Food Security & Feed the Hunger Foundation
After I spoke in Honolulu on a panel about foodsecurity and eating local recently, someone came up to talk with me. It was Denise Albano, President of Feed The Hunger Foundation:
MISSION
Feed The Hunger Foundation strives to alleviate hunger and poverty by promoting microfinance as a platform for personal, familial, communal, and spiritual transformation.
The non-profit foundation is based in California, but Denise Albano and CEO Patti Chang are wanting to give back to Hawai‘i, where they are both from.
They’re pretty impressive people; both very well-educated, well-connected to government in California, and have been doing projects all over the world.
What they do is provide micro loans to people who don’t qualify through banks but who want to farm.
This fits in really well with what we’re trying to do. Maybe with college students – they qualify for a loan, and if they want to try farming, we’d give them a good deal for a year and then see if they want to continue. And if they do, we give them a good start. We’d lease some land, or growing houses, to them at pretty nominal rates, and the water and electricity would be free. And Denise and them would help them with the financing.
Some farmers already have eight of our houses under cultivation. If they had to go out and buy them, that would be $80,000. If they rent them from us, they’re in business immediately, and for nominal rent.
If they make money, we make money.
The next step is working with the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. They’re going to arrange to gather students and other interested people and we’ll give a presentation. “My name is, we have this farm, here are the possibilities, this is the situation. We’ll let you come in for a year, and here’s how much it will cost. You pay for the fertilizer and for growing the stuff, and we’ll do the distribution and the marketing.”
For us, it’s strengthening our Families of Farms concept.
You know what’s really interesting about what we do? We see things happening with energy and all, at two levels. At the farm level, and at the state level. This one is at the farm level. It’s just a missing link kind of thing.
Our whole thing about food security has to do with farmers making money. If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm. It’s all incremental; it’s the experience of a lot of little things.
This is just another piece of the puzzle that will help with food security.
Feed the Hunger Foundation Values:
- We network with businesses and organizations to ensure the health and success of our borrowers;
- We invest in strong women leaders who are building and reinventing their communities;
- We provide loans in areas where microfinance is less available;
- We create a space where donors and borrowers may come together to form change; and
- We strive to ensure food security for all.
Income Up, Disposable Income Down
Hundred dollar oil has been expected to have a recessionary effect.
On television last night, the Hawai‘i State Department of Taxation’s Council of Revenue gave a supplementary report on the effect of the Japan earthquake and resulting calamities on Hawai‘i’s economy. Chairman Paul Brewbaker said that there was an effect, but that a surprising general decline in tax collection had a larger effect. He said we should be aware of the decline, although he also pointed out that one month does not a trend make.
Two days ago, a Christian Science Monitor article explained that although there was a general rise in income during the last quarter, disposable income dropped due to a rise in fuel and food prices. The reduction in disposable income is close to wiping out the recent gains in income, and threatens our ongoing economic recovery:
US incomes rise, but disposable income drops. Blame oil prices.
A new report from the Department of Commerce shows average US incomes rising, but with rapidly-climbing fuel and food prices, ‘real’ disposable income is down.
By Mark Trumbull, Staff writer / March 28, 2011
American incomes continued to rise in February, but not enough to offset rising prices at the gas pump and grocery stores. The unwelcome shift points to a potential danger spot in the economic recovery – the risk that inflation could chip away at consumer well-being.
Overall, income from employment and other sources rose 0.3 percent in the US in February, on par with the trend over the past half year or so, according to a report released Monday from the Commerce Department. Consumer spending rose even faster, by 0.7 percent – partially due to growing confidence in the staying-power of an economic recovery.
But as the recovery has taken hold, so has an upward trend in prices for basic commodities like grains and gasoline. In February, US consumers were basically forced to spend more because of rising prices for groceries and fuel. Adjusted for consumer-price inflation, the gains in household earnings disappeared, with “real” disposable personal income actually falling 0.1 percent for the month…. Read the rest here
Gail Tverberg explains what is going on at the Oil Drum:
WSJ, Financial Times Raise Issue of Oil Prices Causing Recession
Posted by Gail the Actuary on March 28, 2011 – 10:39am
The idea that high oil prices cause recessions shouldn’t be any surprise to those who have been following my writings, those of Dave Murphy, or those of Jeff Rubin. Last month, though, the Wall Street Journal finally decided to mention the idea to its readers, in an article called “Rising Oil Prices Raise the Specter Of a Double Dip“. The quote they highlight as a “call out” is
When consumers spend more at the pump, they often cut back on discretionary purchases.
