 Welcome to the Ruderman Roundtable. I'm State Senator Russell Ruderman from the Puna District on the Big Island and we host this every other week show talking about good government, politics and environmental issues. Today my guest is Kyle Dada. Thank you for joining me Kyle. Very good to be here Russell. Thank you. Kyle Dada is general partner of the Ulupono Initiative and is responsible for developing Ulupono Initiative's partnerships with stakeholders, policy makers and community organizations. Kyle also oversees the organization's systems thinking approach to strategy development and transformation and is a member of Ulupono's management team. Kyle in the past has been managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute and the head of US Utilities Practice and managing director of the Asian Utilities Practice for Booz Allen. Kyle received a master's degree in public and private management from the Yale School of Organization and Management as well as a master's degree in environmental science and resource economics from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Aloha and welcome to the Ruderman Roundtable. Thank you. It's great to have you here. So let's talk about the Uluponos among other things very involved in agriculture and it's a big interest of mine so let's start by talking about the state's local food goals and where we are with that and what's next do you think? Well one of our goals is to actually triple where we are and then the governor wants to double it. We'd like to get to 30% and if you look at where we're starting from we actually have a strong base in fruits and vegetables. We actually produce about 40% of those a recently good aquatic fishery but we're very very weak in the major proteins so that's your beef don't really have any commercial broiler chickens we have a small amount of eggs and your pigs and then the milk and dairy products. So you folks have been partnering with private organizations to help get that going? Yeah so the way Ulupono works is we're an investment initiative and so we're a hybrid we're both an investing group so we make investments with local companies to increase local food. We're also a venture philanthropy so we help on things like school gardens and farm to school because in part of the long-term systems thinking is you think about the younger generation and of course what they eat in school and what they'll remember when they grow older and they'll also have that relationship with the farmer at an early age which means later in their lives they'll seek that out as consumers so we think that entire process of kind of early exposure to local food and the interaction that's very important in a philanthropic sense and then at an investment level we really try to partner with our local farmers ranchers fishermen the institutions so that we're able to make them more commercially successful and supply food that's both affordable and sustainable. Very nice that's great to start with the kids because you know it's a great they're still mouth they're still influenceable and they're going to be our future of course you know it's wonderful so you're very active with the school garden programs and so as a state we've been trying to do as much as we can to double food production you mentioned your goal is to triple it how do you think the state should be directing efforts towards that goal? Great question so let's talk about the basics from a the whole system perspective because we're system investors so the foundation of agriculture is always affordable land with tenure affordable water that's accessible labor and then as kind of I think food safety becoming an important issue to help our farmers get through these hurdles so that's the basics the next level from that to make food economical and to be profitable is of course value-added processing making sure the supply chain works that's your cold storage your distribution and then the value added helps lift up the lower quality products from you know into value added products so sort of your cabbage into coleslaw your ketchup your tomatoes into ketchup so those are the elements that you have to work on. There's a number of areas where I think the state you know can help I mean clearly starting from the basics it's where we have you know state lands and different agencies making them available with the tenure and affordability we need clearly the water systems are the key to food safety the water systems the water systems you can't pass food safety if your surface water which is what's affordable has a problem right you won't downstream the farmers won't pass food safety so there's an importance for the state that controls the number of these surface water systems to look at how can we what's the most affordable water treatment approach before it gets the farmer because under the food safety regulations they're going to need a certain level if they're going to do some of the washing and processing operations on those sites. We applaud the legislature knock on wood around hopefully tomorrow there'll be a bill that will be passed to help farmers through the food safety certification hurdles which are bureaucratic and challenging that's good the state's doing some of that and then I think as we move forward and start to look at the the value added areas I think those become much more private sector endeavors ways the private sector works of other private sector groups in many ways you know KTH's really shown us the way and all the things they've done that they are to look at where our surplus is who can process how can we market and retail and to start to create a whole set of products in addition pickles to pog and but you know we'll see the same thing now I think in some of the meats that