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.