 To think tech Hawaii's Hawaii Food and Farmer Series, my name is Stephanie Mock and I will be your host today, filling in for Pumai. We have a very exciting show, what I think is an exciting show, called The Numbers Behind the Food, Agricultural Statistics in Hawaii, with a very special guest who I know very well, Kathy King. So most people don't think about statistics day to day, but for Kathy King, it's her job and her passion. And even though it's probably going to pain her to hear this, I have never taken a statistics class in my life. So I think it's a great opportunity for her to showcase to me, but to our audience as well, about why agricultural statistics in specific is so important to Hawaii's food and farmers and our local food supply. So I invited Kathy King to kind of explain the story behind the numbers and show the numbers behind the food. You know, these statistics do everything for market prices, to helping our farmers know more about the economy and how they can make smart choices for Hawaii and their businesses. So I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Kathy King. Hi, Kathy. Hi. Is this your first time on Think Tech Hawaii? It is. Welcome. I know you are awed by the fabulous studio we have here, right? Yes. It's very beautiful. It is. I know we have this beautiful landscape behind us. Yes. It's so nice. Yeah. So, you know, in your introduction, I apologize, I didn't actually say what your role was. So you are the state statistician for Hawaii with the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, say that three times fast, also known as USDA NAS, so we'll call it NAS today, right? Yeah, NAS is much easier. Okay. And so, yeah, NAS, we'll call that NAS. So, you know, NAS, obviously, National Agricultural Statistics Service, but what is that? Agricultural statistics are, we collect data from farmers themselves about acreage, about production in pounds or tons, and prices. That data is then given out to the public for free. It's used by companies, it's used by legislators, it's used by local authorities. It helps to give a good picture of Hawaiian agriculture. Nice. So, you know, you're with USDA NAS. Have you, how long have you been working with them? I've been with USDA NAS for 16 years. 16 years, yes. So, prior to that, were you also doing agricultural statistics, or were you in a completely different field? I was completely different. I actually spent 20 years working in clerical jobs. Oh, okay. And then I decided I wanted to go back to college, and I went back to college, and I took one of the hardest majors, probably, statistics. Actually, I did not major in statistics. I majored in, and this is going to be funny, I majored in equine science. What? Which, of course, is horses. Yes. Agriculture. Yes. What I wanted to do when I first graduated high school, and my parents said, no, you can't do that. You'll never get a job. Yes. You're playing with horses. Oh, yeah. It was great. Yeah. So, you talked about, you have this background in horses and equine, equestrian and stuff. So where are you from originally? I was born and raised in Missouri. Okay. When I was eight years old, we moved from St. Louis, the city, to the country. And we had, my grandfather had a farm, and my dad had a farm. Neither one of them were real production farms. We didn't really sell anything off the land. We had horses and cattle, and we had hogs and goats, and ducks and geese, and all kinds of things. And I just absolutely love growing up in the country. It gives you so much freedom, you know? But so that's where I was really developed my interest in agriculture. And as a consequence, I want to support farmers in any way I can. And this job helps me do that. So you have this history with agriculture, right? And I know you studied equine science. Equine science. Did you ever think of becoming a rancher or a farmer, or are you like, no, just horses? Oh, no, I've always, actually I've always wanted to have a cattle ranch with some horses, and unfortunately it takes money. Yeah. This is very true. I don't think a lot of people know that. People have the dream of the farm, not knowing the capital that's required for the initial investment. So yeah, so you were talking a little bit about some of those examples of agricultural statistics. So you know, acreage that's in production, pounds produced, and top commodities. I think we have a chart here that shows top commodities in Hawaii. And I'd like you to, you know, kind of take us maybe through the first couple. Sure. What are we looking at? So as you can tell, these are top 20 commodities by the value of production. Okay. So it's not acreage. It's not, you know, anything else. Just money. It's just the value. Okay. As you can see, seed crops kind of ranks number one, but that's not really, well, we value the seed crops by the budget that they spend here in Hawaii because they don't actually sell their commodity. Okay. However, as you can see, coffee was worth 48 million, or almost 49 million. Sugarcane, now gone. Remember, this is 2016. I know. I'm like, I've been surprised by that. Okay. Yeah. And then cattle is the next big one. McNuts. Aquaculture has become very big because of the algae producers. Oh, okay. It's a really large market. And then, you know, our floor culture and some of our fruits and vegetables. Yeah. It's interesting to me how, you know, rank two through seven are all pretty similar value of production. I didn't think it would be as an equitable distribution as it is. So, and, you know, people think Hawaii papayas, for me, seeing it at number nine, that's, you know, people think coffee and sugar, right? But papayas are definitely