Category Archives: Sustainability

Current Affairs, Peak Oil, Sustainability

Frog in the Pot

Lately I’ve been talking a lot here about how rising oil prices are worrying me, and what we’re doing at the farm in response. Today I want to back up a little bit and tell you about how I have become aware of this, and why I’m worried.

For the past few months, something has been bothering me. I’ve been feeling like a frog in a pot on the stove. As the temperature is increased a little bit at a time, he does not notice the water getting hot until he is, well, done. “Hmm, it’s getting warmer—kinda cozy. But, wait. How come bubbles are starting to rise? I’m getting outta here!”

If I were a frog I would have jumped out of the pot and landed on the floor, and I would be heading for the door by now.

What’s been bothering me is something that has become known as “Peak Oil.” It’s when the demand for oil exceeds the ability to flow enough to meet demand. And we all know that when demand exceeds supply, prices go up.

When we started planning to diversify our business five years ago, oil prices were $30 per barrel. Now, five years later, oil is more than $80 per barrel. On CNBC this morning, the business channel, they were wondering if oil will go over $84 per barrel and set another record. I heard someone on the program say that $4 per gallon gas is in our not too distant future.

Since we started our diversified agriculture five years ago, conventional wisdom has been that nothing unusual is happening. But we have noticed that the phrase “fuel adjustment” has been added to our language.

In our business, we have noticed that fertilizer, chemicals, packaging and transportation is more expensive than before. But the news says that inflation is under control and everything is all right and the stock market is at near record levels. So if everything is all right, how come fertilizer costs so much more now? And how come plastic clamshells and plastic bags cost so much? How come supplies of all types cost so much?

Lately I’ve realized that petroleum products are involved in almost every facet of our lives, though we don’t always realize it. So when prices rise, it’s easy for us to miss that it is due to a rise in petroleum prices. It’s like the frog, sitting in a pot on the stove, who doesn’t realize that the temperature is going up.

I knew that agricultural costs were steadily rising, but what raised alarm bells for me was when I complained to a lawyer friend that the rise in oil prices was affecting us in many ways. He said, “Oh yeah, and the mom-&-pop plate lunch places are suffering because the plastic containers and utensils are rising in price and they cannot easily pass the costs on.”

Right then, I realized that rising oil prices were affecting many people in many businesses. So I started reading a lot of articles about oil supply and demand. That was my wake-up call. I decided right then to “jump out of the pot of warming water.”

Frankly, there are a lot of alarmist websites about “Peak Oil,” which sell books and videos about “the end of the world as we know it,” and about how to protect oneself. Looking at some of those websites, one could easily dismiss Peak Oil as a made-up problem being touted by those who are trying to make a buck by scaring people.

But that wouldn’t be correct. “Peak Oil” is not at all merely some sort of alarmist nonsense. It is nothing more than oil prices rising higher and higher. The question is: “How will we adapt?”

A highly credible site on the subject, if you’d like to read more, is that of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO). ASPO is a “Non-profit, Non-partisan Research and Public Education Initiative to Address America’s Peak Oil Energy Challenge.”

Its board of directors is impressive, as is its advisory board, “a volunteer group of recognized experts in energy, science, geology and business,” consisting of petroleum geologists, physicists, retired government analysts and more. Here is the association’s mission statement.

Where am I going with all this? I think oil prices will continue rising steadily, and as a result, things will start to change in ways we have not yet considered. But we will adapt by car pooling, using clotheslines to dry our clothes, catching drinking water, etc.

I am mostly concerned, as prices rise, about our most basic need—the ability to feed ourselves. Before industrial agriculture we relied on the sun to provide one hundred percent of the energy to grow our food; directly for the greens, and indirectly for the animals that ate the greens. Industrial agriculture relied on cheap oil, as low as $3 per barrel, to fuel its growth. As oil prices rise, more and more of our income will go to buy food.

However, I don’t believe in the doomsday scenarios like on those alarmist sites. I believe we can absolutely influence the course of events to come.