are going to come out of these various grass fed initiatives around the state and eventually fish as well. You mentioned land with tenure tell me why tenure is important to farmers? Well you know I started out in Hawaii as a farmer and my brother's still a farmer so it's a dear dear to issues to my heart and you know you can't make the investment you know you can't ask a farmer who you know these farmers wake up they wake up at like six in the morning they go to bed as sunset they work you know 12 hour day is hard and you can't ask people to make the investments in the infrastructure right they're going to put they're going to clear the fields they're going to put an irrigation system they're going to do a lot of things unless they know they've got at least you know 10 years in their property you can't grow an orchard without 20 years the trees take five years to grow and and you want all these things to happen so tenure becomes very very important for farmers to make that investment and you know the other challenge we have as you well know is there's not a lot of fee simple land that's priced at levels that I can afford so the importance of land that is publicly controlled that could be leased at affordable rates and getting sort of that to move out into the the private sector for all the farmers and ranchers that can use that is very very important I know when I talk go to some farmers I'm not a farmer myself but I go to some farmer meetings and stuff and they talk about if you don't have a long-term lease or ownership of the land then you can't get financing let's say you want to put in irrigation or processing so that's the truth that's the other side for that too right if you don't have yeah you have to clearly if you own the land you can get financing and that's going to be a subset if you have a long enough lease you can get some types of financing normally especially if you're able to put some kind of building on it which then the banks at least feel they have some collateral something happens but yes it's very important for that as well you know I'm intrigued when you talk about value added food production and how it's mostly going to be a private sector initiative are there ways that the government can help promote with some certain infrastructure or what could what could the public sector do to stimulate and support that and I'm glad you asked the city senator so so the number one thing that the Hawaii state government can do I think is actually going to be around procurement because if there's a market then the private sector will step up and meet that market and I think there's been a lot of work under Lieutenant Governor to really start to harness the Department of Education for their buying power but let's not forget hospitals schools and prisons and all three together are the buying power of the state so those longer term contracts is something where if they ask for it in the market it helps create that finance ability then you have a large you know anchor customer you know we we do have there are of course commercial spaces that are also just like land are also available for lease I don't necessarily think the economics require tax credits or those kinds of things it's not that kind of an ask there is I think there one area where there's a gap and it really is a probably going to be some form public-private partnership is if you look at the cold chain and the cold chain is so important because when a farmer in a tropical place like Hawaii harvests their crops it's very hot as the crops will start to wilt immediately and they need to have find a place to have that cold the crops preserve so that's to stay cold so it has to be a closed cold chain followed by when you get to the harbors and you want to move it from a neighbor island to Oahu where the market really is you also need obviously cold storage near the harbors and there's a lot there's a real scarcity of cold storage near the harbors and that whole question of the cold chain and where are the hot spots where we would if we put in infrastructure that would make a difference and the government has helped in our own begotten in Waimea you know the Waimea cooling plant is a good example where money's been put out to help them improve the efficiency of that plant because of course cold is expensive when you think about the energy costs so but the major infrastructure issue would be for processing would be the cold chain that's a good role it's a good public product role for government to play okay and tell me I have this idea I'm a grocer as you know and I watch us import so much beverages from the mainland and it seems to me we could have a much more a much more robust beverage manufacturing industry here if we could solve the container situation in other words my idea is to let's do recycle glass here in Hawaii and have glass bottles of maybe a few different sizes available that people could could then manufacture because it's almost prohibitive to import empty glass containers to Hawaii and then make a product that we profit more you think the government might have some role to play in that or is that too far down the road they might I think you might be able to see that vision happen in plastics a little earlier only because the economics of taking plastics and reusing them and having that sort of bottling extruding is a little less of a capital hurdle than trying to put in glass recycling just a different kind of capital hurdles to do that although the glass rewashing is something which is much less off so depending on the bottles you bring in having them recycle in certain product lines would could actually work well but you're actually right on the beverages I mean shipping water of course is just a crime when you actually