How We Do It, Sustainability, Tomatoes

Pretty Ripe

Richard Ha writes:

I’ve said before that “industrial agriculture” has many shortcomings, and a New York Times article that ran this week illustrates some of them.

The article laments that conventional tomatoes are bred to withstand the rigors of the supply chain and other issues farmers face, with good taste being only an afterthought.

It talks about an unconventional tomato called “Ugly Ripe” that tastes good and is available during the winter. The problem? It’s grown using the ozone-depleting chemical methyl bromide, which kills weed seeds and controls a root-damaging insect. The article says that despite the Ugly Ripe’s good taste, it’s not sustainable because it’s grown using methyl bromide.

By contrast, here at Hamakua Springs we grow tomatoes that taste good year round. And we don’t use ozone-depleting chemicals.

Our tomatoes taste good because we very specifically select varieties for taste over any other quality. We harvest when the fruit is vine ripe, which means complex flavors have already developed. We used weed cloth, so we don’t have to spray weeds. Because our operation is hydroponic—soil-free—we don’t have soil-borne insects. All this adds up to good taste and zero need for ozone-depleting methyl bromide.

When the television program Top Chef taped on the Big Island in December, finalist Marcel Vigneron tasted one of our Hamakua Springs tomatoes while selecting ingredients for the final competitions and immediately loaded up his basket. And one of the show’s chef consultants took some tomatoes with her to eat, saying offhandedly that there were no good tomatoes during the winter where she lives. Amazing.

We were also pleased when our Hamakua Springs cocktail tomatoes were selected in a taste test as “best tomato” by 100 master chefs and culinary students during Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s Tomato 101 seminar in Honolulu. That was just last month—also in the winter.

Good tasting AND sustainable both! We must be doing something right.

Bananas, History, How It All Started, Our Story

How It All Started, part one

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Richard Ha writes:

People occasionally ask me how we came to grow bananas.

After I graduated from UH Manoa in 1973 with a degree in accounting, Dad asked if I would run the family poultry farm. I agreed and moved back to Hilo.

After running the chicken farm for several months, I was asked to manage the Hilo Egg Producers Cooperative, located on Kalanikoa Street in the building just Hilo Bay side of Hilo Lunch Shop. The co-op supplied Hilo area supermarkets with fresh eggs.

In the course of that job, I noticed that supermarkets were importing Chiquita bananas. We had been thinking about what crop to grow at the farm, where we had 25 acres of family land and lots of chicken manure, and bananas seemed to have potential.

All I had was a credit card with a $300 limit and a Toyota Land Cruiser, so when I delivered eggs to the supermarkets I started collecting their used banana boxes. I stashed them in the open area beneath my parents’ house.

To get banana planting material, I traded chicken manure with local farmers. I got some from a Mr. Kudo on Haihai Street and some from Eric Mydell, Mr. Ah Heen and Uncle Sonny Kamahele, down the beach road at Maku‘u.

We had no money to clear the land so we marked banana rows by running down the California grass with my Land Cruiser. We are talking tall California grass, higher than the Land Cruiser and with those tiny hairs that make you itchy. We used sickles to clear the grass and an ‘o’o and post hole digger to plant the banana pulapula (seedling). Mom and Dad, my three brothers and I planted all the bananas.

Having majored in accounting, I was interested in acquiring a large market share, so we needed to plant as fast as we could. Using sickles and an ‘o’o, “moving quickly” meant planting 50 plants a week. Now, with automatic planters, it takes us only six seconds to plant one plant.

Later on, to make it easier on ourselves and to speed up the process, we poisoned the grass first instead of using a sickle. But at the beginning, we had more muscle than money so we used the sickle until we had our first harvest a year later.

I cannot believe how much we didn’t know back then. It’s kind of humorous to look back at where we came from.

We were so new to banana growing that we thought the larger the plant we put in the ground, the quicker and larger the bunch we would harvest. So we took the biggest plants we could find. But now we know that a banana plant needs maximum undisturbed time to develop a large bunch, so that wasn’t a good strategy.

