILOSOPHY contains four components:

Choose Your Attitude. You decide your attitude. No one can select it for you; choose a grand one. Even if your day is not going as planned, make the best of it! Be proud of your choice!

Be Present. Really focus on what you are doing or the conversation you are having. Don’t let others interrupt, don’t work on the computer or answer the phone when you are talking with someone. Be in the moment!

Play. This means to do whatever you need to do with a positive attitude. Even it it’s something you don’t enjoy as much. If you have to do it, make the best of it! Give it your ALL!

Make Someone’s Day. This is the most important and easiest component. It means to make someone feel great! Look for situations where you can help: a simple smile, holding a door open, a wave, or a “hi” or “good morning” can do the trick! Help someone in need. The feeling inside is wonderful!

The small information sheet ends with this:

We CHALLENGE you, Hilo! After learning about the FISH philosophy…Go and out Make Somebody’s Day. “We’re striving for a better Hilo, One heart at a time!”

If YOU made somebody’s day, we’d love to hear about it.

Our address: Kaumana Elementary School
Attn: Mrs. Karyl Ah Hee
1710 Kaumana Drive
Hilo HI 96720

Richard was impressed that when they got to the police station, there was the police chief, the assistant chief, and all the police officers sitting in a classroom. “They made a special point of bringing in all the detectives, who were in street clothes,” he says. “It was impressive that they really acknowledged how important it was by bringing everybody in. Everybody was there. The same at the fire station.”

“At the police station, there was this helicopter pilot with Operation Green Harvest, who has 40 years in the National Guard. He said he landed at Kaumana School one day in conjunction with the detectives, and the kids there showed him so much respect he remembered it. He said he’d never seen it before. He asked if he could speak to the kids, and he gave a heartfelt talk with tears in his eyes. I thought, ‘Whoa. There’s really something special going on at Kaumana Elementary.’”

Richard says he is impressed, too, with teacher Karyl Ah Hee.

“She’s a very dynamic person,” he says. “What it all really gets down to is that there are teachers like that, all over, but people largely don’t know. It’s good to see them, because you kind of know it intuitively. When you’re a kid you run across teachers like that, who have such a strong impact, but to actually see it as an adult is great.”

He also talked about how reassuring it is that this sort of thing goes on. “And not only in one school. We know it goes on at Keaukaha School, and at other schools. It is so apparent that when people say that there is something wrong with our educational system, it is not the teachers that are the problem. I’ve seen too many dedicated teachers who, like Karyl Ah Hee, work over and above what can reasonably be expected. They’re doing way above and beyond what they get paid for.”

He gave a little talk to the kids before he left. “I told them thanks for inviting me, because it was really that I was lucky to go, rather than that they were lucky to have me. I told them I was really proud of them. And that we had some apple bananas waiting for them when they got back. They liked that.”

“I’m so glad that I went along,” he says. “Our dedicated teachers are making good citizens of our young children, and I wish everyone could have seen what I saw.”

Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Tell ’em Rodrigo Sent You

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Rodrigo Romo recently wrote up an analysis of how a solar hot water heater installation works.

After the amount it saves you covers the installation cost, the sun makes electricity for you “free.” This is the same principle utilized in the alternative energy Farm Loan Bill that we are submitting to the Legislature this year.

The current High Tech Business Investment Tax Credit, Act 221, gives a 100 percent state income tax credit for alternate energy projects. So farmers can have their projects built free through income tax savings—just like Rodrigo’s solar water heater example.

Rodrigo writes: We just installed a solar water heater in our house this week because there is a pretty good deal going on. We were told that it should cut back the utility bill by about $20 per person, or about $80 dollars a month. The prices listed here include everything (installation too; it is a turn-key price).

The total cost of the system was $6,656, tax included, but the deal is as follows:

Solar System $6,400
Tax $256
Total $6,656

HELCO Rebate ($1,000)
Federal Credit ($1,697) ($5,656 x 30%)
State Credit ($1,980) ($5,656 x 35%)

Balance to pay $1,980

Right now they have a 12 month, zero down and no interest plan. And if you get it done before the end of the year, you get the federal and state credits on this year’s tax return. The state and federal amounts are not an income deduction, but an actual credit.

The guy that sold it to us is Jonathan Ahn (Solar Engineering and Contracting). His number is 966-9066 and his cell is 255-1824. We got an 80 gallon active system which includes the two solar panels and an 80 gallon tank. If you call him, tell him that Rodrigo Romo gave you the information!