We are lucky here, because we know that the ancient Hawaiians were able to sustain a population that was nearly the size of today’s population. We know it can be done. That knowledge, along with modern technology, should allow us to produce enough food for this entire island if we put our minds to it, and contribute to the needs of the state, as well.

We also need to engage youngsters—our next generation—at the earliest levels. We should frame the issue and pose the question to elementary school kids: “How can you help us feed Hawai‘i?” I can see them jumping on their computers and proudly pointing out different methods that people in other parts of the world use to grow food.

This is one of my missions now—to make people aware that we need to address this issue, and to show how it can be done; how all farmers, large and small, working together can make Hawai‘i self-sufficient in food once more.

We can do this!

Current Affairs, Government, Sustainability

Legislative Visitors

Last week the Hawai‘i State Legislature’s Senate Ways and Means committee visited us. This is the first year we’ve had legislative committees visit us and we were very happy to share with them our history, our philosophy, our present situation and our plans for the future.

I told them we started with no money except for a $300 limit credit card, which I worked hard to qualify for. But Dad had a chicken farm and we were able to trade chicken manure for banana keiki.

I told them something I learned as a former Army office in Vietnam—that leaving someone behind is never an option—and that I carry this forward to my relationships with our employees. We make sure that the most defenseless of our employees are looked out for. And we have profit sharing, so if the farm does good we all do well.

If we are anything, we are survivors. We always ask: “Where do we need to be five years from now?” And we start right away to position ourselves for that future.

I told them that what they were looking at was a result of decisions we made five years ago, back when a barrel of oil cost $30. We all knew then that China was growing fast and would cause oil prices to rise. So we set out to avoid petroleum-based costs as much as possible. But we had no idea oil prices would rise to $80 per barrel.

Today we are looking at Peak Oil, where the demand for oil will eventually exceed the ability to sump that oil. That means prices will rise even further. We are preparing for the possibility that oil will hit $200 per barrel in less than five years.

We doing that by building a hydro-electric plant. We are in the process of decoupling ourselves as much as we can from fossil-fuel based energy. We love and thrive on change. Adversity brings opportunity, and that makes life exciting. We love it!r 

I told them that we are a family farm and that our blog, HaHaHa, represents three generations of Ha’s working on the farm. I told them that without my mom—who, in the old days, worked late at night packing bananas so we could take the only trailer we owned and refill it the following day—we would never have made it.

I told them I was reluctant to tell them that story because it might appear that I was enslaving my mother. And yet I also told them that I had to admit I still buy Mom dumbbells, treadmills and stationery bikes so she can keep on working hard. She’s 82 years old now. We had a good laugh.They all knew that I do it for Mom’s health.

It was great to meet these people who will make the decisions that direct Hawaii’s future. It seemed like they were happy to see an organization positioning itself to be able to feed Hawaii’s people, in an environment of rising fuel prices, because it was the right thing to do. My impression was that they are very sharp and will do the right things for our future.

Sustainability

Some Responses

My commentary, entitled Hawaii Needs to Produce More of Its Own Food, was published in the Honolulu Advertiser’s Opinion section the other day. Here are some of the responses I’ve gotten:

I love it when someone dreams of something, turns it into a vision, comes up with a game plan, does the homework and research, and actually does it and it comes to fruition. The word “sustainable” will become a bigger word as time goes along. On the biggest scope, how do we all contribute to making our planet one in which our grandchildren’s children can enjoy as we do, if not better. He displays to us his efforts and thoughts on that subject very clearly.

For Hawaii to be Hawaii, rainforests, water systems, agriculture and farming need to exist on large scale percentages in relation to development. How do we keep it sustainable for it to happen, how do we help our local farmers and agriculture? To be reliant on shipping and importing produce and product into Hawaii for a majority percentage is not a “sustainable,” long term idea. If tourism is saying that visitors are seeking true “local” experiences to differentiate this from other visitor destinations, how can agriculture play a larger role? If guests want to taste a true slice of Hawaii, one way is to give them things that are from Hawaii, made in Hawaii, unique to Hawaii. – Alan Wong, Chef

Thanks for the great opinion piece in the Advertiser this morning. –  Andrew G. Hashimoto, Dean and Director, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources

In addition to your “law of comparative advantage position,” it seems to be true that Hawaii cannot compete only if:
• We do not pay attention to the real or external cost of imported goods
• It assumes that the goods are commodities, and quality is not a factor

Even before we start to figure in the advantage of the law of survival, locally grown food is the obvious best choice. – Peter Merriman, Restaurateur

Europeans have had a long standing policy of protecting the farmers.  Europeans have had many experiences of starvations and thus have felt the need to provide for themselves.  Modern economics, as you said, speaks of buying the cheapest, but what happens after we drive the farmers out by buying “cheap” foreign fruits and veggies?  – Barry Mizuno, former CEO of Puna Geothermal

There are many other factors which are positively impacted as well: Creates jobs, promotes diversity, keeps money here (local economy) and let’s not forget my favorite–the taste. I always say “from the plant to the plate.” – James Babian, Executive Chef, Orchid at Maunalani

I agree more needs to be done to promote local farmers, so Hawaii produces more of its own food supply.

I think one way this could occur is if the State of Hawaii would use its purchasing power to buy local food products.

The Hawaii Revised Statutes provides the state should give a preference to purchase local products, however the administrative rules have not implemented to assist farmers. –  Elizabeth Haws Connally, Esq., Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing

Greetings and aloha!  I read your editorial in yesterday’s paper, “Hawaii Must Produce More of its Own Food” and I totally agree with the statement you made in which you said, “The law of survival teaches us to always keep our options open.  To keep our options open, we need to produce more food locally, not less.”

I recently did some research for a college class on the ability of the food supply on Oahu to efficiently and nutritiously feed the people living on Oahu during a sustained interruption of resupply shipments.  What I discovered makes me very worried about the Hawaii State Government’s lack of insight and ability to plan for an extended interruption of food re-supply flights or shipments coming to Oahu in the event of a natural disaster, terrorist attack or political processes (Strike/Legislation).

It seems our leadership is all about planning for a hurricane which everyone can see coming and will have plenty of time to prepare for. However, they are not prepared for a quick and decisive attack, earthquake or other natural or man-made disaster which could strike in or around our islands at any time and seriously hamper or disrupt regular food/cargo shipmements or flights into the islands.

Here’s why I am so worried.  While doing my research, I contacted XX to inquire about what plans the state has to turn some of the old Pineapple ag-lands back over to local farmers so we can start growing more food.  His reply back to me is as follows:

“Since the turn of the century, we were a commercial agricultural state and these lands were never intended for self-sustenance; sugar and pineapple were grown not to sustain our population, but as income generation.”

That tells me that our political leaders are not thinking about what’s best for the people.  They’re only thinking about the bottom line… money! – John C. Williams, Hawaii resident and member of the U.S. Navy.

This article is wonderful and timely, thank you so much for sticking your neck out. – Nancy Redfeather, Organizer, Big Island Food Summit

I’m going to share this with Slow Food Hawai‘i members as soon as I return tomorrow – we have been in India for a few weeks – what an amazing experience for both of us. How fortunate we are to live in Hawaii, but how challenging and complicated survival and a good life really is. – Nancy Pi‘ianaia, Leader, Slow Food Hawaii

Sustainability

Advertiser article

Richard wrote a commentary that was published in yesterday’s Honolulu Advertiser.

The gist of it: “We must make changes so that Hawai’i produces more of its own food — making us more sustainable and less reliant on outside forces.”

Click here to read it. Comments? We’d love to know what you think.

Current Affairs, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Peak Oil 2

The United States’ Government Accountability Office (GAO) has an interesting report about peak oil concerns here.

This is a time of increasing concern over the security of our oil supplies—in particular, the fear that, after 150 years of growth, the industry is now facing what is known as “Peak Oil.” That’s the point at which the production of petroleum reaches its maximum before entering a terminal decline.

The big question right now is “When will demand permanently exceed supply?” It used to be that the year 2030 seemed a reasonable estimate. Now, more than a few people are saying it could be as soon as two years from now. Some are even saying we may have already passed the peak.

