Sidewalk Sale

July 25, 2007 Richard Ha 1 Comment

June and I participated in a sidewalk sale at KTA this past Saturday, and it was awesome. From 7 a.m. until noon, people did not stop coming. Most came for the summer fruit and yet even though we were not the focus of attention, we sold approximately 200 bunches of green onions, 15 boxes of cucumbers and a lot more.

We are big fans of KTA Superstores. KTA has been instrumental in easing this island’s transition from a sugar plantation economy to what it is today. The company has helped local farmers become economically stable by offering them the opportunity to sell their products under the Mountain Apple Brand label.

As for us, KTA has been willing to work with us on new items, new packaging and generally operating “outside of the box.” It is because of this help that we’ve been able to bring so many new products to market.

We sold our heirloom tomatoes. Heirlooms are generally varieties older than 50 years. When disease resistance, attractiveness and shelf life are primary considerations, heirlooms are not the most desirable. But chefs love them because heirlooms are noted for their good taste. We grow them because we like to eat them.

The Striped German is interesting. If you turn the tomato upside down, you see a red color radiating outward. That two-toned red and yellow color is what you see when the tomato is sliced. It’s very pretty and interesting. This tomato has a taste combination that leans toward sweetness with just a hint of acidity. People who like sweetness in their tomatoes might like this one best.

The Purple Cherokee has a nice balance of sweetness to acid. The seeds don’t tend to fall out and the tomato has a consistent texture throughout. It is, well, “meaty.” The description “beefy” comes to mind. I wonder if that’s where the name beefsteak tomato comes from? I like it simple—chilled and sliced with a little Hawaiian salt and ground black pepper. Very nice! People who like a balanced acid to sweetness ratio might choose this as their favorite.

In the clamshell containers are our living lettuce. They are called “living lettuce” because the roots are on and they have the ability to breathe oxygen. One of the reasons we like this is because we can ship these using less cooling energy. Also, the lettuce lasts longer than conventionally grown lettuces.

Our green onions are grown hydroponically. Mainland green onions have the tops cut off, but we like to leave the tops on so we can show them off. It’s hard to grow green onions that have green tips, but we do it. We also leave the tips on for food safety reasons—we feel that there is less chance for contamination if we don’t cut off them off.

We have finally learned how to grow crispy, crunchy Japanese cucumbers. It’s interesting to talk to customers as they decide whether to buy or not. As they carry on a conversation, they go through the cucumbers, carefully checking out each one. I think people really touch and feel the cucumber for confirmation that it will be crunchy and crispy. So we know what our job is. It’s more than just slapping on a pretty label.

Also, we don’t like waxed produce. So we don’t do it.

We are really proud of our green onions. But we feel that they are still too thin and leggy. In a couple of weeks we will have them where we want them—green from tip to bottom, a little bit shorter and more stout. They will be stronger looking and flawless, and all without harsh chemicals.

Health, Losing Weight

Behind Me

July 23, 2007 Richard Ha

This morning my resting heart rate was 54 beats per minute. The GreenLight laser procedure that I did a couple of months ago is now completely behind me.

June and I just finished loading up the Kona delivery van with a couple hundred boxes of bananas and tomatoes, and it was no problem at all. In fact, now I’m considering getting on the elliptical trainer for a half hour or so.

I’ve been exercising consistently for the last month or so and I’m feeling like it’s time to increase intensity. My goal is to get my resting heart rate below 50 beats per minute. It will take intervals of fairly high heart rate exercising several times per week.

I’ll do this by alternating weight lifting and aerobics in the same session. Twice a week, I’ll try to get my heart rate up to 150-160 beats per minute two or three times for a few minutes.

In a couple of weeks I’ll start making an effort to lose a few pounds.

Community, Current Affairs, Eating Locally, Government

Volatile Situation

July 20, 2007 Richard Ha 4 Comments

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.

Community, Eating Locally, Tomatoes

More on the ‘Island-Grown Market’

July 18, 2007 Richard Ha

I want to tell you, and show you, a little more about that food event at the Pukalani Foodland last week because I think it’s so significant that Foodland is demonstrating its strong commitment to locally grown produce.

People are increasingly concerned that we live in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and that we depend on 70 percent of our food being imported. It’s eye-opening to learn that there is only a week to 10 days’ worth of food in the pipeline. Interrupt that shipping and we run out.

This is why I’m so impressed with Foodland’s commitment to supporting local farmers.