Some of the plants we selected back then even had their bunch halfway up the tree already. We know now that those bunches would not be saleable. But we didn’t know any better then.

At the time we were very self-satisfied, having loaded a trailer to the top with banana keiki that looked like ‘ohi‘a logs. Nowadays, the same number of small, tissue-cultured banana plants could be carried under one arm and they would make larger bunches than the giant keiki we chose back then.

We started with two acres of bananas, which was maybe 1,500 plants. After planting them, we just let them grow. We would work for two or three hours and then my brothers’ friends would come by and we would talk story and hit the punching bag or lift weights for another few hours. Then, pau work.

After a year went by, we started to harvest and pack the bananas in boxes we had stored under the house.

But customers prefer ripe bananas. So we would lay all the hands of bananas on chicken wire in one of the empty chicken houses, and pick out the riper ones to put in the boxes.

This was really unwieldy. I had heard that on the mainland people were ripening bananas with some kind of gas. But I had no idea what it was, so I inquired at Gaspro if they knew of a product that ripens bananas. The lady told me, “You mean banana gas?” I said, “Yes, banana gas.” And I took the cylinder with me.

We made a room out of plywood in which to contain the gas and treat the bananas. And amazingly, the bananas ripened uniformly in just a few days. Our first customer was Food Fair Supermarket. We took a photo with the boss there, Mr. Eji Kaneshiro, of the first box we delivered. This was a big deal, as I did not even get to talk to him when I was in charge of marketing fresh eggs.

For some reason, the individual bananas would occasionally fall off the hand. I was called down to Food Fair on many occasions, where I would always act surprised and promise I would fix it. It went on like that for too long and I was having to talk to Mr. Kaneshiro way too often.

Then I learned that banana companies on the mainland used refrigeration to control ripening. We didn’t have money, so we bought a small air conditioner. It worked and it was amazing. We were delivering maybe ten boxes a week to Food Fair Supermarket and they were perfect. We were in the big time with cutting-edge technology.

One day, when we hit peak production of 25 boxes or so, I opened up the door to the air-conditioned enclosure and smelled the unmistakable odor of overripe bananas. What could have happened?

The air conditioning unit had ice all over it. That’s when I found out that ripening bananas give off a lot of heat, and we had overtaxed the small air conditioning unit. It was a disaster—we lost all 25 boxes.

I applied for a loan to build a warehouse and we made three ripening rooms with real refrigeration. From then on, we were really in the banana business.

To be continued….

Alan Wong, Losing Weight, The Good Life

Reward

Richard Ha wrote:

On Jan 7th I started on a program to lose a half pound per week.

Weight on Jan. 7, 2007: 204.5
Weight today, Jan. 28, 2007: 201.0
Scheduled weight: 203.0

I am 2.0 pounds ahead of schedule.

Resting heart rate today: 54 beats per minute.

Months ago, in a previous incarnation of my weight loss program, I got down to 200 pounds and planned to reward myself by having dinner with friends at Alan Wong’s Restaurant in Honolulu.

This past Saturday night, June and I, along with Linda and Dan Nakasone, finally went. For appetizers I had an ‘Opihi Shooter. Here’s what is in that fluted, two-ounce shooter glass, from the bottom up: An olive, a couple slivers of scallion, a couple pieces of fennel, a slice of basil and a slice of shizo leaf, an ume plum, four pieces of diced tomatoes, two more slivers of scallion, an ‘opihi, a wasabi pearl and a sprig of chervil. When you down all this in one shot you get a sensory short-circuit.

We also shared a dish of three different tomato salads. The flavors were incredible. This is not just “eating”—it’s an experience. I stuffed myself.

For my entrée, I had Ginger-Crusted Onaga. It was prepared perfectly. It had a nice crispy crust and sat on a bed of Nozawa sweet corn with Hamakua mushrooms, surrounded by a miso sesame vinaigrette. For an instant, my memory flashed on when Dad used to go fishing and would bring home moi, and Mom would steam it in ti leaf with Hawaiian salt and ginger, then pour hot spattering sesame oil and then shoyu over it.