It is not a question of whether or not we have oil reserves. There is a lot of oil in the ground. It’s more a matter of whether we can replace expiring oil fields with new production in a timely manner. Many of the professionals feel that we cannot. Furthermore, oil reserves of the OPEC producers are suspect. There are indications that they don’t have the reserves they say they have. We don’t know because they won’t show us proof.

And so what will happen? Likely, prices will rise slowly and steadily as oil supplies decline. People will probably adjust their behavior and conserve. Whatever happens, it seems certain that supply will not be able to keep up with demand.

Fertilizer, packaging and other farm expenses have risen steadily over the last few years. I wonder if we have already reached “Peak Oil.” If that has occurred, there’s no better place to be than here in Hawai‘i. We are fortunate to have abundant natural resources that we can use to generate electricity. If we react in a smart way, we should be fine.

Maybe we should hedge our bets and start to position ourselves for “Peak Oil” sooner, rather than later.

Eating Locally, Food Security, Music, New York City, Sustainability

Farm Aid

Last night’s Farm Aid concert took place in New York City.

Remember Farm Aid? The first annual Farm Aid concert, organized by Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp, was in 1985. Since then, the musician Dave Matthews has also joined the board. The nonprofit organization (mission: to keep family farmers on their land) has raised more than $30 million to “promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture.”

I enjoyed this New York Times article for quotes like this one, from Willie Nelson.

For Mr. Nelson, Farm Aid’s ideals are a reminder of his childhood in Abbott, Tex. “We had organic food and didn’t know it for a long time,” he said. “It tasted great, and we only know that we grew it out in the back garden, and we had a lot of great potatoes and tomatoes and all our own vegetables. Then I left home to go on the road and I couldn’t find that food any more.”

The article goes on to say that there will be no “factory-farmed junk food” sold at the concert. All food offered at the 25,000-capacity venue will be from family farms.

“People have to take over their own food supply,” Mr. Nelson said. “They have to make sure whatever they eat is healthy and do whatever it takes to do that: shopping locally, farming locally, consuming locally.”

And I liked reading this, too, which is something we talk about here a lot:

Why New York? The city brings renewed news media attention to the long-running event, of course. Farm Aid was also invited here, said its executive director, Carolyn Mugar, by an assortment of environmentalists, politicians (including the mayor’s office) and chefs. Over the years Farm Aid has become part of what’s known as the Good Food Movement, alongside organizations working from various angles to roll back industrial farming and promote organic and sustainable food production — and consumption. While the city itself may not be farm country, it’s full of people who eat.

“Farmers are never going to survive if they don’t have as allies the people who want this good food,” Ms. Mugar said. “New York has a huge density of eaters and a density of people who are doing excellent things. There are restaurants, farmers’ markets, community-supported agriculture programs, even people who are growing food in the city and teaching people how to grow it.”

The Farm Aid website talks about how to find Good Food, as the organization defines it. Worth checking out.

Food Security, Government, Renewable Energy Sources, Sustainability

Looking to the Future

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Yesterday, the House of Representatives’ Agriculture, Economic Development & Business and its Tourism & Culture committees visited us at Hamakua Springs. First I gave them an orientation and then we took them on a tour of the farm.

The overriding theme of my orientation and tour was a look at how we are positioning ourselves for events that will happen five or more years from now. Along that line, our main topics these days are 1) food security and 2) decoupling ourselves from energy costs.

I included this note in the booklet we prepared for each member:

It will take all farmers—big and small, conventional and organic, rainy-side, dry-side, low elevation and high—to make Hawai‘i secure in its food supply.

As our contribution to the food supply, we have chosen intensive hydroponic production. From 15 acres we produce more than 2 million pounds of tomatoes. We have 600 acres, which we own. Land is not a limiting factor.

We think that the decreasing supply of fossil fuels is opening up a great opportunity for all of us here in Hawai‘i. We have the prospect of using our natural resources to generate electricity.

In our case, we are developing a hydroelectric plant. And we plan to utilize the “free” electricity we generate to replace as many internal combustion engines as possible. We could install labor-saving devices, such as conveyors. We could even install pumps for water filtration, temperature control, etc. We could probably duplicate many of the conditions at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) with our “free” electricity.