And it isn’t only us here at Hamakua Springs that benefit from their support. At this Pukalani event, there were growers and producers from all over Hawai‘i. All of us are doing the same thing—producing, locally, the food people here eat. Fresh, Island-grown, delicious food.

And not only produce. Armstrong Produce & Kula Produce employees are an important part of the team that makes all this happen.

It is delicious to break out of old food habits and plan meals based on the fresh ingredients available around you. Eating more vegetables, putting together quick, simple dishes with fresh ingredients, enjoying a sweet, sweet summer watermelon—it doesn’t get any better than that.

I am so impressed when I see the turnout at these Foodland events, a farmer’s market that they hold outside their stores. Now the key is to get all those people to wheel their carts back in the store and realize this is not an isolated opportunity. These products are for sale inside Foodland, too, and on a regular basis! Read signs and labels when you buy your groceries, and support your local farmers so we can continue to bring you this delicious, Island-fresh food.

Community, Eating Locally, Sustainability, Tomatoes

Upcountry

July 16, 2007 Richard Ha

I am exercising and it’s going okay, but I’m not losing much weight right now. My resting heart rate is at 60 beats per minute, so that is going in the right direction. But regarding weight, I’ve hit some sort of plateau. I’ll let you know when I figure out a way out of it.

June and I just attended the second event of the Foodland Island Grown Market series. This time it was held at the Pukalani Foodland, part way up the slopes of Haleakala on Maui.

There were farmers there with lettuce and herbs, broccoli and cabbage, flowers from Maui and watermelon from O‘ahu. From the Big Island, there were Hamakua mushrooms and fresh fish and also us, with our tomatoes, bananas and living lettuce.

Chef Keoni Chang with the owners of Waipouli Hydroponics.

Fresh fish from Hilo

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The parakeet lady with some of our heirloom tomatoes

The people who came were very vocal about their support of local produce. They were knowledgeable and passionate about food security. They made a point of telling us how much they appreciate fresh produce grown in Hawaii.

And they came to buy. They bought every heirloom tomato we had, even those in the display. The tomatoes-on-the-vine went first. People bought all our cocktail tomatoes, as well as all the beef tomatoes in the clamshells.

Chef Kent explaining how he used our cocktail tomatoes in his watercress/tomato dish, “and you have to try the Striped German heirlooms.”

Armstrong Produce’s Tish Uehara, to Chef Keoni: “So that’s the trick? Ponzu sauce and togarashi?”

It was great to hear people say that they support local farmers. This was not just making polite conversation; they meant it. Sustainability and food security are big in Pukalani. All the farmers really enjoyed this event.

Mark Teruya, President of Armstrong Produce, making sure everyone has a Foodland tote bag.

Tiffany Tom, a buyer for Foodland Produce, finally taking a break because everything is going great

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Chef Keoni discussing the finer points of selecting a watermelon

And speaking of watermelon…

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Before they started, the little girl told the M.C.: “I’m going for the win!” She had such a great attitude it didn’t even matter who won!

Company News, Eating Locally, Tomatoes

At the Expo

July 13, 2007 Richard Ha 1 Comment

June and I just attended the Hawaii Lodging, Hospitality & Foodservice Expo, which was held Wednesday and Thursday at the Blaisdell Center in Honolulu. It’s the largest trade event in the state.We were guests in the Armstrong Produce booth. Armstrong Produce is the largest produce distributor in Hawai‘i, and has its corporate headquarters on O‘ahu. Its Kula Produce operates on Maui, and on the Big Island it is known as Armstrong Produce Kona. They carry every conceivable variety of fruit and vegetable. They are also strong supporters of local producers.

Armstrong Produce passed out samples of numerous fruits, including Bing and Rainier cherries, golden kiwi, melons, Saturn peaches, white nectarines and others.

We anchored one end of their booth with our tomatoes. People were fascinated and eager to taste our unusual-looking tomatoes. We told them that we grow our heirloom tomatoes from varieties that are at least 50 years old, back when tomatoes were bred for taste rather than how pretty they looked and how far they could be shipped.

We told them the darker-colored tomatoes are called Purple Cherokee, the yellow with starbursts of red are Striped Germans and the little green ones are called Green Zebras. Our tiny Hamakua Sweets were a huge hit, and people dragged their friends back to taste them. We were not surprised, because we have seen this reaction time and again. The Hamakua Sweets are our favorites, as well.