have very water and we actually a lot of the things that we want to drink whether it be iced teas or various things are things that we are farmers can grow here right as additional crops that create value to them beyond the food crops and those specialty crops are are very helpful to the farmers in terms of using all their lands so I think there's a there's definitely a business model there and there might be some things that government can do to help in terms of supporting some of the some of the feasibility work around those kind of industries because we have a good history of building up some industries like that and you know as a Hawaii we tried to build we tried to bring in various industries there's a role I think when industries are starting and then after that the private sector should take its Kuliana and take the risk and do that. So how can the public stakeholders take on a larger role in our and developing our agriculture? Well I think that's a great question I mean the the number one thing is really what you buy no one regulates not like alternative energy where you sort of regulate how many electrons are in the public system I don't know the main system and of course you have a choice of putting solar on your roof no one's forcing you to go eat that particular food so you know where you shop what you buy and every I don't think the public understands how much retailers pay attention to this they they really see they really watch the trends they're very very sophisticated now and if they see the public supporting a new product especially when new products are launched because it's such a scary time you know we worked at Parker Ranch and launched grass-fed beef at Safeway the Paniola brand and having that surge of consumers show up at these Target stores and buy the product be very happy to product come back and tell their friends to buy more those the beginnings really give retailers confidence to create more shelf space and it's a wonderful as you know you're a grocer it's a wonderful self-reinforcing thing where the public shows up to support new products local products everyone's making profit you get more and they're more comfortable doing that and that this sort of builds scale on the chain so that's the number one thing to do this the other second is I you know it is actually you know elections do matter they really do and it's not just the national level I think they're I think it's important to all the way down the county council really make sure that there's public participation in the democratic process where local food is part of the agenda item not just because you care about your kids because all of us care about our kids we want them to eat healthier and it really will help them eat healthier to help solve a lot of population morbidity problems but also because you care about your neighbor and you want the economy to grow and she think about it like look at the county we both live in the big island you know if you could create jobs in Kahu and Puna in Hamakua what happens then all those people don't commute to Hilo they don't commute to you know Kona Kohala that's ours their day and they're part of their community they really rebuild those communities so there's a tremendous importance in making this an important items that the elected official say you know that's important because it goes back to even though I think we've had some great successes I mean obviously the number one thing the government can do is fully fund the Department of Agriculture and that's you know it gets a tiny tiny portion of the state budget in part because although we aspire for local food we want to eat it we don't necessarily realize how important it is to make our elected officials aware of that importance so that and to fully fund so that it can in fact do its job very good points Kyle thank you we're going to take a brief break and we'll be back I'm here with Kyle Dada of Ulupono initiative we'll be back at the Ruderbin Roundtable in just a minute Aloha this is your host Beatrice Contelmo come and join us every Friday at four o'clock on Perspectives of Global Justice I'm Jay Fidel host of life after statehood and I do this with our regular contributor Ray Tsuchiyama and we tried to make sense of all that has happened in Hawaii all that is happening and all that should happen Ray what do you think of that show I feel delighted to be part of life after statehood since after 59 so many things happened to the state of Hawaii yet things could have gone in other directions and that's what I'm fascinated about that Hawaii has had a great history but could have an even greater future there you go I believe that I'm with you all the way Ray Tsuchiyama and me Jay Fidel we do it as much as we can on life after statehood come around and see what we have to say thanks Aloha and welcome back to the Ruderbin Roundtable I'm Senator Russell Ruderman I'm here with Kyle Dada of the Ulupono initiative we're talking about food issues so far and I wanted to follow over one thing you were just saying Kyle that you one of the crucial elements of how the public can support local foods is to buy local foods and vote with their dollars and support the do you think people are willing to pay perhaps a little bit more or go out of their way to support local foods and what could we do to make that a bigger factor well you know it's a great question and for those of you who know Ulupono you know where we always try to be very objective and so we want to understand that exact question so even before we launched we commissioned OnoTrack to do a survey of consumers understand their preferences and then read the survey five years later so there's some interesting facts which is available on our website about customer preferences