The WSJ shows this graph, linking oil price hikes to recessions:
Figure 1. Wall Street Journal graphic showing connection between oil price rise and recession.
Having been to three national Peak Oil conferences, I am not surprised to see a decline in economic activity associated with the recent rise in oil prices. It’s the new normal.
Still Can!
White water coming! My pop asked me: “What you going do?”
“Climb up the bamboo pole,” he said.
Fast forward to now. Oil price rising to damaging levels; what we going do?
“Buy HEI, and help HECO focus on core values!”
Get thousand reasons why “No can,” my pop always said. “I only looking for the one reason why CAN!”
We can do this, all while achieving the long-term social results we need.
I was asked to speak at Keauhou last week, at the Kamehameha Schools First Nation Fellows Program of future community leaders.
The topic was food sustainability. I told them that food security has to do with farmers farming, and if the farmers make money the farmers will farm. I told them that there is no magic bullet but that if a group of farmers can organize around an energy source, it can help them gain a competitive advantage.
This is what we hope to do around our hydro electric project. And it’s why I push for cheap electricity for the larger society through geothermal.
Yesterday the Fellows visited our farm, and I got to show them what we are doing on the ground that relates to my talk.
The basic principles I shared at Keauhou are those I outlined in the following speech.
From this blog in May 2007:
CAN!!!
I was asked to give the commencement speech at the Hawai‘i Community College graduation last week. I immediately thought of stories my dad told me when I was growing up, and how they affected me all of my life.
Here’s a copy of my speech:
***
Good evening, graduating students, parents, teachers, Chancellor Freitas and visiting dignitaries. Thank you for inviting me to speak.
Tonight, instead of giving you a regular speech, I want to tell you stories of what I think helped influence me along the way. Hopefully it can help you as well.
I believe that: If you can imagine it, you can do it! And you can do it without sacrificing your core values along the way. Being street smart is the way to get there.
I flunked out of UH Manoa and was drafted into the Army. I applied to go to officer candidate school and volunteered to go to Vietnam. I was not the best student, but I had common sense.
After I left the service, I went back to school and got a degree in accounting. I kept all my core values and was able to reach several of my long-term goals, and am still working on many others. To me the most important things are:
1. Follow your dreams.
2. Look for several solutions to each potential problem, and then look for one more, just in case.
3. Do not sacrifice your core values for any reason.
At the dinner table, Dad would tell stories. He was a farmer then, but he did a lot of other things in his life. He would tell stories about taking on huge projects with large obstacles and unbeatable odds. He always figured out a way around the problems.
He would always say, “Not, no can!!” (pound the table) “Can!!!!” (pointing his finger in the air). And the dishes would bounce off the table.
He would go on to say, “There are a thousand reasons why ‘No can.’ I am only looking for one reason why ‘Can!’”
Those words, “Not, no can!!” (pound the table) “Can!!” stayed with me all my life.
Although “Not, no can! Can!” was the thing that stood out in my mind for many years, much later I realized that it was the way he taught me how to be a survivor that made it possible for me to make “Not, no can! Can!!” work.
It is easy to say it and it is dramatic. But how do you actually make it work? And how do you make it work without sacrificing your core values along the way?
These stories that Pop told helped me visualize solutions to problems before they occurred. He taught me how to be a survivor.
Some people call what he taught me “street smarts.” Others call it “common sense.” If you have to pay someone to teach you how to do this, it’s called “contingency planning.” Whatever it is called, I learned how to do that.
1. He told us kids about aholehole fishing at night with a couple of friends on the tip of a rocky point. It was at my tutu lady Meleana Kamahele’s place down Maku’u. There were no collapsible poles back then—they used long, two-inch-around real bamboo poles. They had lanterns shining on the water when he saw, in the darkness, white water coming! The wave came in and pounded on the rock where they were standing, and covered everything. He told me, “I climbed up the bamboo pole, hand over hand, and lifted my legs up and the wave passed right underneath.” His two friends ended up in the water and he helped get them out. It captured my imagination. What a story and what an impact on a young kid.
2. You are driving 55 miles per hour and a dog crosses the road in front of you. “What you going do? It’s going to happen so fast that you have to know ahead of time what to do.” You have no time to look in your rearview mirror; you can drift to the left as long as there is no car coming; you can drift to the right depending on the road shoulder. You can tap your brakes, but only so far before you start to risk the driver in the back. “What you going do?” Pop said.
“Press the gas and run ’em over.” I did not understand at the time. But he was saying, rather than risk human lives, you should press the gas and eliminate the chance of doing something wrong.
