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Explore Issues Food Systems

Toward a New Agriculture

A very long time ago in what is now south-central China, a little remembered civilization arose – the civilization of Chu – whose influence we can still feel today, as far removed as we are in time and space from that land and people. The echoes of Chu have been the spiritual underground – the Da Vinci Code – of East Asian civilization for millennia; the influence of Chu can be seen in the philosophy of Taoism, which in turn inspired that global spiritual phenomenon – a hybrid of Taoism and Buddhism – called Zen.

One characteristic which distinguished the culture of Chu from the culture of Northern China, with which Chu culture eventually melded to create what we now consider “Chinese” culture, was its deep and sensual love for the landscape of Chu. “The Songs of Chu” express this love for the forests, rivers, lakes and mountains of Chu in a manner that combines the spiritual and sensual, wild nature and human culture.

It is to that strand of our world heritage and to those like it that we can return, if we wish, to feel what it might be like to love a place – a particular natural environment – with a passion and delight that we at present are taught to reserve for human sexuality. Such a thing is possible.

Our own island tradition tells us nana I ke kumu (look to the source) and the Hawaiian tradition of chant and song shows this deep love of place, this delight in mixing and confusing the eros that develops between people with the eros that one can feel for a beloved place.

It is this love of place – of the infinite web of relationships that exist in a place; of the beauties that are native and unique to that place; of the memories both personal and cultural that adhere to that place; of its names and histories; of its many forms of life – that often motivates those who are still in agriculture or who have been recently drawn to it despite the fact that agriculture has been, for the last few decades, one of the most arduous and uncertain ways to make a living.

There is a shift that is developing and building strength, a shift in the values and the feelings of those in agriculture, a shift in how we perceive ourselves and in how we are perceived, and it is a shift that is occurring on both sides of the organic versus conventional divide, among both farmers and ranchers, bridging both older and younger generations. In some sense it is as much about those in agriculture being able to express what they have long felt but kept to themselves.

As in the rest of society in the last few decades, the pressure on those in agriculture to be nothing more than pragmatic, even ruthless, business people has been intense. Agriculture and the people that do agriculture have gone through a bottleneck that has weeded out any but the most resilient, tough-minded, and sophisticated. The cultural stereotype of the farmer as a soft-minded yokel still exists, but it is badly outdated.

Yet one of the great non-monetary rewards of agriculture has always been “to be with the land” and to help plants and animals to grow. It is just that those in agriculture have had to bury that love affair and profess to be all about the numbers. A new agriculture which insists upon honoring place, upon taking responsibility for place, promises to allow the full complexity of the relationship between culture and the environment to be expressed.

This is not to say that it is necessarily better for being new, only that the new agriculture is a response to recent and current circumstances. Some of those circumstances are the truly regrettable consequences of an overly mechanical approach to the interface between humans and their environment, an approach which has led us into some now familiar predicaments – climate change, peak resources, population overshoot. Adapting to these predicaments as they unfold may well be more difficult than we can imagine at this point, but one thing is certain: these problems will not be solved by applying the same simplistic understanding of our role as a species.

Our exponential population growth has been made possible by agricultural advances, which supported the development of industrialism, which led to applying the principles of industrialism to agriculture with spectacular (though perhaps short-term) effect. Industrial agriculture feeds an industrial population. In the short-term (the next century or two) intensified industrial agriculture will probably be necessary to avoid horrific famines. But in the long run we will need to understand the connection between the natural resources of our planet, our civilizations, and our human population. We can no longer pretend innocence and ignorance of how it is that we get to eat each day. For Americans, with our ingrained mythos of Virgin Frontier and Manifest Destiny, the idea of limits to resources is particularly hard to take. To re-learn the connections between people and land, there is little better model than agriculture.

The new agriculture recognizes how deeply intertwined our practice of agriculture is with the functioning and meaning of civilization. Agriculture shades into such disparate enterprises as cuisine and natural resource management, but also into politics, into economics, into psychology, into engineering and all the other disciplines which humans undertake in the matrix of civilization. It is no longer being denigrated to the status of one more industrial function, and a particular backward one at that. Instead, agriculture is regaining the almost magical stature it possessed in pre-history because unlike so many industrial functions it has the uncanny ability to renew itself.