The dish does not look like that at all, nor are the ingredients the same. It just brought on that memory flash for a moment. That added to the experience for me.

For dessert, June and I went for the Five Spoonfuls of Brulee, which consists of macadamia nuts, Waialua chocolate, Ka‘u orange, Kona Mocha and Liliko‘i brulee, each served in an individual saimin spoon. Then, Michelle, the pastry chef, brought out four variations of Wailua Chocolate truffles for each of us. We were so full we didn’t think we could eat another bite, but they looked so good we had to try. They were just delicious.

But we were totally full, so we asked for a doggie bag. The truffles came back in two little gift-wrapped boxes. Incredible. June protected her treasures all the way back to Hilo.

And it turned out that wasn’t enough of Chef Alan’s creations, so on Saturday June and I went to The Pineapple Room for lunch. The food was delicious and the staff incredible. Again, we indulged.

And this is why I am so happy. In spite of trying so many of Chef Alan’s creations, I lost more weight this week than was my goal. My strategy? I made an effort to eat a little less before our splurges and a little less after. This, along with my exercise program, worked and I was able to continue losing weight.

Maybe I should reward myself with another trip to Alan Wong’s when I hit 200 lbs. again. I think everybody would be game.

Leslie’s note: Wait a minute, Richard—You’re not supposed to keep gaining and losing the same couple pounds over and over so that you keep getting to go back to Alan Wong’s!

Alan Wong, Company News, Sustainability

Kids in a Candy Store

When The Hualalai Grille by Alan Wong, over in Kohala, was closed for renovations last week, Alan Wong brought his staff over for a tour of the farm.

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Charlotte, Alan and Richard in the tomatoes

Richard said he always enjoys showing and explaining all that goes into making our produce so flavorful, safe and consistent. This visit also gave him a chance to tell the people working at the Hualalai Grille how much their support means to us here at the farm, and how it helps keep local farming a sustainable occupation.

“When they present our products in the best light possible, as they do,” he explained, “it raises the reputation of our product in the retail trade. And this helps us to price our products so we can be sustainable.

“I don’t think they had thought much about how much their support helps local farmers.”

Charlotte Romo, the farm’s hydroponic crop specialist, helped with the farm tour. “We showed them our little round yellow cucumber,” she said. “It was our first one; we’d just harvested it. They’re like tennis balls.”

“One of the first things Richard did when Alan came,” she said, “was to give him two seed catalogs so he could go through them and think about all the fun things we can grow.” She said the three of them are like kids in a candy shop with all the possibilities they find in seed catalogs.

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Alan Wong in action

One thing the chefs and other staff members got to see was our new Variety Garden, where we grow a lot of vegetables in close collaboration with Chef Alan.

The Variety Garden has purple carrots, golden beets, colored radishes, different colors and shapes of sweet bell peppers, numerous varieties, colors and shapes of eggplants, at least 15 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, poha and tomatillos and even more.

Charlotte described the samples they set up in the packing house for the group to taste. “Tracy put out some of the new stuff we’re growing,” she said, “and a selection of the heirlooms and the Hamakua Sweets (tomatoes). Alan was eating a melon. We have started growing some really sweet, good melons, and we send him a few at a time.”

She said Alan is passionate about his produce. “He gets really excited,” she said, “which is nice for us because we don’t usually see that. I mostly work with plants, and pruners, so it’s fun to see somebody who appreciates it.”

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Charlotte and Tracy, briefing the troops

She said he also asks a lot of really good questions. “He had me stumped at one point,” she said, “and I was embarrassed because I’m pretty knowledgeable about tomatoes. He asked if I knew the compound responsible for the smell of the vine. You know how with the T.O.V.’s, the Tomatoes-on-the-Vine, you can smell that very strong aroma of the vine, and that’s how you know it’s so fresh? I didn’t know the answer.

“So I called up one of my old professors,” she said. “She’s one of the top tomato physiologists, and she didn’t know either. It’s actually a bunch of compounds. I sent him some more information about it.”