Television

Living Local

Gloria Baraquio called a couple of weeks ago and asked if they could feature Hamakua Springs Country Farms on a segment of Living Local with the Baraquios, which will air on OC16 in January. “Of course, I’d love it,”€ I told her.

In addition to the TV program, Gloria writes a weekly column in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald and I’m a big fan. One of my favorites was when she described the local protocol for calling people aunty, sistah, bruddah or cuz.

She writes her column about real things on the Big Island. Not about how we imagine things to be, but how they truly are. From her writing, she strikes me as being a very “real” person.

When she and G. Cruz arrived for the filming yesterday, we went down to the tomato houses to do an interview and she asked about our farming philosophy. I told her we try to be competitive in the present while moving our company to where it needs to be in the future. Right now this means preparing for a future of rising energy costs and converting to using our natural resources for energy instead of fossil fuel sources.

Over the course of the interview yesterday I came to respect Gloria even more. That she lives in lower Puna, on “catchment” and “off the grid,” says it all for me. A person who catches rain water and is not connected to the public utility’€™s electricity grid is someone who looks at life in a very basic way. She loves the spirituality of lower Puna.

We farmed at Koa‘e in Kapoho in the old days. Maybe that’s why I relate to her column so strongly.

During our interview it clouded over and started raining, but I went ahead and asked Gloria if she would like to see where we are developing our hydroelectric project. I told her the grass would be wet and that the wooden plank over the flume was older than we know. But how did I know, rain or not, that she would want to go? She did.

We drove up the bumpy, four-wheel drive road to the mauka-Hilo corner of our property. I pointed out an old plantation flume that runs under the road and down a small waterfall on its way to the ocean. We parked a hundred yards further on up the road.

Kimo led the way and then came Gloria, G. Cruz with the camera and me, carrying the tripod. The 12-foot plank over the flume was maybe an inch and a half thick. You can’t even tell it’€™s a wooden blank because of the thick moss that grows on it. The far side of the plank is maybe a foot or more lower than the near side. And there is less than a foot of shoulder between the end of the plank and the river.

But Gloria was so interested in seeing what was going on with the flume that crossing it wasn’t even an issue to her.

The flume runs parallel to the river, and she and G. decided they wanted to film at the most dangerous spot. They walked along the narrow path separating the flume from the river and across another old plank, maybe 10 inches wide, over the top of a waterfall that dropped 20 feet to the river below. I was a little worried about rescuing them if they fell. And then they continued to a four-inch concrete lip to a small dam.

Gloria decided she would walk out on the narrow dam, crouch down and do her narrative from there. And by then it was raining seriously.

She knew in her mind what she wanted and she was fearless in its pursuit.

I have a lot of respect for her.

Community, Eating Locally

Yellow Jacket

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This is the second week in a row that we’ve been a vendor at the Kino‘ole Street Farmers Market. Now that my grandson Kapono and I know the routine, it’s easy.

Early in the morning Saturday, at 5:30 when we were getting ready to leave for the market, there was a very heavy, pounding downpour. It reminded me of monsoon season in Vietnam, where in two to three seconds, one could fill up a two-cup canteen with rainwater running off a one-man tent. It was faster to catch the rainwater than to remove the cap and pour water from a canteen.

When we arrived at 6:30, it wasn’t raining and we hustled to get the tent up. It was fairly clear during the early part of the day. But around 10:30, there was a major downpour and everyone stayed under the tents for several minutes.

One would expect Hilo people to carry umbrellas. But only one person had an umbrella handy, and he was the only one walking around from booth to booth. It frequently happens like that where no one seems to have an umbrella. I very rarely carry an umbrella, even though Hilo is supposed to be the rainiest city in the U.S.A.

The rain didn’t dampen anyone’s spirit. Here in Hilo rain just comes and goes and it just “is.” No problem.

Farm Bureau sponsors give talks on Farmers Market days. This past Saturday’s talk was on yellow jackets.

It reminds me of when we were in elementary school. I don’t know if these are the same yellow jackets Dr. Foote was discussing, but my brother Robert and I would go down to do battle with the yellow jackets, which made nests that hung from the roof of an old abandoned building during the summer. The plan was that I would throw dirt at the hives to get them really mad. Then we would use a short guava stick to whack them out of the air.