But the apparent renewability of agriculture draws on the billions of years of biological coordination that has gone into soil cycles, water cycles, air cycles, the inter-related life cycles of plants and animals, both visible and invisible. If it appears to some that agriculture is yet another frontier which civilization can exploit in its desperation for cheap energy, that is an unfortunate misperception. Our appetite for energy resources to fuel the machines of civilized life has become so gargantuan that it has far outstripped what any living system can provide. We forget this or are blind to this at our very great peril.

To choose life, to advocate for life, and to find beauty in life is what inspires those who pursue a new kind of agriculture. Pragmatic as we must be to face the dilemmas in which we find ourselves, yet the new agriculturalist sees an agricultural enterprise not as a mechanism for extracting profit, but rather as the active relationship of humans with all other life, first and always. This is a much greater role and responsibility for agriculture and for our species, and it is the foundation for a future which we can look into, perhaps, without cringing.

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Explore Issues Food Systems

Wahiawa Farmers’ Market + EBT

When the whistle blows at exactly 4:30 p.m. tonight this little market will begin accepting EBT (electronic benefit transfer for SNAP fka food stamps).

All morning Libby Smythe’s phone has been ringing. Libby is a member of the non-profit sponsor of this market Wahiawa Community Based Development Organization, the farmers market director and contact person for the market. Coming one after the other, the calls have been people expressing their thanks to the market for opening up their market to include EBT beneficiaries. Dan and Kasha sent out the media release to announce the launch of this service this Monday morning, the immediate response and deep support for this effort by our local journalists is a telling indicator of just how clear the need is and just how much we care as a community for one another. Here’s a link to an article by Erika Engle and an interview with HPR’s Noe Tanigawa.

On the ground in Wahiawa, the flyer Dan created are being distributed to the far reaches. Jackie Akuna, Ag teacher at Leilehua High School and farmers market vendor, made sure that flyers got to all the teachers and students. We’re thinking now we better round up some parking lot volunteers.

Wahiawa is the first farmers market chosen by GreenWheel Food Hub in strategic effort to bring EBT service into Oahu farmers markets that are located in areas of need and have committed to a 100% locally grown produce policy. We all feel it is an honor to be working with the citizens of Wahiawa, this old town with ancient agricultural roots. Wahiawa has witnessed the fall of agriculture in Hawaii and has been significantly impacted and transformed by it. It’s a hardworking community now wracked by unemployment, a large and growing senior population, and apartment complexes once taken up by military families now house families recently arrived, economic and health refugees from Pacific islands. There’s a lot going on in Wahiawa and it’s a good thing that there’s strong and active leadership in this community.

I’m a co-founder of both She Grows Food and GreenWheel Food Hub so you will be hearing a lot about GreenWheel Food Hub here at She Grows Food. She Grows Food has fostered the development of GreenWheel Food Hub from the time it was a little seed in the mind of myself and Chef Gida Snyder during our talks after the KCC Farmers’ Market where she was a vendor and I am still a manager. Both She Grows Food and GreenWheel Food Hub share the goal of repair and regeneration of our local food systems. They also share a profound love of down home community can-do spirit and care, ono food and all that goes into growing good food. I see this in everyone involved in these two individual yet deeply connected efforts – Dan, Linda, Jesi, Rob, Gida, Kasha, Nan. I see the same sparkle in our partners in these efforts too.

There are many people who came in to help make this happen at Wahiawa and who have offered their support to insure this service continues. The Island Innovation Fund and Hawaii Community Foundation have committed to supporting GreenWheel Food Hub’s effort to bring EBT into five Oahu Farmers’ Market over the next year, Wahiawa is the first. Kaiser Permanente and Kanu Hawaii, partnered for an initiative that focuses on supporting neighborhoods experiencing food desert situations, they are helping to cover costs for EBT at this market. Just this past weekend, InterIsland Terminal hosted an event in collaboration with Mission Street Food, The Whole Ox Deli and Prima that focused on a sharing of ideas about food, charitable businesses, and community building. Proceeds from this event are also going to GreenWheel Food Hub to help with Wahiawa Farmers’ Market EBT service and outreach.