She explained that most of the new products we grow for Chef Alan Wong are experimental at this point, while we perfect how to grow them. “We like to try new and different things,” she said. “It’s fun for us. Hopefully in the future these veggies will be in the stores at some point. That’s the whole idea—to provide more local, sustainable food instead of having to have everything shipped here.” – Leslie Lang

Contest, Radio

Feedback

Richard just made a tour of Hilo’s morning radio programs in order to promote our tomato recipe contest (remember to send in your entries before January 31st).

Friday morning he went over to KHBC to chat on the air with Hilo’s longtime radio personality Mynah Bird.

Mynah_bird_2

“First I went in and talked to Stephanie,” Richard told me, referring to Stephanie Salazar, who does news and more at the station. “She made me really comfortable. And I was able to look into the studio and see Mynah Bird sitting there. When I went in there was a desk with a microphone, so it was like a conversation. He makes you feel comfortable and it was pretty easy.”

Then on Monday, Richard was on Ken Hupp’s Community Forum radio program at KPUA. “It was basically the same sort of set-up,” he said, “but different equipment. He had a boom microphone set-up. He’s really easy to talk to. He leads you from one subject to the next pretty logically and easily.”

Chef Allan Okuda, the director of Hawai’i Community College’s food service program, went along for Monday’s interview, too.

“That was good,” Richard said, “because he could describe his program in detail. That was really helpful. I couldn’t, in any way, have managed to describe it like he did.”

Richard and Allan talked about the contest’s three categories (main dish, salad, and preserves & condiments); how the top five recipes in each category will be prepared exactly as specified in the recipe by students from the HCC food service program; and then that our panel of six judges will determine the winners.

Richard mentioned, too, that the three grand-prize winners in the state-wide contest will receive a tour of Hamakua Springs Country Farms, and airplane tickets to come to the Big Island if they live on another island.

I was surprised to hear Richard give his cell phone number on the air in case anybody had questions, and afterward I asked him about that.

He told me he likes being accessible. “I don’t have any problem with people calling me up,” he said. “I do get calls. If somebody’s motivated enough to tell you something, it’s important to listen very carefully.

“Once we had a lady call and say the tomatoes didn’t taste as sweet as they used to,” he said, “which actually confirmed something I was thinking. When she called it was dead winter, and I knew what the problem was—too much water. So then when Charlotte started here, we instituted some changes to make sure that didn’t happen again. And we didn’t have that problem this winter.”

Speaking of accessibility, Richard told me another story about being in touch with the public. Once he got a handwritten note that a 90-plus year old man handed to the produce manager at the Waikoloa KTA, who then passed it to the Hamakua Springs delivery truck driver, who gave it to Richard.

“He wrote about how good our tomatoes are. I called and talked to him and he was kind of interesting,” said Richard. “He was a plantation manager of Hamakua Sugar back in the old days. I knew his name. He said he was the only part-Hawaiian plantation manager back then. I was so surprised to hear there had been a Hawaiian plantation manager I almost fell over. He knew I was part-Hawaiian, too. I don’t know how he knew that.”

When people talk, Richard listens. And did you all listen to Richard talk (on the air), too? —posted by Leslie Lang

Losing Weight

Threats

Richard Ha writes:

This is the second week of my new “post-holidays” weight loss program, and I am losing weight steadily.

I’m making good progress by merely threatening to fast. My new rule is that if I gain more than half a pound per week – instead of losing a half pound, which is the goal – I will fast the following day from 3 p.m. to 10 a.m. Whenever I think about fasting, I find myself focusing on the calories I’m eating and my diet “self-corrects.”

It also seems important that I keep to a regular routine and make sure to eat every meal. This week I skipped breakfast twice, and I noticed my weight fluctuates more when I do that. Fortunately I’m only focusing on losing a half pound per week. Still, I need to constantly be aware of how many calories I’m eating. It’s easy to underestimate.