Someone told me that bees cannot recognize a person—that they mostly detect movement. So I figured we could whack at them and then freeze. And then do it again, until we won. But we lost our nerve, got a few stings and ran away screaming.

The next summer we resolved to win the battle. I threw dirt at the hive with both hands. To our horror, bees came out in a cloud. We whacked as many as we dared out of the air and then we froze. Those bees were really mad, and we pretended we were fence posts. They were mad for a long time and one even attacked—he came at me like he recognized me. But I kept pretending to be a fence post and he flew off and circled instead. We did not dare move around, and we ran for home, throwing the guava sticks in the air because they slowed us down too much. But we didn’t scream.

The best thing about the Farmers Market is that one gets to meet and chat with many people. Some are friends from long ago and others are friends of friends, or relatives of relatives. No wonder people come back week after week. It’s fun to meet and chat with people. We met one couple who introduced themselves as parents of our friend Darren Akiona.

I hadn’t seen Ralph Lee for a long time. I asked him, “By the way, how did it come about that you had a 1961 Chevy 409 in 1961?” It was the talk of the school and the whole island if not the whole state at the time. It turned out that his dad was friends with Chuchu Kanuha, the manager of Hilo Motors, and was told of this brand new model car that was coming out. So Ralph’s dad ordered it. It cost a little over $3,000 then. I always wanted to know how Ralph ended up with the hottest car on the island.

Earlier I chatted with Janice Crowl, who told me that she was in a group of Master Gardeners who recently visited our farm. She wrote about that visit here on her blog.

The Kino‘ole Farmers Market is located in the parking lot in front of Kawate Seed Shop. We grew up calling the sweet and sour Chinese seeds one can buy there “crack seed.”

 

Cyrus Wagatsuma, a Farm Bureau member and diversified farmer from Papaikou, brought a wide selection of vegetables. He has a loyal following of shoppers.

People you don’t expect to meet: Tom Beck worked with our son Brian as an electrician at the Canada-France telescope on Mauna Kea. Brian respected Tom and talked about him a lot. Tom is retired from the mountain now and is selling Wagyu cattle and specialty native plants as a hobby. He looks and sounds like he’s very happy. I thought I saw a bamboo coqui trap. It was a gadgety-looking coqui trap, where the frogs would go up the bamboo pole and into a compartment to lay eggs. I have to go back and take a closer look.

Rusty Perry and I have been friends for more than 30 years. He is very active in the Farm Bureau now. Way back when, we started in the banana business together and then he diversified into papaya and orchids. He markets his products on the Internet. His booth had a sweet smell from his orchids.

Aaron and Vionel Sugino run three booths. They make fruit pies, lavosh, taro, sweet potato chips, poi and all kinds of other products.

Vinel operates the incubator kitchen located in the old Fujii Bakery at Wailea, on the old road that goes by Kolekole Beach Park, and she has opened up its storefront. It’s still a well-kept secret at this point—they’ve only been open one week—but people are going to flock there.

Mauna Kea, Where We Live

First Snow

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The first big snow of the season is always kind of exciting. There was a huge storm on Mauna Kea this past week—and down here, too—and it left our 13,00-plus-foot mountain wearing a beautiful, white snowy cape.

When it snows here in Hawai‘i, people sometimes drive up the mountain and come back with a pickup truck full of snow. You see snowmen popping up in the oddest places: outside the veterinarian’s office, or on a street corner downtown. Of course, Hilo itself is an odd place to see a snowman.

Community, Eating Locally

Farm Bureau Farmers Market

This past Saturday, my grandson Kapono and I set up a booth at the Big Island Farm Bureau’s farmers market. It’s on Kino‘ole Street, in the parking lot of the old Food Fair Supermarket close to Kawate Seed Shop, and operates from 7 a.m. to 12 noon. We wanted to see what it was like.

We got there at 6:45 in the morning, and with help from our neighbors at the Keolanui and Olson fruit booth, we were set up in less than 15 minutes. We brought beefsteak, heirloom and other tomatoes, Japanese cucumbers and green onions, and we displayed them on a 6-foot table with a nice tablecloth. We taped up price tags and priced everything in 50-cent increments so it would be easy to make change. Just like that we were ready to go.