Yes, we’re excited. I’m recharging the batteries for my trusty canon hd and am going to try and eke out a long night to edit scenes from tonight’s market for you.

Dan and I are hopeful that we are seeing in all of the energy surrounding this choice of inclusion at this little neighborhood market is a turning point of some sort. A visible point of reference that underscores and illuminates an instinct towards wholeness. Yes, no one gets left behind.

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Meet Farmers

Next on She grows food: Jackie Akuna

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When the school bell starts ringing again this fall, we’ll be introducing you to Jackie Akuna and the students of her amazing Agricultural Learning Center at Leilehua High School.

After graduating just six years ago from Leilehua and this well-preserved DOE and Future Farmers of America supported agricultural student program, Jackie got her teaching degree and came back to keep the program going. In her first year of leading this program it’s clear that Jackie is out to not just lead it but grow it. Enrollment in her program went from 110 to 170 students in just one year as word spread that something special was happening over in Ag.

Firmly planted in the heart of old Wahiawa, Leilehua High School has ag roots and it’s these roots, as well as hardcore support from its close knit (and farming) community, that have kept this program full of self sufficiency skills alive. Students under Jackie’s supervision cultivate three dedicated acres of land on school grounds learning a variety of skills that range from crop field, hydroponic greenhouse, Ti leaf preservation project, Kikuya grass pasture, tree keeping, as well as caring for chickens and rabbits. Bees keep coming to the farm, so they’ve also increased their hives too. The program also includes all the business side of running a farm as well. Harvests from the farm are prepped for delivery to the school’s culinary program and for the new Wahiawa Farmers Market down the road.

We’ve been hanging out with Jackie, her staff, students and family over the last months. And each time we come away excited for these kids. Yes, farming is not easy, but in this day and age learning how to grow food and run your own business at an early age may just turn out to be quite valuable.

Stay tuned – we’ll be bringing you a story complete with video and a fundraising campaign to help them raise funds for an aquaponic addition. Also part of this story is our involvement in bringing EBT (electronic benefits foodstamps) acceptance to this market with GreenWheel Food Hub!

Where you’ll find Jackie and her students:

Wahiawa Farmers Market (non-profit, community operated, 100% local produce) Every Thursday, 4:30-6:30pm 1067 California Avenue, in the parking lot of Hongwanji Wahiawa town

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Explore Issues Food Systems

Ka’u: Rural, Resilient, Relevant

We are very pleased to publish this extraordinary piece by our first guest writer Michelle Galimba. She kicks off our current exploration of food system issues – hearing from women on the frontline. She grows food interviewed Michelle for our profiles on women food growers. She is a scholar, writer, rancher, mom, and a valuable voice for food system recovery here in Hawaii.

I live in the district of Ka’u on the southern end of Hawai’i Island. It is one of the more remote, sparsely populated areas in Hawai’i. There are two small ex-plantation towns, Na’alehu and Pahala, and several sprawling sixties era “agricultural” subdivisions. The traditionally designed towns are pleasant places to live – walk-able communities with an organic feel to them; imbued with the character of the open space around them and by the agricultural activities, both past and present, that brought these communities into being. The subdivisions have very little infrastructure, no town centers, and are extremely auto-dependent in design. It is really striking to see the way in which land use decisions in the past and community design shape our lives.

The sugar plantation shut down in 1996 and the transition has been long, difficult, and ongoing. When I first moved back here it seemed like the only time the media took notice of Ka’u was as the poster community for the devastation caused by ice and other drugs. Most people were driving one or two hours to a resort for work. The community was very much out of balance.

Right from the start, there were ex-plantation workers that were looking for ways to make the transition. They planted coffee or tried other diversified crops. They started ranches on the land that had once been used for sugar-cane. The macadamia nut orchards have continued right through, although they have weathered some really difficult times with low prices for macadamias.

The Ka’u coffee farmers really struggled too. There probably wouldn’t be Ka’u coffee industry without the help of Senator Dan Inouye’s RETA-H (Rural Economic Transition Assistance – Hawaii) grant program. However even with that help getting started there was not much of a market for Ka’u coffee. Even though their coffee was always very good it had no identity. It wasn’t Kona but it cost as much as Kona to produce, and the farmers were having a lot of trouble selling their coffee.