When I think about it now, he was saying: to avoid the chance of doing something stupid, run over the dog. Hard to do? Life is hard. Sometimes you gotta make the call. You don’t want to hesitate and hurt somebody else. He said it was okay if you kill yourself. But not okay to kill somebody else.
These were lessons in being prepared for emergencies and being prepared for life. And as a result it became second nature to me. And I would always go through “what-if” scenarios in my mind. So if a situation occurred, I always had several alternatives worked out in my mind. It became second nature with me.
I can remember two times when it might have made the ultimate difference. The first was in a rice paddy in Vietnam, when a sniper opened up on us. We ran and jumped into a small depression next to a thatched hut. When we hit the ground we realized there were three guys already hiding there.
I knew that this was not good; one grenade could get us all. So I grabbed my radio operator and told him, Let’s go. And we ran for cover a short distance away. Bullets flew all around us. As soon as we hit the ground we heard a loud whump! A grenade had been thrown right into the place we left. Street smart? Common sense? Whatever! It helped me do the right thing.
The second time was when I was in Texas, flying at 100 mph down a two-lane road, top down, in my 62 ’Vette. All of a sudden there was another car overtaking, and there were three of us on a road meant for two. “What you going do?”
I immediately flipped my blinker to the right and started to slide over, communicating nonverbally. I did not give him time to make the wrong move. Three of us flew past each other with inches to spare. I knew exactly what to do. I did not even get nervous. I just looked in the rearview mirror and nodded to myself: Yep. ’At’s how!
I did not realize until much later that this street smarts, common sense, contingency planning thing is what made it possible for me to implement: “Not, no can! Can!!” When you have long-term goals, you are faced with short-term decisions along the way. Making the wrong short-term decision will hurt you in the long run if it causes you to give up your core values. Sometimes, you just have to press the gas and run over the dog in order to keep your core values.
You can keep your core values and make the right short-term decisions if you have street smarts. When you are street smart you will figure out just how far you can go toward your long-term goals without causing yourself too much damage. You will know how much room you can give yourself so you don’t have to sacrifice your core values.
If you cannot find a solution that will allow you to keep your core values, no matter how tempting, don’t give up your core values. Remember: “Not, no can! Can!!” You can find that solution that will allow you to keep your core values.
But to balance things off, in case someone misinterpreted Pop’s generosity, he would lean forward and say, with a clenched fist and a mean face, to an imaginary person: “No Mistake my Kindness for Weakness!”
I can tell you right off that your core values are worth fighting for, and if you’re street smart you can figure out how to make the right decisions, even if there is a short-term disadvantage. In the long run, it is how you are able to keep your core values that will define you. It’s not money; it’s not fame.
Some of the important core values are:
1. Your family is most important.
2. Taking care of the keiki now, and a hundred years from now, is most important.
3. Your good friends are most important. I said good friends; I did not say bad friends.
4. Your word is most important.
5. Taking care of the most defenseless around you is most important.
6. Leaving no one behind is most important.
7. Taking care of your community is most important.
8. Taking care of the environment is most important.
If you’re street smart, you can figure out how you are going to reach your long-term goals without sacrificing your core values.
So when you see white water coming, climb up the fishing pole and lift up your legs. You don’t want to. But sometimes you just have to run over the dog. If you can remember these things you will know what I mean when I say: “NOT, NO CAN!” (pound the table) “CAN!!”
Thank you, and good luck, everyone.
I seemed to hit my target audience well. I could see the guys really engaged. Some of the girls were more interested in talking story, but a strong-looking Hawaiian girl was waving her fist and yelling, “Right on!”
At the end, when I said, “Not, no can! Can!” and pounded the table, they yelled with me, “CAN!!” It was fun.
At least 10 students coming through the line afterward commented and even thanked me for the speech. They had to shake hands with maybe 10 people, so it was hard to make comments. But some did. I was pleased.
Biofuels and Feedstock
One of the main stumbling blocks to making biofuels is the cost of the feedstock. And feedstock frequently involves farmers farming.
For example, it is said that making an industrial-scale biofuel operation work requires feedstock that costs between $45 and $60/ton. Since farmers were making $100/ton for making hay, a $45/ton subsidy was put into place. This makes growing feedstock for cellulosic biofuels competitive with making hay—on the mainland.
But here in Hawai‘i, making hay costs $300 per ton, instead of the $100 per ton on the mainland. Farmers won’t do it for $100 per ton.
Who will pay the difference? If the biofuel is being used to make electricity, it will obviously be the rate payer.
Will oil prices rise so high that eventually the biofuel will be cost competitive? Farming inputs and logistic costs are fossil fuel related and rise as oil prices rise. This effect is called “the receding horizon.”
