 Aloha and welcome to Hawaii Food and Farmers Series. My name is Justine Espiritu, I'm your co-host for today. Every week we bring on farmers or folks in the community, organizations and individuals that are supporting those farmers or contributing to a vibrant food system and agriculture community here on Oahu as well as Outer Island. Today I have a special co-host with me, thanks for joining me today. This is Kristin Jameson, thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me on. My name is Kristin Jameson, I'm a recent graduate of CTAR, the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, and I'm now employed with SmartYields, a really exciting agricultural data science company that's helping to build an app to help farmers optimize labor and pest and plant management through record keeping and data monitoring. So Kristin's got a thorough background in agriculture and working with farmers, so. And you have agreed to co-host for me, well-mean Maddie Jay, or out and about for the next two weeks, is that right? Yes, now that I've committed on and live. Awesome, great, so thanks for joining me today. We have a special guest today as well, Hector Balansuela, who is a professor as well as an extension specialist at the CTAR program at the University of Hawaii. I'm really excited to kind of hear about the, what really the role is of an extension agent, how that compares and how you can even balance that with being a professor, what that relationship is between the university and farmers, and getting to know some of your passion in your research and the work that you do in the community, in the university and just kind of learn how that whole interaction is. So thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks a lot, Justine, and good to see you, Kristin. Thank you for hosting these shows over the past years, and also thanks to Think Tech for having this show about agriculture in Hawaii. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, it's great to have this space and just bring in all the different faces and get the background and hear what's going on and hear positive stories and hear how we move forward and what that vision kind of looks like. So yeah, let's start, if you can just kind of give us a background on what the extension agent program is, we learned that this is actually a creation in the U.S. that's now replicated kind of worldwide, so if you can kind of give us some more information about that to start us off. So the extension program at UH, at UH Manoa, is part of the Cooperative Extension service, and nationally it's part of the Land-Grant University. So the Land-Grant University was created in the late 1800s in each one university in each state to support local family farms in the state. And over the years it became a really good example globally about extension systems, assistant farmers, and the magic about it was a close interaction with researchers and instructions at the university's level to develop pertinent information that would be useful for the local farm. So we kind of became like an example to the world. And at the university we have different faculty or professors with different responsibilities. Some have a research responsibility, so they are in the laboratory doing research. Some have an instruction for teaching students, and then others have an extension responsibility. Sometimes it's divided by percentages. The faculty with extension responsibility at the state level are called specialists, so we have specialists for fruit crops, one for vegetable crops, and the specialist develops educational programs at the state level for issues that might be important for the coffee industry or the tomato growers or the organic growers. And within each individual island we have extension agents that are also faculty members, but they are based on the islands and they interact on a more daily basis with farmers. So they are the ones that would visit farmers on a daily basis and stay in touch with them. And when a problem shows up, oh, how to deal with this aphid or with this new disease, then they can reach out to the university, to the specialist or the researchers and try to solve these larger issues. So it is a really great system, but today it is meeting a lot of challenges as societies have all been. There's a lot of new needs, a lot of rural issues, home resource issues, human resources. So it's an evolving system and it is meeting a lot of new challenges as the system develops and grows. Okay. And what kind of attracted you to this position, if you want to give a little bit of your background of what you studied or what your degree is in and why this position is attractive? So I'm originally from Latin America and the economy in Latin America is based on agriculture, that was kind of, I was focused on to learn more about agriculture and become involved in the industry and I went to study in Washington State, which is a big act school and it was kind of too cold for a while, so I moved to Florida to finish my graduate studies. And my overall goal as I went through my education was to become involved with small farmers in a tropical setting. So when I was graduating, a position came up in Hawaii for that specific topic to work with small farmers in a tropical environment. So it was the ideal exactly what I wanted to do. But on the bigger picture, small farmers are really the ones that are still carrying on the legacy of growing food for local communities globally and taking care of the land throughout the tropics. So it really interested me to maintain that line of work. And do you want to tell us a little bit more about small farmers as your kind of core focus and passion in terms of agriculture, especially with the work you do at the university? Yes, most of the rural communities throughout the world, Africa, Latin America, Asia and also in Hawaii, the rural lifestyle is maintained essentially by small farmers. And it is a reciprocal service where farmers are