My exercise program is also proceeding well. I’m riding my bike more often and at a higher level of exertion. Yesterday I rode for an hour, at an average heart rate of 126 beats per minute, and this did not feel hard. It felt about the same as my exertion level back in May and June, when I was exercising at 108 beats per minute. So I’m making progress.

On Jan 7th I started on a program to lose a half pound per week.
Weight on Jan. 7, 2007: 204.5
Weight today, Jan. 21, 2007: 202.1

Planned weight: 203.5
I am 1.4 pounds ahead of schedule.

Resting heart rate today: 55 beats per minute.

Our Employees

Farm-Raised

Richard and June’s daughter Tracy Pa, now 36, told me she grew up on the family farm.

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“When we had our banana farm in Kapoho, when I was 11 or 12, we would go to work on the farm in the summer,” she says. “We used to pack bananas, or pluck the flowers off of each banana. It was fun.”

When she was 13 the family started its farm in Kea‘au, where they planted each banana tree by hand. “On the weekends the whole family would carry five-gallon buckets and fertilize each plant by hand,” she says. “We used to ride dirt bikes then, and Dad made us a track around Kea‘au Farm. That was a lot of fun.”

In her senior year of high school she started working in the farm’s office, and she has worked at the farm ever since. Besides working in the office, she has packed bananas, loaded containers with a forklift and worked in the tissue culture lab.

“We’re all-around people,” she says. “We do what we have to do. Wherever we are needed, that’s where we go.”

These days, she works in the office doing promotions and marketing, making displays and doing some of the accounting. She is in charge of the farm’s extensive food safety program. She gives visitors tours of the farm. Just Wednesday she gave a tour to Chef Alan Wong and his staff from the Hualalai Grille on the Kohala coast.

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“Alan likes his staff to know where things come from,” she says, “so it was an educational thing for them. The focus was on the quality we produce in our product, and our food safety certification.”

She likes taking elementary school students around the farm. “They get all excited when they get here. The boys, in general, when they see the four-wheelers, they say, ‘I want to work at the banana farm.’ It’s a lot of fun. Being that young, some of them don’t realize where bananas come from. They are so amazed to see the bunches hanging from the line.”

[Editor’s note: How can children growing up in Hilo not know where bananas come from? There are bananas growing from practically every tree! Parents of young children, turn off that television!]

What’s it like to work with your parents? “It’s good,” she said. “We understand. We know what has to be done, and we will work together to get there.”

Richard says Tracy is versatile, and can do many things at the same time. “She is very aggressive and energetic, and everything she does she does well,” he says. “I rely on her a lot.”

He says she’s been very determined, and very sure of what she wants, since she was a teenager.

“In 1993,” he says, “we were scheduled to be presented the ECO-O.K. award at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, by Kate Heaton, an executive of the Rainforest Alliance from New York City. It was the biggest thing that had happened to our farm to date, so June and I wanted to make sure our farm displays were done just so. And we were going to do it ourselves.

“But it was apparent to us that Tracy had everything planned out in her mind and was determined to get it done her way. So we decided to let her do it and we went to find a cup of coffee. It turned out just perfect. That day she earned the title of “Person-in-Charge of Special Projects.”

I asked Tracy if she thinks her son Kapono, 17 years old, or daughter Kimberly, 14, will be generation number four of the family to work at the farm.

“It would be nice. I’m not sure. Kapono is still thinking about college right now, and is looking to go into business. Kimberly likes cooking.”

Speaking of cooking, just Monday, Roland Torres from the television program Kama‘aina Backroads came out and videotaped Tracy cooking with tomatoes for the show.

“I made three different kinds of pupus,” she says. “Lomilomi salmon stuffed in cocktail tomatoes. I mixed tuna and mayonnaise and Tabasco, and stuffed that in cocktail tomatoes. Kimo said that was the best. Then I took little cubes of mozzarella cheese, stuffed it in a cocktail and put that in the microwave to melt the cheese a little and put in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.”

Just imagine—In the same week, Tracy’s job had her cooking for a television program and giving a tour to a highly-acclaimed chef. What a job! —posted by Leslie Lang

Government, Sustainability

Canary in the Coal Mine

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When it comes to the islands’ food supply, Richard told me, Hawai‘i is the nation’s “canary in the coal mines.”