in the mindset of what Hawaii is known for, agriculture-ly. Yes. Well, they're still a huge part of the agricultural supply here in terms of value of production, they're ninth in the state. Yes. Yeah, that's right. We have, you know, and it surprises people. I was talking to, I was talking to a farmer at a workshop one day, and he was telling me that he doesn't like to, doesn't like to respond to our surveys. Okay. And he said, so if you go out and you look, you know, our top export is airplane parts. And you know, it was like, okay, I said, but do you realize that vegetables just by themselves are worth 48 million in the state? Oh. Oh. No, I didn't know that. Yeah. And so it surprises people when they find out actually how much money is involved in agriculture. And so it's, I enjoy being able to bring things up like that and make people know, yes, we have an agriculture commodity here. You would be great for like pub trivia with just an agricultural theme of like, did you know vegetables are 48 million, 48 million dollars. Yeah, that's wonderful. So that was some, that was some information that NAS collected for 2016 and they provided that report. And then there, there does seem to be a relationship with the Aloha Plus Challenge. So you were talking a lot about, you know, companies and other government entities and stuff like that. Use the information that you have provided publicly, the reports. I will talk a little bit more about farmer privacy later, but they'll use that information, those public national reports to kind of show market trends or to, you know, inform the public basically. So, you know, we have another graph here that is provided by Aloha Plus that used the NAS survey results. It shows the pounds produced in 2016. So I thought maybe you, you know, I do love graphs, but when I think I'm just so out of school now that I'm like, someone explain this graph to me. I have just the expert here. Kathy, if you could please tell me and explain and give me the story, the numbers behind the food of what's going on here. So the thing that sticks out to me on this graph is the milk bar. Right. So that's the tallest one there. Who knew that we produced 35 million pounds of milk here. That seems unusual. It's so crazy. I work in agriculture, right? I work for an agriculture nonprofit, Oahu R-C-N-D, who works with farmers all the time. And I would not say the trend is dairy, just to think in production. You know, for me, I think diversified row crops or papayas. So milk, obviously the most amount, pounds of locally produced, yeah. And then next, our favorite, papayas. We produce a lot of papayas, that's 20 million pounds. That's in 2016. The reason they're so far down on the value chart is they don't get a whole lot per pound. Because a lot of the papayas are used for processing, as opposed to fresh market eating, which gives you a lower price. And then the third one, the very one at the end is red meat production, which of course goes back to the cattle. But you know, it's kind of funny looking at the table of commodities and then this graph. And it looks like, you know, it kind of looks almost backwards. It does. Yes. You're right. And avocados are so low. Yes. You know. And I know there's been a huge push locally to increase production of kalo or taro. And so right now it's about 3 million pounds, actually. And I think as the years go on and more lowly open up, I think that production will increase. But like I said, the numbers behind the food, like people do not think milk would be the highest amount of pounds produced in 2016. And so yeah, thank you so much for, you know, collecting that data. I'm a numbers nerd. So yeah, I love numbers. Yeah, definitely. You're a numbers nerd, but you also can speak about the numbers, which is why I think you're so important in the agricultural scene. You know, a lot of farms, maybe, you know, we talk about this a lot on our show. Farmers are businessmen, businesswomen, they are environmental stewards, they're trying to determine markets, they're trying to come up with recipes that use their goods and stuff like that. And sometimes they can get blinders on and I know what this farm is doing, but you're able to kind of work with farmers and collect that necessary data to take that broader perspective, you know. So okay, yes, papayas are so many pounds this year, but maybe a disease is coming and it's going to knock out what is that value going to be to Hawaii's economy and how's that going to affect local jobs and, you know, the tourism sector, the tourism sector especially has been a huge push to provide more local food, right? Yes. Yes. You know, if one crop gets completely wiped out, how is that going to affect the restaurants that rely on those farms? So yeah, so, you know, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to take a quick break soon. We're just going to be talking more about your role in how you collect this information and then we're going to talk about the big thing, the 2017 Census of Agriculture. Census of Agriculture. Census of Agriculture. Right, exactly. So everyone's probably terrified now watching, but that's okay. The Census of Agriculture, you're going to talk more about why it's so important, what it is and how can the audience help support you in collecting this data that not only helps farmers but our local businesses and Hawaii's economy in general. That's correct. Yes. Yes, it's very important. It's very important. So thank you for spending time today. Well, thanks for having me here. I appreciate it. We have been joined with Kathy King, the state statistician from the USDA NASS. The first half of our show talked about her