But when waste products are used as the feedstock, the economics change. A good example is Pacific Biodiesel, which uses waste cooking oil. If they asked farmers to grow extra virgin olive oil to make biofuel, obviously it wouldn’t work.
There is a limit as to what can be produced. That limit is the amount of used oil available.
The same is true of the oils potentially developed from the USDA’s Zero Waste project. Its biofuel production is limited to the waste that can be converted to making oil.
The advantage of using the waste stream is that the cost of the feedstock is very low. And in the case of the Zero Waste project, it supports food security for Hawai‘i.
Kuokoa’s Goal For HECO
Ku‘oko‘a’s goal is to transform HECO so it becomes an economic engine instead of an economic anchor.
Our plan is to retool HECO by purchasing HEI’s outstanding stock. This will allow us to shut down oil-fired plants, and bring cheap and stable geothermal electricity on line.
In a world of volatile oil prices, stable electricity costs will attract capital to Hawaii. And as oil prices rise and geothermal costs stay stable, our standard of living will rise relative to that of the rest of the world.
In modern Hawai‘i, the economy has taken, taken, and taken, while the culture has given, given and given. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make changes so that the economy can give and the culture can receive. This will strengthen our cultural heritage of aloha spirit, which is what makes Hawai‘i work.
And aloha spirit is what we need to help us face an uncertain future of rising oil prices.
From the Maui News:
Haku Mo‘olelo
March 18, 2011 – By EDWIN TANJI, former City Editor
When a partnership, Kuokoa Inc., proposed to acquire Hawaiian Electric Industries to take it private and pursue renewable energy initiatives that reduce Hawaii’s dependence on oil, the partners suggested that traditional capitalist systems fail to support innovation.
They are not the first to argue that publicly held companies, compelled to aim for short-term earnings, can’t engage in long-term product development that provides greater social and economic utility. It would be a milestone in economic analysis if they prove their point.
More than a decade ago, David Murdoch posited the same argument in taking private the Castle & Cooke division that “owns” the island of Lanai. He said demands for dividends and growth in share value would not allow the planned development he envisioned for the island with clearly finite resources.
Kuokoa partners are even more visionary in seeking a new level of energy independence for the islands. Hawaii consumers should applaud the effort, if they are paying any attention to the fuel adjustment portion of their monthly electric bills…. Read the rest
Drop-In Biofuels; A Model That Could Work For Farmers
Mahalo to Senator Inouye for having the foresight to fund Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center (PBARC). This might be the game changer for food and energy security for Hawai‘i.
I wrote before that PBARC has been working on a “zero waste” program for the Hamakua Coast.
It’s an impactful and multifaceted program that ultimately ends up supporting both food security and energy security for Hawai‘i. Food security involves farmers farming, and if farmers make money, farmers will farm.
I support this program because utilizing waste products helps farmers make money.
Here I’m writing here about the biofuel (energy) component, which has support from the Department of Defense. One of the fundamentals of making biofuel involves acquiring appropriately priced feedstock. In this model, the feedstock comes from farm waste that is now thrown away. Or it comes from a process such as crop rotation, which enhances primary farming operations.
In the Hamakua Zero Waste Program’s demonstration model, the farm waste will be papaya. Papaya farmers sell 65 percent of what they deliver to the processer, and 35 percent is thrown away. The other product is sweet sorghum, which is used in rotation with a primary crop such as sweet potato.
A very significant part of this program is the use of oil-producing microbes. BioTork LLC specializes in breeding microorganisms that make oil.
Eudes de Crecy, the CEO of BioTork, states:
A variety of different microorganisms—such as heterotrophic, fungi and bacteria—are capable of converting sugars and other organic compounds into triglycerides oils suitable for conversion to advanced drop-in fuels like green diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. Since these oil-producing microorganisms are heterotrophic, they can be grown inside large fermentors or bioreactors in any climate 24/7 and do not require significant amounts of water for growth. Moreover, oil-producing heterotrophs can produce significantly more triglycerides than phototrophic microorganisms—up to 70% of the dry weight. To date, few enterprises use oil-producing microorganisms like to produce biofuel because the carbon sources necessary for robust growth are more expensive (e.g., glucose, fructose) than the resulting biofuel.
However, BioTork has used experimental evolution to produce proprietary oil-producing microorganisms that are capable of growing on low cost streams of organic material. Indeed, we have already adapted oil-producing microorganisms to grow on low value by-products and even noxious wastes that are derived from agricultural or industrial processes.
