Tag Archives: Family of Farms

Huffington & Omidyar Visit Hamakua Springs

By Leslie Lang, blog editor

Thursday was such an interesting day. Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, and Pierre Omidyar, founder of Honolulu’s online newspaper Civil Beat (and founder of eBay), spent some time at Hamakua Springs Country Farms.

The background is that Huffington Post and Civil Beat have teamed up to start HuffPost Hawaii (and they asked Richard to blog for the new online news organization. Here’s his first HuffPost Hawaii post, by the way.)

So this week, Arianna and Pierre were making the rounds in Hawai‘i for the big HuffPost Hawaii launch. They spent Thursday on the Big Island, where they were welcomed with a big reception at ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center.

The only other Big Island stop they made was to Richard’s farm. They had asked if they could come and meet Richard and learn about what he’s doing. So that happened Thursday afternoon, and Richard invited me to join them there.

What a completely fascinating day. There’s something about being around really smart people who are doing big and really interesting things, making things happen and making a difference. Richard is completely like that, too, as you know if you’ve been reading this blog. It’s invigorating to be around that kind of energy.

Both Arianna and Pierre are very friendly and down-to-earth, and both are interested in issues of sustainability and what Richard is doing.

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Richard told them about his background — flunking out of college the first time around and ending up in Vietnam, coming back and trading manure from his father’s chicken farm for bananas to start what eventually became Hamakua Springs Country Farms — about seeing prices start rising, rising, rising and wondering why; about attending five Peak Oil conferences and starting to learn what was happening. He talked about how he forces the changes needed to get to where he needs to be five or 10 years in the future.

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He talked about the current threat to Big Island farming from anti-GMO bills, and Pierre asked some very salient (and polite) questions about some common GMO fears, such as of:

  • Commercial control of seeds. Richard replied that in many cases, such as with, for instance, the Rainbow papaya, virus-resistant seeds are developed by the university and not controlled by any big business at all. This, he said, is often the case.
  • Cross-pollination, or “pollen drift.” Richard responded that due to numerous studies, we know how much drift there is for different crops. Farmers work together, he says, to plan what is planted where, plant so many lines of “guard rows” and it’s completely manageable.

They asked about Richard’s new hydroelectric system, and we took a dusty, bumpy country road drive out to see where the water runs through an old sugar cane flume, and then through a turbine.

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Arianna and Pierre were very interested in this, and in how, when the switch is thrown very shortly, the farm will be saving perhaps almost half of its monthly electric bill, which now averages $10-11,000.

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Pierre asked about returning excess power to the utility, and was shocked to learn that due to a technicality, Richard will not be paid for the power he feeds to HELCO. Pierre kept returning to that and said, more than once, “That’s just not right.” Richard finally replied, “Well, at least it’s not wasted.”

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Richard Ha, Arianna Huffington, Pierre Omidyar, Leslie Lang, June Ha

Richard talked about how they have converted the farm from growing mostly bananas to being a family of farms, which brings in local farmers who then have a close-to-home place to farm. This, in turn, means the farm produces a more diverse crop.

He told Arianna and Pierre about growing their current experiment growing tilapia, to learn how to add a protein component to the food they produce and also use the waste as fertilizer. Workers can fish for tilapia there and take some home for their families.

Arianna and Pierre both seemed sincerely interested. They paid close attention and asked good questions.

Richard told them about talking with Kumu Lehua Veincent, who was principal of Keaukaha Elementary School back in the early days of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) push. He told them that he asked Kumu Lehua, “What if we ask the TMT for five, full-ride scholarships to the best schools in the nation for your best students?” He told them that Kumu Lehua thought about it for a minute and then quietly asked, “And what about the rest?”

This was a turning point, explained Richard, who said that at the time he could feel his ears turning red. He told Arianna and Pierre that that phrase, What about the rest? gives him an “unfailing moral compass.”

It always brings him back to the rubbah slippah folk, he told them. The “rubbah slippah” folk are in contrast to the “shiny shoes” folk. When he explained this, Pierre looked down at his own shoes.

“I wore my shiny shoes today,” he said, “but I meant to change into my sneakers before coming to the farm.” He mentioned his shiny shoes a couple more times during the visit.