Over the last five years or so there has been an ongoing effort to brand Ka’u coffee, mostly using “guerilla” marketing techniques, since the farmers don’t have money for an expensive traditional marketing campaign. They entered their coffee in international cupping contests, they started a Ka’u coffee festival, they got help in getting media attention for their accomplishments. The state and county of Hawaii have helped out with marketing grants, and they have gotten the support of the community behind them and their product. Now they are getting much better prices for their coffee and have no trouble selling it. They worked together to do this, as an industry. It wasn’t easy, there were a lot of bumps along the way, but slowly they have built a brand for their coffee and viable businesses for themselves.

Branding, which is a form of communication, has been very important in bringing local beef to local markets as well. Our ranch has created a brand to tell its story, and there are several other local beef brands that are helping to transform our industry towards a more locally-supported, diversified business model. It really goes against the grain of most people in agriculture, to be promoting oneself rather shamelessly, but it’s what we need to do. We need to communicate what it is that we do, so that the public can see the value in our products and how they differ from products that are imported. This is how we can create vibrant agricultural businesses and strengthen our rural communities.

To be honest I have to say that the macadamia nut company and the coffee farmers have had to use imported labor to harvest their fields because the locals will not do that work. Finding people that fit on the team at our ranch is really difficult, too. This says volumes about our cultural attitudes towards agricultural labor. It’s amazing how powerful the stories that we tell ourselves are, and how unconscious we are of that power, for good or ill.

The story about rural communities and the work that goes on there generally is cast as: backwards, boring, low-class, poor, demeaning, repressive, unsophisticated, comical. That’s the story that we’ve lived with for as long as I can remember. It’s very difficult for young people to feel good about working in agriculture or to stick around in a rural community when they get negative feedback continually from the culture at large.

On the other hand, in the last few years, there are good things starting to happen in rural communities around the state because of an ongoing cultural shift which has manifested, among other things, in consumer demand for local food. The market for locally grown produce and meats has been and continues to be key towards building a more diversified, resilient agriculture in Hawaii. It is really an exciting time to be in agriculture. Although it’s still a difficult, risky way to make a living, at least there is more social support; there is a story being told that is supportive of agriculture and rural communities.

My experience of living in a rural community is of deep multi-generational relationships among people, plants, animals, and the land itself; of lives lived in direct contact with forest and ocean; of a relatively egalitarian and unregimented society; of people rich in the skills of subsistence and nurturing life.

In some ways the most important element in revitalizing a rural community is to change the story that people tell themselves and that they hear from those around them. It’s not something that requires much money, however it is not without difficulty. We’re used to our stories. It’s hard to let go of our mistakes, even when they are bringing us down. And it’s not as if only rural communities need to change the story they tell themselves. It’s equally true for urban or suburban communities.

To me the crux of the change lies in how we imagine and relate to life, to the life within us and around us. Do we continue to devalue and deny the fact that we are highly dependent, both physically and psychologically, upon the great web of life that brought us into being? Dependent upon but also highly responsible for? With every privilege comes responsibility and we have taken great privileges. Now we would be wise to use our ingenuity to build a civilization that nurtures life, rather than exploiting it.

This is where women have something very important to offer civilization at this juncture. Whether our difference is culturally constructed or actually hardwired into our physiology, in any case, we are less aggressive and more nurturant in our emotional, and therefore intellectual, tendencies. We have a big responsibility in helping to make the shift towards a less aggressive, more ecologically balanced civilization.

Our rural communities are resources for this shift as well. It’s not that we need to go backwards, but that we need to seek out alternatives to our current structures and ways of life. Rural communities have been quietly negotiating the impact and opportunities of modern and post-modern civilization without losing contact with the biosphere, and those skills, practices, and values are important resources for the change in story that our civilization needs to make.