so there's no question that across all the different ethnic groups local food is desired there's also no question that those people that are more educated have higher income more disposable income out there for tend to not only be willing to pay more for local food but also shop at different channels they actually shop in different places and seek out that experience and they understand it's health benefits and are aware of that for a great deal the population that shops in either your traditional local retail stores or in the big box stores with the cost goes to Walmart those kinds of things they would love to have local food if it could be at parity and same price same price okay and you actually have to have quality and consistency it's got us for a show each week you can't sort of can't be the red light special and disappear but so but that gives us a lot of hope and because of that knowledge when we make an investment in Lupono and local food our goal is always to hit that mass market so we've invested in Pond Loyola County company we knew that you know the filet mignon's and tenderloins might go to Alan Wong's or other places like that and sure enough they did but we also knew that the hamburger which is actually what a lot of people eat lambry would be priced at a point that everyone could afford and and if we did that and we had good quality consistency that in fact would fly off the shelves exactly what it's doing so it's very important that we recognize consumers in different segments but yes all of them want local food it's just different affordability levels and also it's got to be available where they shop it's commendable of you to take into account the ordinary person if I might say and the order and market because because those are the folks we have to reach to make a serious choice and it's right there for those of you look on our websites it's the first thing in our mission statement we are here to improve the quality of life of the people of Hawaii that means everybody wonderful and that's important now I know among the other among the several partnerships you have you've been working to develop help develop some dairy farms which leads us to the very first question live from our audience that Ruderman Roundtable has had we have a question from our audience why not put dairy farms on the old Maui cane lands where they're growing feed for dairy cows and this question comes from a viewer Tom Bartlett so how about that why not put dairy farms there on the A and B land I think he's talking about well I think it's it's certainly one of the places that that dairies can go as you know there's there's two dairies that survived on the big island wanted a relatively higher elevation which is better for cows wanted a very low elevation where it was it survived but it's not a great place for cows cows cows are lactating mothers they get hot and they don't like to heat up just one of those I did not know that so in in terms of uh and this so there's certain places and Maui that are on the former ACS lands that where there's a good belt of property right around the cooler area that sort of thing that is actually ideal for for dairy cows there's probably spots in every county you know the chart we chose in kawaii had a was extremely good because of the both the way the airflow worked but it uh had a it's a very very good place for growing grass because one of the issues the recent dairies went out of business you know we used to have all the milk we needed right and it was in our lifelines when we were kids we had all the milk in fact you know people used to go down big island mahalaya dairy right the galimbas used to run that uh so you know the uh so what happened we relied on imported feeds and so what happened in sort of when the prices spiked up because of energy and speculators all those guys went out of business and they never came back and we can't rely on imported feeds we have to find a way to you know use our natural productivity and the other thing was important which i didn't get to is uh the importance of soil regeneration you know a hundred years of plantation agriculture has actually turned the soils underneath those grasses and hdns is a good example of this into deserts they're actually biological deserts uh so one of the great things about animals is they're part of the natural ecosystem right as you look at the work of the savoury institute animals are what regenerates the grasslands so the actual grazing of animals tends to actually regenerate the soils that's the whole essence of regenerative agriculture along with organic methods of composting and other way of regenerating soils but so part of our solutions as we think about uh agriculture is how do we do affordable sustainable agriculture and regenerate and regenerate regenerate the soils at the same time so the grass fed cattle is is doing grass fed cattle is one of the ways you can do it whether it's dairies or whether it's beef they do the same thing so to answer the viewer's questions there are some of the lands on marae that could potentially be part of it but a lot of it has to do with elevation and elevation and also being flat you have to find cows don't like to walk up and down hills they're just like me here okay so we just we mentioned a couple of things that you do but can you give us some other examples of uh illustrate what lupano is doing yeah and we would we would think about it as sort of how does this idea of investing across a whole system work so as i said before you say well where's the gap well there's a there's a big gap in the animal side of what we eat and we need to have proteins so how do we solve that gap and there's animals that eat grass so we have two grass fed initiatives you know one upon a