One unexpected thing happened. There was a series of strong gusts, so we drove the truck up and secured the tent to it. Next time we’ll copy our left side neighbor, Green Point Nurseries—they tied their tent to five-gallon buckets that were filled with water. That’s a good idea and we’ll have to do that next time.

The Farm Bureau provided Hawaiian music entertainment and speakers talked about coqui frog control and other subjects. The Department of Agriculture had an informational booth about invasive species. It was very informative. Every half hour there was a drawing. Some of the booths were decorated in Chirstmas themes. It lent a festive air to the market.

There were maybe 15 tents. Aaron and Vinel Sugino had their Blue Kalo products two booths down. Their products have a blue and white theme, and their tent was blue and white as was their Christmas theme. She runs the Hakalau Incubator Kitchen, housed in the old Fujii Bakery in Hakalau. She told me they recently opened up the storefront for retail sales.

Rusty and Jenny Perry sold papayas, citrus and orchid plants in a tent close to the stage. I’ve known Rusty and Jenny for 30 years. Their daughter Vicky was over at the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) booth. I can remember when she was a small kid running around barefoot. Now she has graduated from UH Manoa and works for CTAHR Dean Andy Hashimoto on O‘ahu.

Cyrus Wagatsuma had an assortment of vegetables at his booth, which was nicely decorated as well.

It started off slowly but picked up from 8 a.m. to 10:30 or so. The tomatoes were very popular. It was pretty apparent that many people had never seen an heirloom tomato before; some thought they were mini pumpkins. Next time we’ll be prepared to have people sample the heirlooms.

We had two lettuces in glasses filled with water. Our objective was to show hydroponic farming in miniature, but a lot of people asked if we had any for sale. We’ll bring some next time.

It seemed like many of the shoppers were senior citizens on a budget. We’re going to bring some “seconds” bananas and tomatoes next time to see if they appeal to those shoppers.

It was fun to talk to people, explain how hydroponics work and just interact with the customers. Lots of them actually knew who we were and what we did. And now we know what quantities to bring. I think we’ll mark the prices down after 10:30 if we feel like we have too much of a particular item.

Kapono and I are looking forward to next Saturday.

Biofuel, Food Security, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Fundamental Assumptions

Sally Odland, a former geologist and project manager, has worked in mineral exploration, oil & gas exploration, environmental remediation, and exhibit design. She wrote this article below (in italics) for The Day, a newspaper in New London, Connecticut, and here I have interjected some comments as they relate to Hawai‘i.

“Who’d have thought we’d already be nostalgic for $80 oil? Only five years ago, a barrel of crude oil was trading comfortably at $25-$30, where it had for 15 years. Today the same barrel fetches $90-something, and it’s anyone’s bet whether oil will break $100 before Christmas. That’s a 300% price increase in five years, 50% in the last year alone. Credible energy analysts predict $200 to $300 oil in the next few years. No wonder the Feds removed energy costs from the core inflation index!” 

In the last few weeks Matson announced a rate hike for its seagoing cargo arriving from the West Coast; Aloha Airlines announced a rate hike of 5 cents per pound for its air cargo; Young Brothers barge company announced a rate hike for interisland freight, and HELCO, our electric utility, announced a rate hike as well. Yesterday, while participating at the Kino‘ole Street farmers market, I was told, unofficially, that UHS will be increasing its fertilizer prices significantly. We know from past experience that the cost of plastic and other supplies  rises with oil prices, but lags as inventories clear out. This means that Hawai‘i farmers’ production costs will be rising. Imported food costs will also start rising as high oil prices work their way through the system.

Our alternate energy Farm Loan Bill will help to stabilize some of the Hawai‘i farmer’s costs and help them become competitive.

“Our fundamental assumptions about the continuing availability of cheap oil to fuel the American lifestyle are being tested. Last year the topic of peak oil—the idea that the world is approaching a maximum limit to oil production—was virtually taboo in polite company and business journals.

This November, however, the Wall Street Journal ran a Page One piece: “Oil Officials See Limit Looming on Production.” If that’s not the definition of peak oil, I’m not sure what is.”

Sunday’s New York Times says that some of the world’s largest oil exporters will no longer export in five to ten years because their own growing economies will use more oil products domestically.

Last week in a landmark speech, Fatih Birol, Head Economist for the International Energy Agency (IEA), was asked the following question, in response to oil-producing countries’ assertions that they would be able to produce an extra 25 million barrels per day. (Note: Until this point, the IEA was notoriously optimistic.)