background in agriculture growing up in Missouri and being surrounded by horses, her love, her new love, and her job as well as statistics though, but definitely collecting agricultural statistics to help Hawaii learn more and get a broader perspective of what Hawaii's agricultural scene is like and what it's going to look like in the years to come. We'll be right back. He's a service dog. Well, I could get a vest too. You're not even a service dog. He's trained to assist his owner. Well, I can do whatever he can do. Wow. Did he just open the door? Yep. Oh, I can't do that. I can't do that either. He's trained for over two years to become a service dog. Man, I wish I could be a service dog. Back everyone. The first half of our show featured Kathy King and we're going to be featuring her for the second half. You get one guest for the whole show. It's going to be a great show. She was talking to us about agricultural statistics in Hawaii, the numbers behind the food, right? She's giving us an idea of what she does day to day, crunchy numbers so we can get that bigger story about Hawaii's food supply and our agricultural system. So the first half of our show, we talked about what are agricultural statistics, very basic information, why it's important. But now we're going to be talking about a huge project that USDA NAS is focusing on that only happens every five years and it's really important for farmers not only in Hawaii but nationally. It's called the 2017 Census of Agriculture and Kathy King, our state statistician, excuse me, is going to explain just what that is and how you, the audience, can help her collect this really important data for us all. All right, Kathy, we are going to jump into it. I forgot during the break to bring up our nice display. And I'm sure I'm going to put it in the wrong spot and they're going to get mad at me but that's okay. All right. Whatever. There we go. So the 2017 Census of Agriculture. What is it? It is, actually the Census of Agriculture has been going on since, let's see, 1890? Oh my goodness. Something like that, it's been going on for a long time. We do the Census every five years, as you said. But the reason why it's so important, especially now, is because it's for the way NASA's set up now. This is our only source of county numbers. So for those people who are doing grants, this is going to be the only source of county value of agriculture, how many acres in a certain crop. Whether it's demographics in that county, and of course demographics are used not just in agriculture, but all through the society, it's, like I said, we collect it once every five years. It's a big survey. It's 24 pages. And so it's difficult. I've talked to some farmers who are like, I can't do it, you know, it's just too much, it's too much. But I want to say, for the farmers, that if you have problems, I am here in Honolulu. You can call me anytime. But so the— Is it a snapshot in time, or is it to show what they've been doing all of 2017, or what they've been doing the last five years? It's actually what they've been doing for 2017. Okay. It collects one year's worth of data. So some of the estimates or some of the data points are going to be a shot in time, because we ask for inventory of cattle as of December 31. We ask for inventory of poultry as of December 31, pigs. But otherwise, it's going to be, you know, how much did you produce, and how much money did you make from what you produced? Because the value of production is really important for the state. And the reason is we're a small state, as you all know. Our agriculture is, I think, you know, I said earlier that it's more valuable than what you think, but we're still small. The census of agriculture data goes into determining how much money we get from the federal government for grants, for research, funding for CTAR, funding for some of the NGOs. And if—one of my goals when I got here four years ago was to make sure that people knew Hawaii has agriculture and it's worth something. And so that's my goal. And so the census of agriculture helps me to bring that, because it's a survey for every farmer in the state. And I have some people saying, well, I'm not really a farmer. Now, I don't sell anything. I'm not really a farmer. But according to NASA and according to the USDA and according to Congress, you are a farmer if you have $1,000 worth of sales during the year, or if you have the potential to have sales of the $1,000 during the year. So it's not a very big criteria. Yeah, it's not very strict. It's not very strict. And so I—and so that's what I do, is I talk to people, it's like, no, that's—it's okay. You know, yes, you are a farmer. Please fill out the census. Yeah, I think it's—you know, you're talking about that kind of funding that's available for Hawaii, both state and federally, and these statistics are that mathematical language that the mainland understands. Yes. You know, on our show a lot, we talk about all the kind of like microclimates of agriculture that we have here, and it is a great story and it's very colorful, but people in D.C. may not understand that, especially if you've never been to Hawaii. Correct. So I think speaking the language of numbers and kind of showing those numbers is a way to reach an audience that maybe wasn't aware of Hawaii's impact, but also the diversified agriculture that we have here. Yes. So, you know, you work with farmers, I know, but I thought we could just play a quick PSA by USDA that has farmers explaining why it's so important to participate in the census. I love that idea. All right. It really helps business better invest in agriculture. It's important because it's the