Michelle Galimba
Kuahiwi Ranch, Naalehu, Hawai’i

More about Michelle and Ka’u:
kuahiwiranch.com
www.kaucoffeecoop.com

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Explore Issues Food Systems

GreenWheel Food Hub: Systems of Equity and Distribution

In the summer of 2011, Chef Gida Snyder and I began brainstorming on strategies to bring EBT (electronic benefit transfer food stamps) to farmers market. A year later we have formalized this effort into a social enterprise called GreenWheel Food Hub, have found a wonderful fiscal sponsor in Feed the Hunger Foundation, and have honed ourselves a mission: let’s do what it takes to create greater access to fresh locally grown food, with a focus on low-income communities.

Our team now includes Kasha Ho and Nan Geller. We have also gained some incredible partners in this effort: She Grows Food (of course!), Kanu Hawaii, Whole Foods, and Kaiser Permanente.

Here’s the video we made to formally announce our EBT efforts and to spread the word about Whole Foods adopting us GreenWheel Food Hub as a Community Partner and our 5% Day at Whole Foods Kahala.

Eat-In for SNAP Flyer

In just this first year we’ve been busy and learned a lot: in April we piloted a pop-up farmers market with Kanu Hawaii and EAH Housing at EAH’s Kalani Gardens affordable housing complex in Mililani, in a few weeks we will see the launch of EBT service at Wahiawa Farmers Market, and we are close to bringing EBT service to Honolulu Farmers Market (the team at Whole Foods has already helped us fundraise to cover start up costs for service to this market). We’ll continue chronicling the progress of GreenWheel Food Hub here.

The Eat-In at Whole Foods – a success!

Lisa Asagi
Editor and Co-founder

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Explore Issues Food Systems

Naked Cow Dairy and Real Community Supported Agriculture

This year is turning out to be the Year of Cheese in Hawaii. Before 2012, there was no such thing as cheese made commercially with milk from local cows in the state. Nothing, nada. Chef Gida Snyder and the ladies of Naked Cow Dairy, Oahu’s only dairy, changed that. What started out as a friendly experiment has turned into a full-blown, artisan cheese operation that is already exceeding everyone’s expectations. Bleu Cheese with Ala’e Salt Rub? A young brie style, creamy and rich with a fat content high in omegas from the pristine pastures these local cows are raised on? A hard parm style that shaves like the best of them? It has become The Little Dairy That Could. But then Waianae has a long history of beating the odds and bringing forth into the universe the extraordinary.

Naked Cow Dairy was started by Monique van der Stroom, one of a handful of the nation’s herdswomen. She ran several milking dairies on the island, saw all of them close up, had the gumption to still strike it out on her own. What Monique learned from those years was that they could not compete with liquid milk imports – not at the $5 a gallon price the big box stores sold theirs for (milk that was months old and triple pasteurized.) She knew that any dairy hoping to survive would have to develop a line of value added products – butter and cheese. With the help her a team of women, including her recently relocated sister Sabrina St. Martin (a refugee from Louisiana and Katrina), Monique developed a line of gourmet butter that keeps expanding in tantalizing ways: Toasted Coconut, Macadamia Nut Honey, Hawaiian Salt, Waianae Pesto, Maui Lavender, Italian Summer Truffle.

Enter Gida Snyder, a graduate fresh from KCC’s Culinary Institute of the Pacific with a hardcore passion for helping farmers. It all started with an experiment in mozzarella and the rest is history. Actually it was a whole new beginning. The start of a new paradigm for chef and community supported agriculture here in Hawaii. Because what Gida started was to both go in a create a whole new product line for this farm, as well as an IndieGoGo campaign that successfully crowd-funded $18,000 (surpassing the original $15,000 goal) to cover the costs of the final pieces of equipment needed by Naked Cow to finally begin producing cheese on a commercial level (the funds purchased a heating element for a 200 gallon vat).

We all knew that this campaign was a game changer. Seeing the community come together and make change happen before our eyes, was really something, and something brand new. And yes, this is just the beginning.

Here’s the video launching the Indiegogo campaign:

Here’s the miraculous Pop Up Cheese Shoppe at R & D in Kakaako that helped to give everyone a taste of what they were supporting:

Yes, this is only the beginning. Come along for the ride as we follow Gida, Monique and Sabrina on their cheese making journey. Check back here for more cheese please!

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Eat Well

Hog Wild For Hawaii-Grown Part Two, or The Art of Pork of Chef Noreen Lam

photo: Bryant Lagmay

Art and Agriculture are the parents of all cuisine.