The question: “Where will the projected extra 25 mb/d oil production come from?”

His response: “If the supply turns out to be less than this, we are in serious trouble. If these projects do not come online, the wheels will fall off our energy system.”

Yes, those were his exact words.

I am the only one from Hawai‘i who attended the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) conference held in Houston in October. (ASPO is a non-partisan organization with 25 national chapters worldwide). At that time, the mainstream media had largely ignored the world oil supply shortage. Since then, in just the last few weeks, the topic is starting to make headlines in many papers and has become mainstream. All who were at the conference knew how serious the situation was. Now, maybe we can start to deal with the problem.

“For practical purposes, the exact date of “peak” (or more likely “plateau”) oil—whether 2005, 2012 or 2030 as the optimists predict—is immaterial; we have already rolled over to a sellers’ market.

Oil production has been essentially flat—about 85 million barrels a day—for the past two years, despite soaring prices. Strong demand growth in India and China was accommodated only because poorer African and Asian countries were priced out of the market. There is a growing realization that it’s not going to be cheap or easy to grow either capacity or production much beyond the present rates.” 

We know that the world population has increased in parallel to oil production. This is because oil allowed cheap food to be produced. More food equals more people. Now that the oil supply is starting to become short, food will also become short. And people who cannot afford it may not get the food they need.

Here in Hawai‘i we import more than 80 percent of the food we eat. We need to start now in order to produce enough food for all of our people here in Hawai‘i.

“It doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict higher energy prices, greater volatility and periodic supply shortfalls on the 1- to 5-year horizon. Spare oil production capacity is sorely lacking, making the system vulnerable to supply and price shock. This specter is reason enough for families, businesses and local governments to start planning—now!—to dramatically reduce their exposure. We need conservation, but we also need emergency preparedness plans for dealing with the very real potential of disruptions to fuel and heating oil delivery.” 

I am starting to meet more and more people who are doing things now to protect themselves against an uncertain future. One person at the farmers market told me he bought his parents five acres so they could become self-sufficient in terms of food production. He was a manager of a fertilizer company!

Hawaiians have always felt that self-sufficiency was no big deal. For them, it is a given that shipping will sooner or later be interrupted. They can remember when their grandparents were self-sufficient. People back then had a few animals, a taro patch and some ulu trees and they traded. To Hawaiians, it is not difficult—it is a lifestyle.

Someone recently asked me if I knew how expensive sheets are. I admitted that I have no idea. He told me that they purchased a few recently because sheets are made from petroleum products and prices will only go higher. My mom complains about how high canned goods and rice prices are. I know this is just the start. Prices will go much higher. It will be a challenging transition period. I worry that the farmers who are least able to pass on price increases may become discouraged and quit farming.

In order to prepare ourselves for a future of uncertainty, Hamakua Springs Country Farms is planning to make biodiesel on a small scale.  In case there are supply disruptions, we don’t want to wait in gas lines.

“In the longer term—the next 20 to 30 years—we will have no choice but to transition to a reduced petroleum economy. There are compelling reasons why it makes sense to start doing that NOW, rather than waiting until we are 100% certain we’ve passed the point of maximum oil output:

Long lead times for large capital investments. It takes at least 15-30 years to bring revolutionary ideas from research and development to widespread usage. It takes similar time to plan, permit and build major infrastructure—like mass transit or new energy plants, LNG terminals, etc.”

(Garbage to energy?)

“Competition for scarce resources will drive up the future price of raw materials: The building blocks of progress—fossil fuel energy, metals, land—are more abundant and cheaper now than they will be in the future.

Resource nationalism means that certain strategic materials may not be available for import—at any price—in the not-too-distant future. We should reconsider the future value of energy, raw materials, farmland and water.”

We should consider what might happen if oil shipments to Hawai‘i are disrupted. It makes one wonder if we should not be producing our electricity from geothermal, wind, solar, hydro, the ocean, etc., all of which are available naturally here in Hawai‘i, and concentrate on using liquid fuels for transportation.

Why should we be relying on liquid fuels for electricity? Liquid fuels are not natural resources. If we do this, we cannot give Hawai‘i’s small businesses the competitive advantage derived from our natural resources. For example, if we relied on geothermal for most of our electricity, wouldn’t we have a competitive advantage over certain products imported from the mainland that rely heavily on oil for manufacturing? To the extent we could export those items we could still have a complex vibrant society as the dollars would circulate in Hawai‘i rather than being sent away.