We were guests of Armstrong Produce two years ago, too. Back then we noticed, and were surprised, when people told us they supported and were interested in buying locally grown produce. This time we noticed people were even more passionate about their support for locally grown food.

Underlying this sentiment are probably three recent happenings:

1. China’s food safety problems

2. Last year’s spinach safety problems, and

3. Wal-Mart’s industrialization of organic food. (Since large corporations started supplying Wal-Mart with organic produce from far away, people are wondering about the carbon cost of sourcing fertilizers from distant corners of the globe to grow organic crops, and then shipping that crop across the country to a Wal-Mart. This is causing the demise of the small family organic farm, the very ones that started the organic movement in the first place, and people don’t like this!)

People are really supporting locally grown food now. The sentiment to “buy local” is quite a bit stronger than it was two years ago. And the chefs are leading the way. It’s quite impressive and we are moving to be in step with this trend.

At the Expo, there were booths of all kinds—from food to laundry to patio umbrellas, to designer kitchen uniforms, to custom coffee machines that could compete with Starbucks in taste and variety. I was very impressed with the quality they can maintain.

Toward the end of the day, lots of people crowded around the wine and beer booths. There were even massage chairs that treated people with sore legs and backs from working or just walking around.

June and I enjoyed this event. It reinforced our belief that local consumers care about food safety and food security. We were pleasantly surprised to find that consumers are even more concerned than we expected. It gives us encouragement to press ahead in terms of food safety and food security issues.

Community, Tomatoes

Samples

July 11, 2007 Leslie Lang

Did you see the special Agriculture & Energy Expo insert in the
Tribune-Herald recently? They used this photo of Richard and family on the cover.

Richard, his mother Florence Ha, June, Kimo and Tracy (photo by Macario)

Tracy said that they were surprised to see that picture on the cover. “I was talking to Rob at the Hawai‘i Island Chamber of Commerce and he said they thought it was a nice presentation of agriculture,” she told me, “being that we had three generations.”

She and Kimo handed out samples of the farm’s heirloom tomatoes at the Expo. “People kept saying they didn’t know there were tomatoes that looked like that,” she said. “The different colors, the different shapes; and they were surprised that each individual variety of heirlooms has a different flavor.”

“A lot of people there knew our tomatoes already,” she said, “either from our donating cocktail tomatoes to the schools or they already buy them at the grocery stores. People were wanting to see our new products.”

Some of the tomatoes they offered as samples included Green Zebras, which are small, green crunchy tomatoes; the Purple Cherokees, which she describes as a dark, almost black tomato; and the bigger, bright yellow Striped Germans, which are very sweet and have a yellow and pink flesh.

“I only took a case of the heirlooms to sell,” she said, “because I didn’t know how people would react to them, but they sold out.” The heirloom tomatoes are starting to be available in one-lb. “clamshell” containers at local supermarkets.

Tracy and Kimo also sold Hamakua Springs lettuce, green onions and cucumbers at the Expo.

“I love doing the Expos,” said Tracy. “I like setting up the displays, and I’m a people person. When people stop by you get to talk story with them.”

Biofuel, Current Affairs, History, Sustainability

Biofuel

July 9, 2007 Richard Ha

Nancy Redfeather, a friend and sustainable farming advocate in Kona, sent me a link to this article in the Maui News.

When I was on Maui recently, I attended a biofuel meeting sponsored by Hawaii Electric Light Company. The article quoted me as being one of the few testifying in favor of the plan to replace fossil fuel diesel with bio diesel, made from palm oil.

I thought I’d share my response to Nancy, in order to give a little bit of context to my testimony:

Hi Nancy:

Thanks for sending me this.

I was on Maui visiting supermarkets and wholesalers when I attended that biodiesel meeting. That was the fourth bioenergy meeting I had attended.

I believe we need to figure out how the Big Island can become sustainable in energy, as well as in food production. We are in the process of building a hydroelectric plant at the farm. That will allow us to get off the grid.

HECO says it is committed to sourcing only palm oil that is certified sustainable. Some people seemed skeptical and even disappointed that NRDC was trying to do a third-party certification program for palm oil farming.

Since, in 1993, our farm—Kea’au Banana Plantation—was the first banana farm in the world to be certified ECO O.K. by the Rainforest Alliance, I related our experience with what happened as a result of the certification program.