“I felt they absolutely got what I meant when I advocated for the ‘rubbah slippah’ folks,” Richard told me, “and completely support that idea.”

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Richard’s daughter Tracy had laid out a beautiful spread of Hamakua Springs produce back by the office, where there was a tent set up, and Arianna zeroed in on the longan.

“What’s this?” she said, and Tracy explained that it’s a delicious fruit. She handed one to Arianna, along with some wipes (they are juicy and messy), and Arianna loved it.

Arianna gives the impression of being very family-oriented. “At what point did you and June get married in this long process?” she asked, when Richard was explaining how he got started farming 35 years ago. (The answer: 32 years ago, and when June joined the family she took all the farm receipts out of a big banana box and straightened out the accounting.) Arianna asked Tracy if she had siblings. When she was introduced to Richard’s grandson Kapono, she looked at him, and at his parents, and asked, “Now, are you Tracy and Kimo’s son?” (Yes.)

She gave June a copy of her book, On Becoming Fearless.

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Both Arianna and Pierre are such interesting people. One of the things Richard talks about is forcing change, and that is something that both his guests are all about, too: Looking down the road and fixing things, forcing the change instead of letting things bumble along.

It is refreshing to be in the presence of such interesting thinkers and doers. Great day.

This is a video Civil Beat did with Richard recently, before Arianna and Pierre’s visit. It’s really nicely done and you get to hear a bit about some of the topics they discussed yesterday (while seeing gorgeous views of the farm).

The Wheres & Whyfors of Hamakua Springs

By Leslie Lang

The other day Richard gave some of us a tour of Hamakua Springs Country Farms in Pepe‘ekeo, and its new hydroelectric plant, and wow. I hadn’t been out to the farm for awhile, and it was so interesting to ride around the 600 acres with Richard and see all that’s going on there these days.

Most of what I realized (again) that afternoon fell into two
broad categories: That Richard really is a master of seeing the big picture, and that everything he does is related to that big picture.

Hamakua Springs, which started out growing bananas and then expanded into growing the deliciously sweet hydroponic tomatoes we all know the farm for, has other crops as well.

tomatoes.jpgThese days there are farmers leasing small plots where they are growing taro, corn, ginger and sweet potato. These farmers’ products go to the Hamakua Springs packing house and Hamakua Springs distributes them, which speaks to Richard’s goal of providing a place for local farmers to farm, wherethere is water and packing and distribution already in place.

As we drove, we saw a lot of the water that passes through his farm. There are three streams and three springs. It’s an enormous amount of water, and it’s because of all this water that he was able to develop his brand new hydroelectric system, where they are getting ready to throw the switch.

The water wasn’t running through there the day we were there because they’d had to temporarily “turn it off” – divert the water – in order to fix something, but we could see how the water from an old plantation flume now runs through the headworks and through a pipe and into the turbine, which is housed in a blue shipping container.

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This is where the electricity is generated, and I was interested to see a lone electric pole standing there next to the system. End of the line! Or start of the line, really, as that’s where the electricity from the turbine is carried to. And from there, it works its way across the electric lines stretched between new poles reaching across the land.

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He asked the children who were along with us for their ideas
about how to landscape around the hydroelectric area, and also where the water leaves the turbine to run out and rejoin the stream.

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“We could do anything here,” he said, asking for thoughts, and
we all came up with numerous ideas, some fanciful. Trees and grass? A taro lo‘i? Maybe a picnic area, or a water flume ride or a demonstration garden or fishponds?

There are interesting plans for once the hydro system is operating, including a certified kitchen where local area producers can bring their products and create value-added goods.

Other plans include having some sort of demo of sustainable
farming, and perhaps ag-tourism ativities like walking trails going through the farm, and maybe even a B&B. “The basis of all tourism,” he said, “is sustainability.”

Hamakua Springs is also experimenting with growing mushrooms
now, and looking into several other possibilities for using its free
electricity.

As we stopped and looked at the streams we kept coming
across, which ran under the old plantation roads we drove upon, Richard made an observation that I found interesting. In the Hawaiian way, the land is thought of as following the streams down from mountain to sea. In traditional ways, paths generally ran up-and-down the hill, following the shape of the ahupua‘a.