But our main stumbling block is financing. It is true that there is a 100% state tax credit for some energy projects. And it is so attractive that we know we could easily get investors who would jump at the chance to be a part of a “guaranteed” investment. But then the value would flow to the investors, not toward our goal of producing cheaper food.

Perhaps funding a state farm loan category specifically for renewable energy would work. This would, in effect, be betting that oil prices rise, making the payback of the loan safer as time passes.

As oil prices rise, renewable energy sources become more attractive and local farmers utilizing these resources would become more competitive and produce more food on less land. This is doable.

Hawai‘i’s lack of food security — our extreme dependence on imported food — may truly become a crisis as fuel prices continue to rise. But our concentration in the present on developing renewable energy sources can only pay off in the future as we both remove ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels, and ensure that Hawai‘i will always have easy access to the food we need to feed our people.

Biofuel, Current Affairs, Peak Oil, Sustainability

Peak Oil

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Lately there has been much discussion about energy security—or lack of security—and what, if anything, we can do about it. The term “peak oil” means we are at or very near the point where maximum oil production equals our oil demand. After the peak, demand will outstrip supply.

We all agree that this is true. We differ only about how bad it will be. Some people are predicting the collapse of civilization. Others think we can make the necessary adjustments.

We in Hawai‘i are especially vulnerable. In addition to the prospect of having to pay unbearable fossil fuel costs in the future, we currently import more than 70 percent of our food—a highly fossil-fuel-dependent method of taking care of the basic need of feeding ourselves.

We have abundant natural resources available to us that could help us find a solution to the “peak oil” problem. But we need to take action NOW!

Solar, hydro, wind and geothermal power are available to us on each island, in varying degrees, and they are not tied to fossil fuel costs. They can all be converted to electricity. With electricity, we can produce food and get work done. And with electric cars, we can also get from one place to another.

What about bio-diesel and ethanol?

It does not look as though farmers would work for the returns that these fuels would bring. For example, ethanol and biodiesel can be brought into Hawai‘i for approximately $2 per gallon. Presumably that is what a farmer would be paid for a gallon of bio-fuel, which weighs roughly 8 pounds.

Therefore a farmer would get approximately 25 cents/pound of liquid bio-fuel. If it took, say, two pounds of a farmer’s product to make one pound of bio-fuel, that would mean a Hawai‘i farmer would get 12.5 cents per pound for growing bio-fuel crops. Under those conditions, farmers would not grow bio-fuel crops.

We may have to be content with buying them from overseas.

Truly, the answer is that we should be focusing on our natural resources as sources of electricity. And we should focus on supporting our farmers, as well—on every island, at every elevation: windward and leeward, big and small. We need to know that we can produce the food we need here.

We can do this.

Sustainability, Water

Power Play

1 Comment

A while back we found out that we could generate 75 kilowatt-hours of electricity from a flume on our property. That’s enough electricity to power 15 refrigerated 40-foot Matson containers continuously.

Ever since then, we’ve been asking ourselves, “What does free electricity mean?” “What could we do with all that free electricity?” (Keeping in mind that we also have 6 million gallons of water per day that the sugar company had in its water system.)

We’re thinking wildly right now, and not worrying about the practicality of our ideas at this point. We just want to have fun with it. So here are some thoughts. Feel free to send us your ideas as well; we’d love to hear them.

We could have countless types and numbers of water fountains. After all, we are located just a few miles outside of Hilo, where we measure rain in feet, not inches, per year. There is approximately 10 feet of rain annually.

What about bug lights to control moths?

Could we simulate the seasons and fool plants into producing off-season? My friend Ralph, who lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, wonders if we couldn’t grow peonies. What are peonies? What about grapes? Or berries? ‘Ohelo?

And then there is the idea of aquaculture. Could we add salt and minerals to the water and simulate an ocean? Circulate the water through a filter? Or what if we grew freshwater prawns and fed them lettuce leaves or tomato leaves or bananas? The best bait is coconut. Maybe we run water from the prawn tanks through watercress beds and pump it back around?