Hawai‘i-grown papaya was sent to BioTork prior to Christmas 2010, and first generation, oil-producing strains that grow on papaya puree and sweet sorghum juice have already been developed and sent for testing in PBARC’s labs. In addition, preliminary results for the development of an oil-producing microbe that can grow on the less accessible carbon sources in sweet sorghum bagasse looks promising.
The demonstration project is designed to show whether this will or won’t work within 12 months in a cost effective manner in real world conditions. As a farmer, I believe that if this works cost effectively, it can work on a sustainable basis because it will help farmers make money. And as we all know, if the farmers make money, the farmers will farm.
Rivertop Solutions, LLC, whose CEO is David Rus and whose president and chief media officer is Amy Fernandez, is an important partner of the Hamakua Zero Waste project. Rivertop Solutions works alongside communities and organizations to assist with the planning, systems design, and implementation of economically and socially viable development programs based on maximizing the potential of indigenous resources. The company is moving its headquarters from Reston Virginia to Hilo in the summer of 2011.
Together with PBARC’s other programs that support and enhance farming operations, we can build a resilient food security system for Hawai‘i.
Iceland to Scotland?
Iceland sets sights on clean power line
Omar Valdimarsson
March 7, 2011
REYKJAVIK: Europeans left stranded at airports last year as an Icelandic volcano spewed ash across the continent may soon benefit from the power that seethes beneath the remote North Atlantic island.
Iceland is doing a feasibility study into building a 1170 kilometre power cable to Scotland to transport up to 18 terawatt-hours of geothermal and hydro power a year – enough to fuel 5 million European homes.
…In about 20 years, Iceland’s energy revenue per capita may rival that in Norway, where oil income has made its $US540 billion sovereign wealth fund the world’s second-biggest. Read the rest
With guts and determination, we can do the same for Hawai‘i.
Ku‘oko‘a is planning to finance a cable that will carry geothermal electricity from the Big Island at no cost to the taxpayers. Iceland to Scotland is a distance of 725 miles, whereas it’s only 200 miles or so from the Big Island to O‘ahu.
From the Ku’oko’a website:
We are embarking on a great journey, much like the ancient people who sailed to Hawai‘i hundreds of years ago. Like them, we are searching for a better tomorrow for our children, grandchildren and generations to come. We will find the place where the Aloha Spirit can thrive because we go with open hearts and minds.
What Color Malo Shall I Wear Today?
I wrote this post in October 2007 about a Food Summit I spoke at. Now that oil supplies are getting tighter, it’s a lot clearer and makes even more sense.
My assessment of how we came to be here and where we need to be in the future is this: In the beginning, one hundred percent of the energy for food came from the sun. The mastodons ate leaves, the saber tooth tiger ate the mastodon and we ate the tiger and everything else.
The earth’s population was related to the amount of food we could gather or catch. And sometimes the food caught and ate us. So there were only so many of us roaming around.
Then some of us started to use horses and mules to help us grow food. As well as the sun, now animals provided some of the energy for cultivating food. We were able to grow more food, and so there were more of us.
About 150 years ago, we discovered oil. With oil we could utilize millions of horsepower to grow food—and we didn’t even need horses. Oil was plentiful and cheap; only about $3/barrel. We used oil to manufacture fertilizer, chemicals and for packaging and transportation.
Food became very, very plentiful and we started going to supermarkets to harvest and hunt for our food. Hunting for our food at the supermarkets was very good—the food did not eat us; and now there are many, many, many of us.
But now we are approaching another change to the status quo—a situation being called “Peak Oil.” That’s when half of all the oil in existence is used up. Half the oil will still be left, but it will be increasingly hard to tap. At some point, the demand for oil—by billions and billions of people who cannot wait to get in their car and drive to McDonalds—will exceed the ability to pump that oil.
I told the Food Summit attendees that we farmers need to grow plenty of food so that others can do what they do and so we continue to have a vibrant society. If we don’t plan ahead to provide enough food, and as a consequence every family has to return to farming to feed themselves, it would be a much more limited society. People would not be able to pursue the arts, write books, explore space. We would have way fewer choices – maybe only, “What color malo (loincloth) should I wear today?”
Tsunami on the Big Island
What a night it was last night. We are so fortunate and grateful that the tsunami generated by Japan’s 9.1 earthquake did not take any lives here in Hawai‘i, and that damage was light. It could have been so much worse.
Were you prepared for the sudden emergency? The 4.6 earthquake that hit the Big Island while we waited for the tsunami to make its way across the ocean sort of underscored the need to be prepared.
Our best wishes to those in Japan, where they were not as fortunate.