little cattle for a joint venture parker ranch that's going very very well it's in safe way it's delicious i want to go try it out uh but we we strove for quality consistency and affordability with that and really had to do the work to help bring up the food safety of the whole supply chain so that it could even qualify for safety now ultimately cost go for animals but what about the other animals well the other animals that don't eat grass have to have a feed so we joined in a public private partnership with the department of agriculture the usda uh and uh oceanic institute hawaii pacific university to put a uh a free feed mill in uh helo which is under construction should be up and operational and that's designed to research uh local feeds but at a scale that's essentially at commercial scale so that you can do full-scale trials not little research trials in a lab but full-scale trials that's where our extra money came in to lift that group up so we can do the full scale and that will open the door to all the different local feeds where they end up from ulu or cassava both good starches could be corn uh there's a number of of starches we have great uh proteins from some of the waste the fisheries wastes as you know there's a one of the bills that hopefully will be approved tomorrow will provide some funding for that from the government public product partnership uh but also the algae farms and and kona also have proteins we put proteins together with energy sources carbohydrates you pretty much get a feed and you add the sort of the vitamins for the life cycle so uh we're an investor in that as part of our venture philanthropy efforts and those two together where is that feed mill going to be on the big island where is it it's at the university of helo uh campus in uh in sin helo oh i see just outside yeah okay one yeah so we we have that we're also investors uh back to proteins again of course aquaculture is a good way to do it so we're investors in kona compagny to help scale them up so they can be profitable that's right outside of uh kona and then there's a number of things we do on the the farming sector and we've done a number of elements to try to help our smaller farmers which are so important create virtual scale so all because individually they're such great entrepreneurs but sometimes you have to band together around distribution around food safety around things like that so strengthening all those communities to help them create that virtual scale that keeps them in the market but then also eventually will lower their price and let even more people get access to their food so and so all of those things together are sort of how we view the ecosystem and then lastly uh we can't forget the people uh you know farmers are actually business people and so of course training them is very important so we partnered with kamehameha schools the university of hawaii around the whole goat farm initiative with steven shang and that helps train farmers to not just be great horticulturalists of course but also good entrepreneurs so they can be in business so we try to look at the sweet of things that can help and briefly because we only have another minute or so let's what are some of the lessons learned from these endeavors what have you learned positive and negative well i think we learned that on the positive side uh partnering collaboration are absolutely the best way to go i think if you look at all of our projects where we partner with local companies local communities it's really kind of worked out well i think we've also learned that you know there's there's starting to be in our state uh i think some of the polarization that you see on the mainland is happening here and so you're getting great great polarization between what i would call the resort urban communities and agriculture where even though these lands were reclassified uh you're uh you're getting pushback from those communities to have agriculture your neighbors and whether you're seeing in our daring kawaii but you're also seeing it in oahu in the central valley as well as uh parts of uh the eastern side of oahu you're seeing it in maui so there's a there's a new set of actors a new dialogue that needs to happen where the the people that are living part of the agriculture really have to express their voices so they're really heard and become more of a part of the public process but of course they're working six again to six pio so we have to make sure the public process gives them space to do that very good that's very that's very insightful i never thought about that in those terms tell me if people want to learn more about ulupano initiative where can they find you so we have a website uh www ulupano.com uh if you have interest or or things that you want to share with us is also into at ulupano.com and then you know we're frequent speakers at a lot of the agricultural events we're honestly supporters of farmers union farmers bureau cattle association aquaculture association we really do believe in supporting all forms of agriculture it goes back to the collaboration discussion we had earlier wonderful you know i thought i knew a little bit about ulupano and honestly i learned today that i only saw the tip of the iceberg you guys do a lot more than i realized and i thank you for doing that it's exactly what we need in this place thank you for being our partner and being supportive of agriculture in your whole career well everything you've done yeah so i'm here with kyle data the managing director general partner of ulupano initiative and also a wonderful guitar player if i may add and we're here on the ruderman round table where we're here every every other tuesday on think tech kawaii thank you for joining us we'll see you again soon