On our farm, we are shifting direction. We will use hydro and solar to power electric motors, and replace as many internal combustion engines as possible. For example, we will use electric forklifts instead of diesel. We will use biodiesel primarily for our delivery trucks. It is important that the food we produce is transported dependably and on time.

Unconventional oil won’t bail us out: Canadian tar sands and U.S. oil shale resources may “rival Saudi Arabia,” but they can’t scale up production to match. Oil shales will be lucky to produce 100,000 barrels/day—a 7-minute supply at current U.S. consumption rates—by 2020. Doubling tar sands production to 4 million barrels/day by 2020 (if possible) won’t even offset depletion of existing oil production.

Other parts of the country use oil, natural gas, nuclear power and hydro for their electricity generation. In Hawai‘i, we use mostly imported oil. HECO is running TV ads saying that they are starting to use renewable energy. But renewable energy by itself does nothing for our energy costs. We are hoping the utility can figure out how to translate our free Hawaiian energy sources into cheaper electricity.

The impacts of Peak Oil will be hardest felt at the local and state level. The solution lies in revitalizing local manufacturing, farming and business around the emerging reality of constrained fossil fuel supplies. Peak Oil gives us the opportunity to strengthen and rebuild our local economies and to restore forgotten American—and Hawaiian—values such as ingenuity, resourcefulness and community.

Older people I talk to all say how good it was in the old days. Then, the sugar plantation towns all had company stores, theaters, bakeries, pool halls, boxing teams, etc. There were even medical clinics and transportation back and forth. The plantations must have done something right, as the older people have fond memories of those times.

Before that, the Hawaiians had a thriving sustainable society based on the aloha spirit—and it worked very well.

I think it is important to empower individuals. The farm loan alternative energy bill we are introducing into the legislature will empower individual farmers. Instead of relying only on industrial-sized power plants, there must be ways to incentivize individuals, and especially farmers, to generate electricity at strategic times to inject into the electric grid.

Large-scale bioenergy farming may be economical where there is flat ground and where the infrastructure is in place. But for many, taking the direct route by generating electricity and getting a check from the electric utility makes more sense than growing palm trees, fertilizing, harvesting, hauling, squeezing and shipping the juice to refineries and then getting a check. Incentivizing and empowering individuals helps to spread risk. Long supply chains and just-in-time inventories have made us vulnerable.

NASA incorporates multiple redundancies before they send astronauts into space. We, too, should spread our risks.  

Sally Odland currently administers a division of research geophysicists at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia
University. Sally holds advanced degrees in Geology and Business
Administration. Her MBA dissertation, “Strategic Choices for Managing the Transition from Peak Oil to a Reduced Petroleum Economy” is online here. She serves as a volunteer Board Member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO-USA).

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.

Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Future

Peter Goodchild, at countercurrents.org, paints a bleak scenario about the future in a world of depleted oil supplies:

The decline in the world’s oil supply offers no sudden dramatic event that would appeal to the writer of “apocalyptic” science fiction: no mushroom clouds, no flying saucers, no giant meteorites. The future will be just like today, only tougher. Oil depletion is basically just a matter of overpopulation – too many people and not enough resources. The most serious consequence will be a lack of food. The problem of oil therefore leads, in an apparently mundane fashion, to the problem of farming.

To what extent could food be produced in a world without fossil fuels? In the year 2000, humanity consumed about 30 billion barrels of oil, but the supply is starting to run out; without oil and natural gas, there will be no fuel, no asphalt, no plastics, no chemical fertilizer. Most people in modern industrial civilization live on food that was bought from a local supermarket, but such food will not always be available. Agriculture in the future will be largely a “family affair”: without motorized vehicles, food will have to be produced not far from where it was consumed. But what crops should be grown? How much land would be needed? Where could people be supported by such methods of agriculture?

Though Goodchild’s portrayal looks bleak, here in Hawai‘i we have a great opportunity to transition to different ways of doing things. These ideas come to my mind:

1. If oil is equal to energy, what alternate energy could we substitute? How about geothermal? The energy is just coming out of the ground. How about water in a river running down hill? That’s potential energy. It rains 140 inches per year at our farm. What if we caught water and dug an injection well and captured the energy at the bottom? Instead of the internal combustion engine, we use electrical motors.