official, if you will, or federal governments, numbers keeping of growers across the country. If farmers do not respond to NASA's request for data, then we're going to be flying by these pseudo-pans. If you're not counted, then you're not considered. If you don't participate, then we don't know you're there. If we do not get counted accurately, the decision makers, the policy makers, Congress isn't going to have the right information to put together the programs that best serve our farm industry. One of the reasons is because we need to make sure that we find the producers who are out in those areas who, again, who are the wives we met, who would go unnoticed or underserved. It helps to better understand the number of producers out there in Indian country and in all minority groups. It's really hard for us to advocate for young farmers if we don't have the data. If the general public and if the legislators and if the politicians don't know you're there, they can't target programs to you. The more knowledge there is of their presence, the more groups such as mine will be able to work with them. It can impact consumers' perceptions of who's involved and we need to be able to tell our story and tell it accurately. It's important for minority farmers, people of color, to participate in the ag census because it's reflective of what is really out there in the community. Having the good data starts with the farmers filling out the information in the first place. We have to know what's going on in our farms and ranches today and, you know, we are private people but unless we share some things, we'll never get better. So we just saw that PSA from USDA of farmers talking about why it's so important to participate in the 2017 census of agriculture and, you know, we heard from these strong farmer voices, but we also have another strong farmer voice or, excuse me, a statistician voice with Kathy King who kind of is introducing us to this agricultural census because I've never, obviously I'm not a farmer, but I wasn't even working in agriculture in 2012. For me, this is my first time kind of, you know, navigating the landscape of no farmers, please do this. It's so important and, you know, they're talking about why it's so important for funding and I think, especially in terms of California, like you said, Hawaii is very small. So when people think numbers, they're not thinking Hawaii, but, you know, the more data that we collect, the bigger picture we can show and the bigger impact that Hawaii can have in terms of not only helping fund funding for its farmers, but also just kind of being a stronger agricultural voice. That's right, right. So, you know, we keep talking about the census, right? But how can I do the census? You know, say I am a farmer, I made $2,000, so I qualify in 2017 for the census. How do I fill this census out? Where is it? Well, hopefully we have you on our list. Okay. That sounds scary. Maybe expand on that a little bit. So we do web scraping to look for farmers. We look at other public records to look for farmers and if we find a farmer, somebody that we think is a farmer, we'll send out a kind of like an exploratory survey, just a really quick, really general question. Are you a farmer? Yeah, and it's like, how many acres do you have? What do you grow? When we receive that back, we will make you an active farmer on our list. Okay. And if you are an active farmer on our list, you will receive a census when it's time to send them out. If you are a new farmer and you didn't get a census and you were operating in 2017, you can actually call us and we'll send you a census of agriculture. So you're sending a paper copy, right? Paper copy. Is there a way people can do it online? Perhaps. Yes. As a matter of fact, we have developed a new online system for doing the census and it's 21st century. Yes. You went from 1890 census to online and the online census now. And I think we have a short video that kind of explains that platform. Let's play that now. So that's a live time version, right? It takes 10, 20 seconds to finish the entire census, right? Not quite. Not quite. It is a long survey. It's 24 pages long. It goes into your expenses and everything that you raised and everything that you sold. But it is really important. Without that data and without complete data, we can't be assured that we're reporting the right numbers. Because our numbers, the accuracy of our numbers depends on farmers reporting them. Right. And so we really encourage the farmers to get that census out if they've still got it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. You know, obviously we've talked about why agricultural statistics are important, what they are, especially why they're important here in Hawaii. We are not the mainland. We are a small island, a small acreage compared to the mainland. But coming here and explaining the story or the numbers behind the food, thank you so much. Well, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. All right. So you heard, if you're a farmer and you're not filling out this census, you're going to be on Kathy King's naughty list. It's very important. It's a personal plea of mine. Please fill out this census, the 2017 Census of Agriculture. It really helps Hawaii in terms of funding for farmers, whether that's for equipment, for new land, et cetera, a bunch of things. So the more data that we show, and don't worry, all your information is private. They are, what is it, FOIA? We are exempt from FOIA. Exempt from FOIA. So please check out 2017 Census of Agriculture. If you have questions, call Kathy King at USDA NAS. We'll join you next time on Hawaii Food and Farmers. Thanks.