It is widely agreed that in Hawai‘i, where we are so dependent on imported foodstuffs, we have just seven days’ worth of food in the state at any given time. Seven days!

Should there be a shipping interruption, Richard predicted, supermarket shelves would be bare within two days—because we know from experience that in emergencies here, many people panic and hoard.

This all came up when Richard testified Friday before the state’s Water, Land, Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs committee. That’s a committee chaired by Sen. Russell Kokobun that is working on issues related to the state’s sustainability to the year 2050.

It was Andy Hashimoto, dean of the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, who brought up that we live in this precarious situation with only about seven days of food available and the rest in transit.

“He couldn’t have said it most starkly,” said Richard. “If something happened to us down here sitting in the middle of the ocean, the rest of the nation would have a wake-up call,” he said. “They wouldn’t starve to death; they’d have a wake-up call.”

Friday’s testimony was informational, Richard said, to bring Senator Kokobun and his committee up to speed.

“I wanted to talk about something that is not usually voiced,” Richard said. “My objective was to say that we need to grow food wherever we can grow it. Dry side, wet side, high elevation, low elevation, geographically on every different island.” It’s the way Hawaiians used to work the land, and something that has changed drastically in modern-day Hawai‘i. “We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket.”

“Normally,” he said, “you go to business school and you’re pushing volume. If you’re going to sell Vienna sausages, you need to sell millions of cans at a profit of two cents a can. If something goes wrong in the process, you’re sunk. That’s why you need to diversify every way you can.”

Others testified about different pieces of the “pie.”

Eric Enos, who runs Ka‘ala Farm in Wai‘anae, also talked about traditional Hawaiian agricultural ways. He talked about relating the taro lo‘i, and the traditional ahupua‘a (land division) system, to our modern-day life. This is a goal at Ka‘ala Farm, where they work the land educate students about people’s relationships to the ‘aina (land).

Dean Okimoto, president of the Hawai‘i Farm Bureau Federation, testified about designating certain highly productive lands as “important agricultural lands,” referring to legislation that the Farm Bureau introduced last year.

Sen. Clayton Hee brought up that this is a tough issue, though—pointing, for instance, to Campbell Estate’s plan to build 1100 houses at $500,000 each. Hee asked what types of incentives the legislature could offer landowners to keep land in agricultural production instead of development.

And Derek Kurisu, vice president of KTA Superstores, talked about his grocery store’s commitment to local farmers. He said once they commit to a farmer, they support him or her “through thick and thin.”

This is encouraging, Richard said, as it is hard for small farmers to weather ups and downs without such support.

He said there was a time where buying local produce was only price-driven, but that consumers are responding to KTA’s long-time support of local farmers. “People are starting to see that KTA has been successful with what they’ve been doing.”

“I saw it in action when we went with Chef Alan Wong to Hualalai Resort for a cooking presentation,” he said. “The audience was mostly people with two or more homes who were staying at the Hualalai Resort for the season. They let us know that they wanted to be contributing members of the Big Island community. They made it known that they shopped at KTA because they support the local economy.

“I took that to mean that KTA has been successful in spreading their message that shopping at KTA means supporting the local economy,” he said. “I was impressed.

“They’ve been supporting local for a long time and it’s evidently working. They have lots of customers and they’re full all the time.”

Looking at the big picture, Richard said that our dependence on large-scale, industrial agriculture is happening all over the nation.

“Industrial agriculture is dangerous,” he said, “because it can’t always support you. It’s only as strong as its weakest link. For instance, say you’ve got this one multinational brand and they have hundreds of farmers. If one farm is not doing something the way it’s supposed to be done, it jeopardizes the whole brand. People throughout the whole nation start wondering about the whole brand.”

Overall, though, Richard said he is optimistic.

“All this stuff—the slow food movement, chefs wanting local fresh food products—it’s all related and it’s all encouraging,” he said. “In the last few years, I feel it’s changed quite a bit. I don’t know how far it can go.