During the early 1990s, the Central/South American banana industry was notorious for its poor sustainable/environmental/worker health record. As a result, the Rainforest Alliance, headquartered in New York City, decided to start a certification program. We read about it when a friend on the mainland, who knew our sustainable farming philosophy, sent me a copy of the World Watch magazine, in which the planned banana certification program was described.

We looked at the protocol and saw that we were not far from what they required. So I called the Rainforest Alliance and told them what we were doing. They sent two inspectors from their San Jose, Costa Rica office to inspect us. They were amazed that a banana farm in Hawai‘i, of all places, was pretty much in compliance. The inspectors told me they were getting stiff resistance from the large banana companies in Central America.

To make a long story short, their Board met and we passed. But I was told that there was consternation in Central America, and that it would not do to have a foreign company become the first banana company in the world to be certified ECO O.K. So a few weeks went by until they found a small grower in Costa Rica who could qualify. Then we were both allowed to say we were first in the world.

The result was that other farms started to transform themselves so they could be certified ECO O.K. In a short time it became clear that, because of marketing pressure, the large banana companies could no longer resist—and they started to clean up their acts.

On Maui, I related how our company was instrumental in changing the behavior of the world’s banana industry because of the Rainforest Alliance’s third party certification program. I told everyone that I felt that NRDC was trying to achieve the same thing—transform palm oil production behavior worldwide—and that I had actually seen it work.

But it seems clear to me that this is a complex issue on Maui.

Anyway, that is the story behind the story.

Eating Locally

Origins

July 6, 2007 Richard Ha

A New York Times editorial talks about lobbying efforts that have shot down legislation that would require some food labeling—labeling that would tell us where our food was raised or grown.

“With imports of agricultural products rising sharply and sporadic scares about their safety,” says the article, “Americans surely have a right to know what country their food has come from. Unfortunately, they have little chance of finding out, due to the intransigence of meat importers and grocery retailers.”

Consumers have a right to know where their food comes from, the editorial posits. We agree.

As our post on Andrea Dean showed (she ate only Big Island food products for an extended period, and had no trouble finding enough to eat), there is a lot of great food produced right here on the Big island.

Eating locally just makes more and more sense.

Bananas, Community, Eating Locally

Bananas & Dignity

July 4, 2007 Richard Ha 2 Comments

There was a farmers market event this past Saturday at Foodland Supermarket in Ewa Beach. The weather was great and nearly 20 farmers participated, bringing their asparagus, bananas, tomatoes, lettuce, watercress, sweet potatoes, mangoes, papayas, watermelon, corn, cucumbers, beans and lots more. Foodland Supermarket set up cash registers outside and people could purchase things right on the spot.

June and I were there in all our dignity.

Ewa_beach_foodland_farmers_market_3

The next photo is of the group in our tent. That’s our friends Clyde Fukuyama, Kylie Matsuda and Momi Matsuda of Kahuku Farms. June is third from the left.

Chef Kent with David Sumida from Sumida Watercress. Chef Kent showed us why aged balsamic vinegar is so special. He drizzled some aged balsamic vinegar and sprinkled a little pinch of Hawaiian salt on one of our Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes. It was great. Now we need to go get a bottle of aged thick balsamic vinegar.

There was even a watermelon-eating contest.

KCCN did a live show. Here’s the DJ from KCCN interviewing Kylie Matsuda.

James Law and Tisha Uyehara, both executives from Armstrong Produce, jumped right in. That’s James handing a Hamakua Springs tomato to a customer.

Ewa_beach_foodland_farmers_marke_13

Chef Keoni Chang, Corporate Chef at Foodland Supermarkets, had three action stations going where people could taste samples prepared by his staff. The chefs had a great time preparing small taste samples on the fly out of everything they could get their hands on. This is me with Chef Keoni.

This is June, John Schilf, who is Director of Purchasing for Foodland Supermarkets, and me.

Ewa_beach_foodland_farmers_marke_15

Jenai Walls, President of Foodland Supermarkets, came by and bought some of our tomatoes.

Mark Teruya, President of Armstrong Produce, personally saw to it that the farmers had all the support they needed. They even brought us Starbucks coffee to get us started in the morning. They did a great job.

We got to see our farmer friends. And we had a chance to talk story with the customers, who seemed to enjoy talking with the people who actually grow the crops. This was great fun.

Foodland will be having several of these around the state. Next weekend we head to one at the Foodland Supermarket in Pukalani on Maui.