Yes, it is all about chemistry, think about it. Before the Periodic Table was ever conceived, women have been creatively obsessing, analyzing and experimenting with food (plant and animal) since the first sweet potato was tentatively dropped into the fire pit.

photo: Bryant Lagmay

Our Hog Wild Project started out as a way to help our remaining hog farmers recover by mobilizing support through community, chefs, and retailers. In these months, for a variety of reasons working on this project has impacted both Dan and I in unexpected ways. For Dan, it has launched a soulful exploration of his Okinawan roots. For me, it has reawakened a long held dream of invoking collaborations between artists and agriculturalists as part of an adventure in discovering ways to rebuild our food system.

With this in mind, we are very happy and grateful to be able to present to you this special feature. The Art of Pork is a collaboration with culinarian Noreen Lam, artist Tia Castro, designer/photographers Walter Sparks, Bryant Lagmay. This event was directed by Tia Castro.

Noreen Lam is my culinary hero. Locally-grown, CCA trained, Noreen worked alongside Jeremiah Tower and has been part of local food movement from early days. She’s a chef’s chef and likes to keep a low-profile so we are very fortunate to have had the opportunity to speak with her about our Hog Wild effort and were ecstatic when she wanted to lend her support.

photo: Bryant Lagmay

Noreen offered to explore classic pork-centered Okinawan dishes and to create recipes inspired by the Hog Wild effort. She cites two main books featuring culture and cuisine of Okinawa, “Chimugukuru: the soul, the spirit, the heart: Okinawan Mixed Plate II” (by Hui O Laulima) and “Of Andagi and Sanshin” (edited by Ruth Adaniya, Alice Njus and Margaret Yamate) as entry points to her exploration.

These three recipes are her contributions to this effort. As this event took place Noreen’s kitchen, it was visually documented by Tia, Bryant and Walter.

Many thanks to Noreen, Tia, Walter and Bryant for shining their creative light on the Hog Wild project, freeing up the etheric beauty of such an earthly subject. Mahalo nui to Amy and Glen Shinsato for raising such beautiful animals and for gifting one of them for this project. Also thanks to Jaycee Higa of Higa Meats and Todd Low of Hawaii Department of Agriculture for their help too.

To see previous incarnations of collaborations between Tia Castro, Noreen Lam and Bryant Lagmay, visit the Blanc Catering website.

I hope you enjoy these recipes Noreen created – an homage to Uchinanchu classics – Glazed Miso Pork Belly with Vegetable Stew, Sparerib Soup with Okinawan Soba and Rafute with Bittermelon Tempura.

– Lisa

photo: Bryant Lagmay

photo: Bryant Lagmay

photo: Bryant Lagmay

photo: Bryant Lagmay
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Explore Issues Food Systems

Food Traditions and Food Security

In 1948 seven men of Okinawan ancestry from Hawaii sailed to the U.S. mainland on their first leg of an incredible journey. They were headed to an Oregon hog farm to purchase 550-head to help in a Hawaii-based relief effort for war-torn Okinawa. The tiny island of Okinawa was devastated by the Battle of Okinawa, where more bombs were dropped and more naval guns fired than any operation in the Pacific during World War II. The Okinawan community in Hawaii joined by other ethnic groups raised nearly $50,000 to restock Okinawan hog farms. Needless to say that was quite a remarkable feat back in those days and during those challenging economic times.

Those seven men cared for the animals in makeshift crates aboard a military transport ship on that 28-day voyage from the U.S. to Okinawa. They encountered storms, seasickness and floating mines but they accomplished their mission. The last surviving member of those seven men, Mr. Yasuo Uezu recently passed away in July 2011.

The Chinese dating back to the 14th century influenced the Okinawans’ love for pork. Okinawa is just 400 miles from China and they established an economic and cultural relationship that thrived to the 16th century. When Okinawans started migrating to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations in 1899 they brought their food traditions with them. Practically every family raised pigs for special occasions and when the plantation contracts ended, some of those families raised pigs as major source of income. Today, a few of those Okinawan family farms are trying to keep the culture and tradition alive.

