Richard Ha writes:
These are going to China.
They are eucalyptus logs, which are being harvested along the Hamakua Coast and marshalled at Kawaihae, ready for shipment to China.
Is China taking all the eucalyptus?
Category Archives: Hamakua Coast
Conversations With My Mom
Richard Ha writes:
I took Mom to Hamakua Springs to get a few tilapia for her dinner.
While we were there, we looked at some of the things we have going on.
Corn
Hamakua Springs bananas
Hydroponic lettuce, with special procedures to control slugs
Sweet potatoes
Zucchini
One thing that strikes me is how much water we have running through our 600-acre farm. We must maximize its usage.
Water Supply will build a new reservoir adjacent to this one and bring electricity right through the farm to the new well, which is right behind this reservoir
I really want to raise tilapia when the price of oil goes so high that bringing it in from Asia is prohibitive.
Tilapia for Mom. These are the small ones, to fry crispy.
And, while doing that, we want to demonstrate how Hawaiians were self-sufficient in ancient days.
Then while we are at it, we want to reforest the streams with ‘ohi‘a, koa, bamboo, kukui, hapu‘u, etc.
- Also, how about aquaponics with tilapia and taro?
- How about a certified kitchen to make lomi salmon, poi and other things where we and other farmers can add value?
- What about classes for at-risk students?
- Maybe a permanent imu.
- Events set around food?
- How about showing how food was produced then and now – ancient and modern?
Mom and I always have these kinds of conversations. I like it.
Sustainability in Hamakua
My worlds collided on Saturday, when I led a tour that included a stop to meet Richard and see Hamakua Springs Country Farms.
Along with Hilo historian and anthropologist Judith Kirkendall, I lead van tours around East Hawai‘i. Right now we are doing a series of five tours that focus on agriculture and sustainability – what people are doing right now to be more sustainable, and how we can support them and also be more sustainable ourselves. The tours operate through Lyman Museum.
Our tour this past Saturday was called “The Garden As Provider,” and we focused on Hamakua. First we met at the Lyman Museum and heard a short talk by Sam Robinson about Let’s Grow Hilo. That’s the program she started that has volunteers planting edibles along downtown Hilo streets and in traffic medians.
“Anyone is free to help themselves to the fruit or vegetables once it’s ripe,” she told us, and she invited anyone interested in the project to come help plant and tend. They meet every last Sunday at the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center at 2 p.m.
Then we visited Barbara and Philip Williams, who live just outside Hilo near Pueopaku. Barbara grew up in Kenya, where they lived 50 miles away from the nearest railroad and so had to be self-sufficient. After she and Philip married, they lived on a plantation in East Africa. Now on the Big Island, they still grow and harvest everything they can. They have animals, including goats, and every fruit and vegetable you can imagine. “We retain the habits of being self-sufficient to the present day,” she told us.
From there we headed to Pepe‘ekeo, where Richard met us at Hamakua Springs.
Richard is such an interesting speaker. He told us the story of how he started in farming (after flunking out of UH and consequently serving in Vietnam, he returned home and helped his father on the family’s chicken farm; then traded chicken manure for banana keiki and started farming bananas). He talked about how they decided to move the farm to Pepe‘ekeo and why (hint: free water; the farm alone has one-third as much water as supports agriculture where 234,000 people live in Leeward O‘ahu). Our tour group was totally engaged.
He told about how he started noticing prices going up (on fertilizer, boxes, all the things they were using on the farm) and how he realized it was due to oil prices and decided to attend Peak Oil conferences to learn what was happening. And how he felt bad and so didn’t tell the others there that he would return to Hawai‘i and wear shorts throughout the winter, and grow his produce throughout the winter; nor how we have geothermal to provide us with energy – which we don’t even fully take advantage of.
He spoke about how he has been positioning themselves for how conditions will be five or 10 years from now, and about the hydroelectric project that is getting going on the farm very shortly, and how since his workers first asked to borrow money for gas to get to work he has started what they call the Family of Farms, working with nearby farmers. And about how they are experimenting with how they can produce protein on the farm by raising tilapia, and giving their workers fish (and produce) every week in lieu of monetary raises they cannot afford to give right now.