What about taro lo‘i, where we use the same water by pumping the water back uphill and spraying it back in, oxygenating it at the same time?

Kevin Hopkins, director of the aquaculture center in Keaukaha, mentioned growing sturgeon. He asked how much free-flowing water we have. Could we install aerators?

Someone told me a funny sturgeon story recently. Sturgeons are associated with caviar. You know, the ultra, high-end caviar from the Caspian Sea. Well, a person who was growing sturgeons lost them in a flood. So when he found a few of them he knew he had to try to salvage the eggs.

He went to a high-end restaurant at one of the Kohala Coast resorts and asked the Executive Chef if he was interested in buying some caviar. The chef, assuming the man was a food purveyor, asked him where the caviar came from. He was thinking Caspian Sea.

The fish farmer replied, “Hilo.”

Comment here, or email me, with your ideas of what we should do with our free electricity!

Big Island, Sustainability

Hawaii Whole System Project

Richard recently showed me a really interesting report called The Hawaii Whole System Project.

This 84-page report, prepared by the Rocky Mountain Institute, was sponsored by the Omidyar family.

To wander away from my subject for just a moment: I was curious as to why the Omidyar family is interested in Hawai‘i and put its money into this in-depth look at agriculture on the Big Island, so I poked around the web a little.

It turns out that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar has a connection to Hawai‘i—he attended Punahou School and was recently named to its Board of Trustees. A quick Google search finds an interesting interview with him from when he was inducted into the Academy of Achievement and also that the philanthropist is one of Newsweek’s 15 People Who Make America Great.

“Business can be a force for good,” he says in that article. “You can make the world a better place and make money at the same time.” It sounds a lot like our hero Richard Ha, doesn’t it?

(You wouldn’t believe how much energy I have to expend, getting Richard to allow me to say things like that about him on his blog.)

From the report itself:

The Hawaii Whole System Project is a research and action project conducted by Rocky Mountain Institute on behalf of the Omidyar family. The Omidyar Family is pleased to sponsor this project to promote innovative, long-term planning and local self-reliance.

With the underlying assumption that local food and agriculture can be good for a community (expanded upon below), the goal of the first phase of this project, the phase contained in this document, is to understand the agricultural system on the Island of Hawaii in order to:

I. Identify the reasons why locally produced food holds such a small market share (about 85 percent of locally consumed food is imported according to several sources),

II. Define the barriers to increasing local market share and strengthening agriculture,

III. Locate leverage points that, when targeted with time or investment, could have multiple positive effects on local food and agriculture, and

IV. Identify business or non-profit opportunities that could activate these leverage points.

In order to identify the barriers to more local production and consumption, Phase I of the project focused on mapping the Hawaiian agriculture and food system. The research for Phase I consisted of gathering and studying published academic and government documents and analyzing agriculture and local food statistics from diverse sources, as well as interviewing people from up and down the food and agriculture value chain, from farmer to consumer, in order to understand the whole system, how it interacts with other systems such as energy, and how to influence it.

In Phase II, based on this preliminary research, the RMI team will analyze the feasibility of the opportunities. Finally in Phase III, the RMI team will work with The Kohala Center and other partners to bring together potential entrepreneurs and investors, as well as other people who might have an interest in local food and agriculture in order to act on the research findings.

It’s coming at us from all sides now – this interest in Hawai‘i’s sustainability and food security; this certainty that Hawai‘i doesn’t HAVE to import what the Whole System Project says is now 85 percent of its food.

In October, Richard will speak on these subjects at a food summit conference called Hawai‘i Island Food Summit: Our Food, Our Community, Our Future. It will be held October 5th and 5th at the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Hotel.

This two-day Summit will explore the visions, possibilities, ideas, and practical solutions to answering the question “How can Hawai’i Feed Itself?” We hope this conference will be a catalyst not only for changes in policy and practice at the island level, but a convening of the agricultural community to create a compelling vision for the future of food and farming across the state.

We’ll tell you more about all this as it comes up. You know we will.