“But look at the plantation roads,” he said, and he pointed
out how they run across the land, from stream to stream. The plantation way was the opposite. Not “wrong” – just different.

Richard has plans to plant bamboo on the south sides of the
streams, which will keep the water cool and keep out invasive species.

At the farm, they continue to experiment with raising
tilapia
, which are in four blue pools next to the reservoir.

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The pools are at different heights because they are using gravity to flow the water from one pool to the next, rather than a pump. Besides it being free, this oxygenates the water as it falls into the next pool. They are not raising the fish commercially at present, but give them to their workers.

Everything that Richard does is geared toward achieving the same goal, and that is to keep his farm economically viable and sustainable.

If farmers make money, farmers will farm.

Continuing to farm means continuing to provide food for the local community, employing people locally and making it possible for local people to stay in Hawai‘i: This as opposed to people having to leave the islands, or their children having to leave the islands, in order to make a decent life for themselves.

The hydroelectric system means saving thousands per month in
electric bills, and being able to expand into other products and activities. It means the farm stays in business and provides for the surrounding community. It means people have jobs.

This is the same reason why, on a bigger scale, Richard is working to bring more geothermal into the mix on the Big Island: to decrease the stranglehold that high electricity costs have over us, so the rubbah slippah folk have breathing room, so that we all have more disposable income – which will, in turn, drive our local economy and make our islands more competitive with the rest of the world, and our standard of living higher, comparably.

When he says “rubbah slippah folk,” Richard told me, he’s always thinking first about the farm’s workers.

This, by the way, is really a great overview of how Richard describes the “big picture.” It’s a TEDx talk he did awhile back (17 minutes). Really worth a look.

It was so interesting to see firsthand what is going on at the farm right now, and hear about the plans and the wheres and whyfors. Thank you, Richard, for a really interesting and insightful afternoon.

The Renaissance of Agriculture in Hawaii

I was part of a panel discussion of the Hawaii Venture Capital Association, which presents a monthly professional meeting at the Plaza Club in Pioneer Plaza in Honolulu.

The topic was “The Renaissance of Agriculture in Hawaii.” Panel members were Darren Demaya of Kai Market at the Sheraton Hotel; Claire Sullivan of Whole Foods; Andres Albano of CB Richard Ellis; Kyle Datta of Ulupono Initiative, and myself.

Someone told me they thought the attendance at this event was exceptional. I thought, “Everyone likes to eat.”

Gubernatorial Candidate Neil Abercrombie sat with Kyle Datta and I before the event started. He told us that his style of operating is to ask the folks who know a subject to give their opinions on what should be done and how to do it. He said, I rely on you guys to get it done; you’re the experts.

At the end of this post is the speech I gave, as written. But, as always, I started winging it from the start.

I began by saying that I have the answer to the problem. After I let that sit for a few moments, I told them what it is:

“Food security is about farmers farming, and if farmers make money, farmers will farm.”

That’s all there is to it, I told them; it isn’t rocket science.

I told the group that my Ag and energy blog is called hahaha.hamakuasprings.com, and that it represents three generations of the Ha family. I told them that I just got an email from Gordon Vredenberg, my buddy from 7th grade who lives on the mainland now. He told me, “I ran across your blog, and boy, things have changed. There was a time that if someone repeated your last name twice in a row, there would be a scrap right there.” The audience laughed.

I repeated my phrase, “If the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm,” several times in my talk. I could tell it stuck.

Later, when someone asked what the future of agriculture might look like, I answered, “If the farmer…”

The audience cracked up. They knew the rest of the sentence: “…makes money, the farmer will farm.” It was a fun event.

But on a serious note, it was heartwarming to hear Darren Demaya and Claire Sullivan talk about their commitment to using locally grown produce. This helps “farmers make money.” Kyle Datta gave a high-level vision of how we are going to achieve food security.

Andres Albano presented a perspective that very few of us get to see. I didn’t know they were the ones responsible for marketing the entire C. Brewer land sale, which involved tens of thousands of acres. He described the value of the sugar infrastructure for food production, especially the water system. Of course, he is right.

