Tag Archives: Farm

Aquaponics, Family of Farms, Food Security, Hydroelectric, Lowering Electric Rates, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability, Water

State of the Farm Report

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Richard Ha writes:

Yesterday at the farm I had a meeting with all our workers. It was an update on where we have been and where we are going.

Where we’ve been

The price of oil has quadrupled in the last 10 years, and those who could pass on the cost did. Those who could not pass on the cost ended up paying more. Farmers are price takers, not price makers, so farmers’ costs increased more than their prices.

Anticipating higher electricity prices, we lobbied for and passed a law that the Department of Agriculture create a new farm loan program that farmers could use for renewable energy purposes. Then we started to design a hydroelectricity program to stabilize our electricity costs.

Where we are today

The hydroelectricity project is within weeks of completion. With the combination of a farm loan and a grant from the Department of Energy, we will stabilize our electricity price at 40 percent less than we pay today.

The pipe that transports the water appears to me like it will last for more than 100 years. After the loan is paid off, our electricity will be practically free for more than 60 years.

Where we are going

We are taking advantage of our resources – free water and stable electricity costs – by working with area farmers to help each other grow more food.

What kind of food? Responding to consumer demand, we want to
produce food with a wide variety of nutritional content, including protein, via aquaculture.

In order to be sustainable, the feed-based protein must be vegetation-based. And since the building block of protein is nitrogen, we are looking for an adequate nitrogen source. Unused, wasted electricity can be used to make ammonia, which is a nitrogen fertilizer and, like a battery, can be used to store energy.

What does the future
look like?

Other than stable electricity, which would help us, our serious
concern is the anti-GMO Bill 79. It seeks to ban any new biotech solutions to farmers’ problems on the Big Island. The result is that the rest of the counties and the nation would be able to use new tools for more successful farming, and the Big Island would not.

What would happen is that Big Island farmers would become
less competitive, which would put even more pressure on those already at the bottom of the pay scale. It would result in higher food costs, making consumers less able to support local farmers.

The folks pushing for the anti-GMO bill have not talked to farmers, and they have no clue that this bill would make Hawai‘i less food
secure. The bottom line is that food security involves farmers farming. If the farmers make money, the farmers will farm. If not, they will quit.

Food Safety Certification

Hamakua Springs is Food Safety Certified

The farm had its external food safety audit yesterday.

“We don’t hear officially for a week or so, but I know we did pass,” said Tracy Pa, Richard’s daughter, who – among other responsibilities – handles the farm’s food safety certification process.

I asked her how she knows.

“Because the auditor couldn’t believe how clean our place was,” she said, “and how orderly the records are.”

There are two different audits – one for the farm, and another for the packing house. “It’s all about worker protection, safety and cleanliness,” said Tracy.

For the farm audit, she said, you even have to show documentation about what the land was used for before you got there.

“Everything has to be documented,” she said. “We are on land that was previously sugar cane land for 90-100 years.

“There’s a cleaning schedule for when to clean your harvest bins, you have to sanitize your knives every day before you use them, we wear disposable gloves when we’re working, and they’re discarded once they touch some surface other than the food itself. They take water samples and test the water quality.”

“These days pretty much everyone requires it,” she said, “like Costco requires it to sell anything to then, and more and more supermarkets, too.”

But back when the farm first received “Food Safety Certification,” in 2003, it was not the norm. “We were ahead of the game,” she said. “It was very unusual then, and everyone looked at us as if we were crazy because we were spending a few thousand every year to get audited. And it’s a lot of paperwork on top of whatever else we’re doing.”

It was primarily as protection for their workers that they started pursuing Food Safety Certification, which they received every year.

These days, “the employees are proud when we pass,” she said. “When it’s over and you tell them we did a good job, they give a sigh of relief.”

Alan Wong, Community, Food Security, Sustainability

Foodland, Farming & Future

We went to a great luncheon recently, on O‘ahu at the Hawaii Prince Hotel, which was sponsored by Foodland and the Hawaii Society of Business Professionals. It was titled “The Next Steps in Farm to Table.”

Foodland is a great friend of local agriculture.

Waimea market

From the Foodland blog:

Why Eat Local?

by Veronica the Visionary on February 21, 2011 / 11:48 AM

Did you know that if Hawaii were hit by a natural disaster, we would only have only two to three weeks supply of food – and that’s not considering that people would begin hoarding the minute that fear of the disaster hit! In the aftermath of a frenzy of people buying all they could, Hawaii’s food supply could last only a few days! I was shocked to hear that on Thursday at a luncheon our company sponsored called “The Next Steps in Farm to Table.” Hosted by the Hawaii Society of Business Professionals, the lunch featured a panel of restaurateur Alan Wong, local farmer Richard Ha, and master sommelier Chuck Furuya. We were excited to be asked to sponsor the event because we are passionate about the importance of buying local and have great respect for the three speakers and all they have done to promote local producers.

The event was entertaining and educational. Alan shared that if our community just increased its purchases from local farmers by 10%, this would result in an incremental $94 million for our farmers and an additional $188 million in sales for our economy. Without question, supporting local farmers is good for our ENTIRE community. As Richard put it, “Food security has to do with farmers farming. If farmers make money, they farm.” In other words, if we buy more local produce, farmers can afford to farm more and we will be less dependent on outside sources of food – and contribute to a healthy economy in our state. Read the rest

Here’s June sampling some of Chef Keoni Chang’s creations, which he made with Hamakua Springs tomatoes. Keoni is Foodland’s Chef-in-Residence.

June and salsa

“Hamakua Springs Salsa,” which is found in all Foodland supermarkets, is Chef Keoni’s creation. It’s my favorite tomato salsa by far.

Water, Where We Live

Rainy Season at the Farm

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It feels like the seasons are starting to change. This, the rainy time of year, is when the plastic covers on our growing houses are advantageous. Our crops grow, without interruption, all the way through February. During the shorter days, the ground stays damp because there are less hours of sunlight to dry up the soil.

Finally, in this past week, the stream is starting to increase in volume. We’d been starting to worry about the spring water flow. Coming back from Kona on the Saddle road recently, we noticed the pastures are starting to turn green. It feels like the dry period is over for some parts of the island.

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Here are some more pictures from the farm. This is the first kalo crop grown at Hamakua Springs and it looks really healthy. Tom Menezes is the farmer, and he really knows what he is doing. Among other things, he is a taro breeder.

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This is the first ‘ulu tree growing at Hamakua Springs. It wants to grow tall and we will have to constantly prune to keep its fruit within reach. We would rather plant a variety that is shorter in stature.

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We transplanted this ‘ulu at the farm a few weeks ago. Instead of fertilizer, we used the spent coconut media that we use for our hydroponic tomato crops. The tomato plant is a volunteer that germinated from the coconut media. There is one flower cluster, and the plant is very healthy even though we did not give it any conventional fertilizer.

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We found this kalo growing in the river and we are growing it on the hydroponic solution we use for green onions. To my great surprise, it has thrown out runners. I wonder what Jerry Konanui will say?

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