2. Can the utilities help us produce food? I don’t think so. It’s about costs and they have the highest costs in the country. We have to look for other ways.

3. What about fertilizer? Synthetic fertilizer is made from air and natural gas. Air is made up of 78% nitrogen. It may be possible that the geothermal company, using air, sand and geothermal energy, could manufacture calcium nitrate. Could a wind farm make fertilizer? We need to ask these questions.

Because oil was so cheap for so long, we have even forgotten that the sun’s energy has value. Here in Hawai‘i we can grow crops all year long. And as oil prices rise, the value of the energy coming from the sun will also rise. This means Hawai‘i farmers will become more competitive.

When I returned from the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) conference in Houston in mid-October, things seemed bleak. But as time goes by, I realize we have many resources and opportunities to transition successfully.

My Pop used to say there are a thousand reasons why, “No can.” I am only looking for one reason why, “CAN!!”

Sustainability

Modern Ahupua‘a

Richard and I stumbled upon this website by the non-profit group Pacific Worlds. The extensive site provides a thought-provoking look at many topics, including the idea of a modern ahupua’a, which Richard too has talked about.

From its site:

Pacific Worlds serves two roles: first, it is a vehicle for cultural preservation and the perpetuation of indigenous traditions in the Pacific. In this role, it presents Pacific Islands—from Pacific-Islander perspectives—to the entire world. Whether you are a tourist or a scholar, this site will transform your understanding of Pacific cultures and environments. Second and more specifically, Pacific Worlds comprises an indigenous-geography education project serving Hawai‘i-Pacific Schools.

Here’s a snippet of what they write about ahupua‘a:

“Ahupua‘a is holistic,” Stephen Kubota says, elaborating the vision of the Ahupua‘a Action Alliance: “In Hawaiian culture, you had kahuna who knew the forests, knew the trees, knew the geology. The chiefs could draw upon the collective wisdom of the kahuna to help determine what was an appropriate construction project. Today, I see a modern ahupua‘a. It means using the knowledge and tools we have today.

“Some argue that using an ahupua‘a system today poses challenges simply because our society is not organized around subsistence, which was the whole premise of the ahupua‘a system. Others have said, how can you use an ahupua‘a system in modern Hawai‘i when we import 70% of our food? Moreover, the people within the ahupua‘a shared common resources, but today so many of these are now either degraded or sequestered in private lands.

“But if we look at the underlying values, principles, and practices, those have not changed. Certain accepted features are retained, even in Western law: water as a public trust resource, public access rights to forest, to hiking, to gathering. Those are acknowledged even in modern Western laws, especially in the State of Hawai‘i.

We both also liked this, from the same document:

“When I say ahupua‘a today, I’m talking about a holistic relationship, a kinship with all the living creatures that occupy the place where you live–including the spirits of the ancestors. There’s no Western term for this concept. There’s a phrase that I’m comfortable with for now, it’s ecosystem restoration, and those two words together carry the meaning. Ecosystem includes humans and all the non-human factors. Restoration is a really important concept because it has become a science, it becomes a policy. And in restoration policy, you are admitting that there was something damaged.

“The toolkit for restoration is very clear: you can’t restore if you don’t know what was there before. You have to use historic photographs, oral histories, and research. It’s kind of like the doctor-patient relationship: before I prescribe this, I’d better do a patient history to see if you’re tolerant to these drugs. Is it a genetic disorder, or a bacterial infection? We require some very high standards before a doctor prescribes medicine.

“I think ecosystem restoration is beginning to impose those kinds of standards on how we manage the environment. You may find that this area was once a taro patch, but because of all the changes, today it’s a reservoir. It may be best to leave it as a reservoir.”

There is so much more at this impressive and well-researched site. Regarding this island, they look in depth at Kawaihae. Links on the Kawaihae page send you to sections labeled arrival, native places, the sea, the land, footprints, visitors, memories, onwards. There are also sections on people, ahupua’a, community, re-planting, sacred sites, pau and language – and much more. It’s fascinating to look around and see all the significant people, cultural information and resources they have drawn together.

Richard points out that, regarding the modern ahupua‘a, they write “some people call it ‘back to the future.’”

He asks: “Isn’t that a lot like ‘moving forward by looking backward?’”