After the panel discussion, people came over to talk. One person asked what I thought of large-scale, mechanized agriculture. I said that in the “new economy” it will be more important to have resiliency and redundancy, and so I prefer small- and medium-sized farming entities all over the state, instead of one giant industrial farm that might need to source foreign labor. It might cost a little more, but it will be a lot safer for all of us.

Lots of the conversation revolved around “If the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.” I said that if the discussion strays and becomes a couple of steps removed from that basic thought, no sense waste the time. People really get that.

Here’s the talk I gave:

Renaissance of Agriculture

We farm 600 fee simple acres just outside of Hilo. We have 60 workers, and our primary products used to be bananas and hydroponic vegetables. Now they include sweet potatoes, sweet corn, taro, beans, etc. and will include more things. We have deep soil, three streams and three springs, and we are putting in a hydroelectric generator soon.

We are a family operation of three generations of Has. That is why our blog is called hahaha.hamakuasprings.com. We have been farming for more than 30 years.

Several years ago, we noticed our farm input costs rising, and realized it was due to oil.  We always try to position our company 5 to 10 years in the future, so in 2007 I went to the Peak Oil Conference in Houston to learn about oil. I learned that oil is finite, that the world is using 2 to 3 times more than we were finding and at some point we were going to find that we cannot produce more and then we will start down the backside of the oil supply curve. Sooner or later, we are going to face a new economy of higher oil prices.

Based on the idea that food security involves farmers farming and if the farmers make money the farmers will farm, we set out on a two-part Ag security plan for ourselves.

On a larger scale: We are promoting geothermal, the cheapest form of electricity base power. It would give folks discretionary income, so they could support local retailers and local farmers. That effort is ongoing.

And on our farm: We decided to transform our 600-acre fee simple farm from a one-entity production model to the “Family of Farms” model.

First thing we did back in 2007 was to pass legislation authorizing a special renewable energy farm loan program. It offers 3 percent, long term financing and is what we are using to help to finance our hydro project.

In June 2008, when oil price spiked and gas prices hit their peak, some of my workers asked to borrow money for gas to come to work. That was scary and clearly unsustainable.

We immediately decided to restructure our business to be relevant to the new economy. We knew that if farmers made money, farmers would farm and we wanted to add value for our retail customers. We began to implement our Family of Farms model. We decided to bring in area farmers to help keep the land in production.

To help farmers make money we:

  • Offer low-rent land, cheap water, deep soil, and plastic covered houses to grow crops
  • If farmers made money then we could make money by distributing
  • It would give all of us economic reasons to stay together.
  • Strengthen our brand by showing citizens that we are moving toward food security, giving them reason to support our brand.
  • Add value for our retail customers, who are interested in shortening their supply lines in the new economy.

Results we hope for:

  • Match our labor needs to the community.
  • Farmers from the nearby community. They have their own houses.
  • More productivity from our lands.
  • Profitability is reason for us to stick together.
  • More and varied food calories for the community.

Also, we are working with the USDA on a larger, zero waste program for the Hamakua Coast. We are working on renewable fuel projects that are appropriately scaled:

  • Biodigester for rendering plant down the coast. End products might be fertilizer, compost, etc.
  • Heterotrophic algae oil project that would get its carbon from our and others’ waste Ag products. Residual product to be animal/fish food.

To recap:

Considering the new economy is how we became directly involved in bringing the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) to Hawai‘i. It will help us transition and prepare our people on the Big Island for the new economy.

That is also why we are so involved in sourcing cheap geothermal for electrical base power. We are sitting on the largest battery in the world. The folks on the lowest rung of the economic ladder will get their lights turned off first if we choose expensive electricity. Too often they are Hawaiians. As oil prices rise, we become relatively more competitive to the rest of the world and our standard of living will rise relative to the rest of the world. Doing this will strengthen the aloha spirit.

The Family of Farms model brings us closer to our communities, while giving area farmers the opportunity to make money – because if the farmers make money, the farmers will farm. And for our workers we are actively planting ulu, bamboo, tilapia, etc. Since we have a difficult time raising our workers’ pay, we give them food from what we grow.

In the new economy, we will need stronger communities, we need to make more friends and stay closer to our families.

Not, no can. CAN!