“On our side, we know the consumers want to support local. We want to give them value so there’s reinforcement for supporting local; so it’s worthwhile for them. We spend a lot of time trying to make sure we give value with our product.”

It’s all food for thought. — posted by Leslie Lang

Losing Weight

Back on Track

Richard Ha writes:

This is the first week of my revised weight loss program.

My plan is to lose 1/2 pound per week. If, during any week, I instead gain more than a half pound, my strategy is to fast from 3 p.m. the next day to 10 a.m. the following day, and then continue with my eating program as detailed here.

My plan is to eat three normal meals per day and two planned calorie snacks, one at 10 a.m. and the second at about 3 p.m. Each snack will consist of around 110 calories.

I find I’m more conscious of keeping to this meal schedule now that I’ve added the “skip an evening meal whenever I’m more than a half pound behind schedule” component. I don’t only think about the current day, but I find myself doing contingency planning–in case I need to skip a meal, what will my meals consist of prior to and after skipping the meal? This is helping me be more conscious of my calorie intake.

I plan to continue with my exercise program, where the goal is to lower my resting heart rate to below 50 beats per minute. Three times a week,B my plan is to do 30 minutes of aerobic exercise at 130 heartbeats per minute. Twice a week I will do 40 minutes at 120 beats per minute. On one day, I will exercise for 90 minutes in the 120 -125 beats per minute range. And one day I will do three intervals hitting 150 beats per minute or higher in a 30-minute period. Mountain bike riding will generally fulfill this requirement.

Weight on Jan. 7, 2007: 204.5
Weight today, Jan. 15, 2007: 202.7
I lost 1.8 pounds since last week.

Scheduled weight: 204
I am 1.3 pounds ahead of schedule.

Resting heart rate today: 54 beats per minute.

Food Safety Certification

We Grow Our Own

Richard Ha writes:

Our banana farm and the packing house had their annual Food Safety inspections Monday. We are waiting on a lab analysis of our irrigation water and some residue tests of our bananas, but I’m confident we will pass.

We look forward to these Food Safety inspections because we always learn about trends in the industry. Then we expend a lot of effort to make sure we keep ahead of the curve. We strive to be good partners with our customers, so we try to make sure their future concerns are taken care of ahead of time. We want them to feel confident that we are on top of things and that we will do everything possible to ensure there will be no surprises.

For the first time, we sense a real crisis brewing in the leafy green vegetable industry. Many businesses were hurt badly during the recent spinach/E. coli problem. And now there is a lot of hand-wringing about what to do next and how to do it.

We saw this coming more than two years ago, and set out at that time to put ourselves in a position of safety—for ourselves, and for our customers. That is why we do hydroponic vegetable production: we believe this is the best system for us to ensure that we have the safest lettuces, green onions, herbs and watercress.

Our leafy greens are all grown indoors, so they are protected from the rain. We do not grow in soil or in compost because that can be a source of E. coli contamination. We use county water for any spraying we do. And we test our irrigation water for E. coli every month.

After our inspection Monday, I thought to myself that this is a “new day” in agriculture. I felt there was something going on that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Then Tracy told me about her lunch at Café Pesto. She, Kimo and Craig Bowden of Davis Fresh Technologies (the Food Safety Certification company) were preparing to order when they overheard a conversation at the next table. The customer asked where the spinach was grown, and said that if it came from California he didn’t want it.

That’s when it came to me. There is a crisis and it’s due to industrial agriculture.

Consumers can no longer be sure what farmer grew any particular crop. There is hardly a multi-national banana company out there with a third-party Food Safety Certification. This is because their fruit might be branded by a poor farmer barely making ends meet who is packing the bananas in a tub of river water and then driving it down to the docks. No one knows, because it all ends up under one large brand; one name. Same with lettuce and spinach grown under the large brands. Consumers don’t know the farmer.

So let me just reassure you by saying it straight out: We are the farmer who affixes that Hamakua Springs sticker. We grow every single piece of produce we sell!