There was more, and as editor of this blog for all these years, none of it was new to me, but I, too, listened intently and enjoyed it thoroughly. It was fascinating to hear Richard pull all the pieces he talks about on this blog together into one, interrelated, narrative that tells such a real, on-the-ground story of how things are (and how they are changing). The people on the tour were really interested. We all were. Afterward, I heard people talking about what a great thinker he is, and how much they enjoyed meeting him.
That Richard, he’s all right!
We also went to Hi‘ilani Eco House in Honoka‘a, an amazing house being constructed to be as “green” as it gets. Wow, that’s a fascinating place (they say it should last for 500 years!) and they are very open to groups visiting, if anyone is interested. And we stopped a couple other places as well.
It was a neat day (the upcoming tours are listed here if you’re interested), and Richard’s information really made it so good. We were all wowed. Thanks, Richard!
A Possible Template For Rural America – Right Here In Hamakua
One of the exciting things going on right now in Ag is taking place right here on the Hamakua Coast.
The Pacific Basin Ag Research Center (PBARC) is supporting a zero waste program that will help farmers in a very practical way.
It’s an ongoing program involving the Pa‘auilo slaughterhouse and anaerobic digestion. Waste from the slaughterhouse will generate gas and fertilizer by-products. It will increase the slaughter capacity of the facility and reduce/remove the problem of burying the waste. This helps ranchers save/make money.
As we all know, food security involves farmers farming. And if the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm. Save money, make money. They are the opposite sides of the same coin.
PBARC is exploring the possibility of using heterotrophic algae to generate oil, which eats plant waste instead of photosynthesizes it. This system is scalable so that small entities can use the resulting product. This is hopefully an alternative to industrial scale biofuel production, which cannot operate without subsidies and which is, up to this point, unsustainable. The waste product from this operation, hopefully, will end up as animal/fish feed.
PBARC is hiring specialists in the area of practical, value-added food technology. The emphasis will be on first level conversion, so that farmers can use their throwaways or divert production in case of oversupply. The idea is to convert farm products into forms usable by the military and the food procurement system for schools, etc.
If the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.
At Hamakua Springs, we are using our abundant water supply to sustain oxygenation for our fish. We use falling water for oxygenation instead of energy. With the aid of PBARC scientists, and using our farm waste as food for the (vegetarian) fish, as prices rise ours will, sooner or later, become competitive with imported fish.
If the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.
The Federal government is supporting this PBARC program as a possible template for rural America.
What I like about it is that it’s practical on the farm level. And, most importantly, it puts the control of individual, group and community destinies into their own hands. And that is what gives people hope.
Growing Ulu
We are planting ‘ulu trees and eating-bamboo on the parts
of our land not in production agriculture. The idea is to provide
food for our employees.
When we started growing bananas on W.H. Shipman land
at Kea‘au in the early ’80s, there must have been at least 15 ‘ulu trees on the property we leased, each 50 feet tall. In the forest, we could see remnants of human activity from the old days, back when the rule was that ‘ulu trees were not to be cut down.
This is the variety of ‘ulu (also known as breadfruit) that we are planting. It’s low to the ground and the fruit is not so large that you have too much left over.
Putting the Bamboo in the Ground
A couple days ago I got a note from Henry Curtis saying he was on the Big Island for a few days of rest and relaxation, and that he wanted to drop by and talk story. Henry is executive director of the environmental group Life of the Land.
Since I had planned to plant bamboo, I figured we could talk story and do that at the same time. So I picked up Henry and his partner Kat Brady and took them riding in one of our Woods 4x4s.
As we drove, I pointed out the three ahupua‘a that run through our farm and the characteristics of each. Then we drove to the top of the ridge line that is the prominent feature of Kahua ahupua’a. From there we could see most of the farm and I pointed out the main features of each hupua’a. We could see the streams by the trees that grow alongside. I explained that I am interested in reclaiming the stream banks from invasive trees and grasses.
We talked about food security, energy security and community and after awhile we talked in shorthand because it was apparent that we all understood what is happening with oil and the direction the world is moving in. They absolutely understand farming —that it is not easy or automatic. I was happy to know that about them.
On the old sugar plantation field maps, sugar cane field acreages were written on the maps. The sugar companies raised sugar cane right to the riverbanks, so they used most of the land. But since then, invasive trees have started growing on the stream banks and now they are everywhere and moving into productive agricultural lands. We want to reclaim the productive land and plant bamboo in the non-productive land. In that way, we will maximize the productivity of our land area.