The irony given this historical backdrop is that Hawaii hog farms have been in steady decline for decades. According to the Statistics of Hawaii Agriculture reports, there were 650 hog operations in 1978 statewide as compared to 230 in 2008. Hawaii lost 430 farms or over 65% of its hog operations in this 30-year period. (These statistics include operations with one hog on up so the actual number of commercial operations will be significantly less). Competition with imported pork and the rising cost of feed coupled with residential encroachment and societal pressure will continue to challenge our local farms.

According to the USDA, Americans consumed roughly 50 lbs. of pork per capita in 2008 and for Hawaii the vast majority was imported. Hawaii’s food security or insecurity is a hot button issue as well it should be. The UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources estimates that 85% of fruits and vegetables we consume can be grown locally by 2020. Our greatest challenge will be protein security and keeping our livestock industries viable. The Hawaii cattle industry is dependant on an infrastructure that has atrophied and with limited processing capacity. We are down to two commercial dairies on the Big Island and 4 commercial egg farms on O’ahu. We have no commercial poultry farms supplying locally raised chickens and our aquaculture industry has its own share of challenges.

Hawaii’s people mobilized and responded to the crisis in Okinawa after WWII, and most recently to the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan. People were in dire need of aid and Hawaii’s people didn’t hesitate and gave generously.

Can we afford a crisis before we act on our own behalf? Can we, as people of Hawaii today demonstrate our support and aloha for our own farming community? Only demand for Hawaii grown products will encourage investment in expanding local food production.

We were compelled to write this commentary after interviewing two Okinawan hog farmers. Their family farms date back to the early twenties and forties with multi-generations involved with their operations. Okinawans in Hawaii have a strong sense of pride for their heritage and culture, as do people of all cultures in Hawaii. If we can collectively summon our local pride in support of our own, we will position our communities to be more resilient and food secure as we move forward.

Lisa Asagi and Dan Nakasone
Co-Founders of She Grows Food

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Explore Issues Food Systems

Hog Wild For Hawaii-Grown Part One

Can we help to save a farming community? We have done it before. We need to do it again.

At the end of World War II, Hawaii’s Okinawan community quickly mobilized after they learned that Okinawa’s farms were nearly completely destroyed. They rallied their resources and sent seeds, milking goats and pigs to help restart Okinawa’s local food system.

This amazing story about the power of compassion and community was ironically revealed to us during a deep investigation into the disappearance of Hawaii’s own hog farms.

We went in with these questions: Why is it so hard to find fresh island-raised pork? What happened to all of the farmers?

Since the 1950’s, ever-increasing and encroaching housing development has shut down hundreds of hog and chicken farms on Oahu – from Kalihi Valley, Waialae, Koko Head, Ewa Beach, even Moiliili. In the early 1970’s, 60% of the pork consumed here in Hawaii were from local farms.

Leap to 2011. We need to recover our tradition of hog farming in Hawaii.

How can we help?

Step 1: Raise demand for local pork. Ask our retailers, restaurants, and friends to start serving locally-raised pork. A way to revitalize our hog farms is to increase and secure the demand for locally-raised pork. It is important to ask for locally-raised, not just locally processed. By increasing the demand for locally-raised pork we are securing and protecting our remaining farms. An ever increasing demand for locally-raised pork may encourage others to come back into hog farming or start hog farming.

Step 2: Buy local pork. Higa Meats has a retail outlet on Oahu and sells Shinsato Farm pork. Contact them at: (808) 531-3591. M & H Kaneshiro Farms is on Kauai and can be reached at (808) 742-7285.

Step 3: Enjoy local pork. Here are a few places serving up local pork: town, Heeia Pier and Deli, Morning Glass, Baja-Style Mexican Cuisine (Honolulu and Kailua Farmers Markets, sometimes KCC), Guava Smoked (Honolulu Farmers Market), 12th Avenue Grill, Kona Brewing Co., BLT, Kalapawai Cafe, Roy’s Ko’olina and Waikiki. If you know of any place else serving Shinsato or Kaneshiro farm pork, let us know!

Step 4: Spread the word. Pick up the phone, email, blog, tweet, post. Or write a letter to the Editor or Op-Ed like we did! Here’s a link to “Food Traditions and Food Security” in case you haven’t seen it.

Both Shinsato and Kaneshiro farms are piglet to plate operations. What we mean by piglet to plate is that these farms are full circle – both raise their pigs from baby and they are cared for by a family, day in and day out. In our industrialized world, this way of traditional hog farming is a rarity. This tradition of family pig raising has evolved and refined itself over centuries in Okinawa, and over generations here in Hawaii. It is definitely a craft, and after getting to know these farmers, you may even feel as we do, that it is an art.

Two of the remaining hog farms in Hawaii are owned and operated by families of Okinawan descent, speaks to the deep cultural relevance of agriculture and food in our lives and in our world. We are fascinated with this and will be posting more on this.

That women are a significant part of the operations of both farms is also completely intriguing to us. We’ll be posting our interview with Amy Shinsato, along with a pink hued spotlight on Okinawan cuisine’s love affair with pork. Then stay tuned for an interview with and profile on Val Kaneshiro.

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Meet Farmers

Lesley Hill: Wailea Agricultural Group

They say that everyone has a story, that each life is a story filled with chapters and turning points, dark moonless nights of the soul and bright shiny epiphanies, all mapped out to look like chaos until the moment when the focus of our internal lens brings it all into sharp focus. Well at least most of it.

Taking a leap. Wandering into the unknown. Staying curious. Working. Learning. Showing up and sitting in. Taking the reins. Taking care.

These were the thoughts that surfaced as I edited the video pieces (two quickly grew into four), mesmerized by Lesley Hill’s remarkable journey into farming. One that starts as a 19 year-old student/tennis player in Florida, in trouble with the college dean for standing up for equal rights, lands on the tarmac of Honolulu International Airport for a year long exchange. It turned out to not only be a defining moment for Lesley, but for the agricultural community in Hawaii.

Can you imagine Lesley at her first Young Farmers of America local chapter meeting only to find herself the youngest, the only female and the only person with a five month-old baby wrapped to her body? Can you also imagine there with Lesley a year later (with a year and a half toddler in tow), attending her first meeting as elected president of the same chapter? Pretty cool.

Countless adventures later, Lesley is now owner of 110 acres diverse in tropical fruit, spice and flowers on the lush Hamakua Coast of Hawaii Island. A shared passion for travel and tropical plants brought Lesley together with Michael Crowell, her partner in life and business. They own and operate Wailea Agricultural Group – born after finding a suitable plot and years of growing business and expertise on acreage nearer to Hilo. (Like many other farms in Hawaii, the decline of the sugar and pineapple industries that freed up large tracts of plantation land for smaller farms to take hold.)

It’s hard to imagine the kind of planning, resources and work it takes to transform and renew old monocropped land, so we’re fortunate that Lesley and Mike were able to take time out of their busy schedules to give us a tour of their farm, share their experience, and allow us to share what they have done. They’ve studied the needs of the land and the plants that are growing there – taking great risk and dedicating themselves to taking great care to shape the landscape to help manage water, wind and erosion control. The result of Lesley and Mike’s knowledge and deep feelings of stewardship for the land is exhilarating. And so delicious.

Lesley can’t keep up with how many varieties of fruit and spices are living on their farm. Here’s only a handful: peach palm, avocado, lychee, mango, rambutan, chico fruit, mangosteen, starfruit, passion fruit, soursop, langsat, durian, jackfruit, breadfruit, açaí, Meyer lemon, citron, limes, cinnamon, all-spice, nutmeg, bay, clove. They are constantly playing with the possibilities.

To top it off Wailea Agricultural Group is the country’s strongest producer of the very renewable and nutrient-rich delicacy called Heart of Palm. Each year, they harvest over 15 tons by hand for delivery and shipment to restaurants and hotels – local, national and international. What is Heart of Palm? Very delicate in both texture and flavor, it is the tender point of the growing tip of peach palm. This palm is originally from Central and South America, and is considered a very renewable crop because new shoots are constantly replacing the ones that are harvested, doing no harm to the mother plant. Now that’s taking care!

Wailea Agricultural Group website
Lesley also has a cool home and plant shop in Hilo, Paradise Plants

More Lesley

Farm tour

On growing for the community and buying local