I told Henry and Kat that I want to use bamboo as a way to reclaim the streams and put the non-productive stream banks into production. When they are in season, June wants to give bamboo shoots to our workers. The bamboo provides a primary windbreak for our bananas, and planted on the south side of streams, its shadow falls on the water, keeps it cool and helps to suppress pest trees. Bamboo can even be used for the construction industry.
Jerry Konanui had asked for photos of the kalo plants I recently found in Makea stream. So I asked Henry folks to help me get some plants. Here are a couple of them. In a couple of hours they were all wilted, so I gave them to Grandma to replant in the nursery. We want to make sure we do not lose the species. When they’re stronger, we’ll give them to Jerry for identification.
Next we went up to the site of our hydroelectric project. I pointed out how lucky we were to have this great amount of water constantly flowing. On our property alone we have about 1/3 of the total amount of water that comes across the Waiahole Ditch on the way to Central Honolulu. Once I counted 35 streams between Hilo and Honoka‘a.
We had a very fun visit. Kat told me she loved the smell of dirt on her hands.
Answer: Bamboo
Here’s the question:
What is it that can
- maximize the usage of the land
- provide windbreak protection
- shade out invasive species
- cool off the streams
- and provide food?
There are many varieties of bamboo. We’ve been looking for the kinds with shoots that are good to eat, in addition to providing all the other benefits.
June and I went to Quindembo Bamboo Nursery this weekend and came back with my pickup truck full of bamboo. I want to maximize food production here on the farm, so we will plant bamboo on the south sides of the streams. That way the shadow will fall on the stream, keeping it cool and shading out pest plants. We’ll leave enough room so we can still access the stream banks. We want to reclaim all the stream banks on the whole property. This will be a fun project and there is a lot of land to cover.
Since this will be on non-producing land, it will increase the property’s productivity. June points out that no matter what we end up doing with the bamboo, we can certainly give it to our workers for food.
My Yellow Ginger Lei
Yesterday I took my friend Riley Smith and Nancy Alvord on a tour of our farm. We looked at bananas, and at tomatoes and sweet potatoes and the rushing water that will power our hydroelectric plant. We went to see banana ripening rooms and hydroponically grown cucumbers and sweet corn and other things.
I also took them “off road” to see what the original vegetation here looked like and told them what I hoped to do with it. Nancy commented that the ginger smelled good, and I was so surprised to notice that the yellow ginger flowers were starting to bloom everywhere. Just a week ago there was only a handful of flowers.
Later in the day, I went back to look again at what Nancy noticed. Sure enough, there were ginger blossoms everywhere and it was quite a difference from just one week ago.
It made me remember that “My Yellow Ginger Lei” was the first slack key song I learned from Pop.
The Hamakua Steering Committee
On Saturday I attended the first meeting of the Hamakua Steering Committee.
I am a part of this wonderful group of people, which will spend the next two years translating the desires of the Hamakua community into a plan that will take us through the next 20 years. More on the other members and some of the details about the Hamakua Steering Committee here.
I met everybody for the first time on Saturday, when we spent all day getting to know each other and learning what our role is to be. I could not be happier about working with this diverse group of caring people, each of whom bring special skills to this planning process. We all like and respect each other.
All the steering committee members are grounded in the idea that it is the land that takes care of us, and so we need to take care of the land.
My friend Ka‘iu Kimura explained it to me like this. She said that our kūpuna have a wise saying: “He Aliʻi ka ʻĀina, He Kauā ke Kanaka.” “Our land is the chief, and we the people are kauā to it.” She said she translates this as saying that we are subservient to the land, as it is the land that provides for us.
Every single member of the steering committee understands and lives by this idea. I feel really privileged to be a part of this special group of people.
Everyone was asked to bring some soil from where they came from, and it was mixed together in a bowl. Our hands in the soil is symbolic of our commitment to work together for the benefit of Hamakua.
We all want to do the best for the coming generations.
More On Kahua Ahupua‘a
Kahua Ahupua‘a is very interesting. It’s bordered by Alia Stream on one side and Makea Stream on the other. The streams are around 500 feet from each other, and the ridgeline is maybe 100 feet higher than the streams.
June and I plan to build on the ridgeline, where the streams are well within strolling distance. The place I talked about in Monday’s blog post is a short walk down the hill.