taking care of the land, they're taking care of the environment close to the communities, maintaining the economic vitality of those rural communities. And at the same time, they're feeding the community with healthy produce. So in a way, they are a basic structure that maintains the integrity of rural communities throughout the world. And today we're dealing with issues of malnourishment, hunger, and I think it is important to maintain the strength of the small rural producer to allow this system of subsistence to continue throughout the world. In Hawaii, small farmers in the form of native Hawaiians, they were able to maintain a legacy of healthy agricultural systems for hundreds of years. So as we evolved globally, we're faced with a lot of challenges of climate change and rural decline in rural economies. So it is vital and very important to continue to support the small farmer into the future. And how receptive are farmers to work alongside academics and researchers like yourself? I feel like the farmers I know are really like independent. So is that hard to let farmers know they can reach out to you or are they really excited to collaborate? Or could you talk a little more about how that works? Or are they just knocking on your door all the time? Yeah, I think over the, because of the land-run university system, over the years we developed a real close interaction with farmers, but over the years the university promoted, especially after World War II, promoted more industrial systems of farming, which consisted on reliance on fertilizers, chemical fertilizers, pesticides. So we tended to work more closely with industrial or conventional farmers. And over the years they tended to be larger and larger farmers. So we had a close interaction with the mainstream farming community, but perhaps we didn't have such a close interaction with the smaller farmers that started to farm organically or permaculture and so on. So there are sectors of groups of farmers that we haven't been working as closely as we have with other farmers. Is it important to have, you know, because people talk about, you can't, or some people say they only want small farmers or we only want large farmers, especially here in Hawaii, with the extension agents like that perspective, is it balance or do you, what's kind of that diversity of that perspective, if that makes sense? Yes, I think so. The perspective over the years, because we have been doing it for such a long time, is that we became associated with mainstream systems of farming, which is closely allied again with the pesticide industry, with the fertilizer industry. But today, as we look back, we realize that we have really been doing a lot of the ways that we have been farmed, we've been doing it the wrong way. A lot of our farming practices have been not very helpful to the environment or to human health. So there's been a lot of discussion or movement to say, you know, there should be a really direct change of direction in the way we have been farming globally. We have tended to be increased, going larger and larger with more and more monocultures, and almost everything that could go wrong in terms of farming has gone wrong. So it is kind of like a wake-up call, especially now that we have all the issues with climate change and so on. And as you know, there's been over the past 20 years a big alternative farming movement called sustainable agriculture or organic farming. And this movement is saying we have been going in the wrong direction and we should really start to strive to look for alternative methods of farming. And this has been kind of a challenge for the extension of the university because we have been aligned kind of too close with the big industry. So it's been kind of like a call for we really need to change and look at different ways of farming. Is that a consensus within the program amongst the extension agents and the university that recognizing things have not been going well? We want to shift with what the kind of world shift is going to? Or are there people that disagree, that don't think things are bad and want to continue with how things are done? Is there like tension? Yeah, I think there's a lot of tension and this is seen nationally in the United States and also internationally and there is still a mainstream body of faculty that continue to believe about mainstream agriculture and they are saying there's a lot of people going hungry in the world and we need to maintain a system of mainstream farming of large-scale monocultures and industrial farming. There's a countercurrent led by a popular movement by organic farmers that say no, that really doesn't work. And we have seen this tension in Hawaii where our politicians and university leaders have welcomed big industry almost with our red carpet, the big GMO seed companies and the mainstream thinking of the seed companies is we have to continue the same pattern of pesticides, chemicals and fertilizers and as you know there's been a real point of contention in the state with the community saying no, we are concerned about the large amounts of pesticides that are being applied on the soil and on the community and so on. So there's a big debate about those issues currently. Would you be able to talk to us a little bit about how industry influences what's research and what goes on at the university and what kind of changes would have to happen to kind of support more research in these non-mainstream forms of agriculture that are trending? Yeah, I think the ties between industry and the university and academia started to take place after World War II with the advent of chemicals, the chemical industry. The pesticide industry grew every year in the late last century and there was a close alliance with the university system. Then we had the Green Revolution and the Green Revolution was in a way for the United States to disseminate methods of industrial farming in Africa and Latin America and we were kind of like preaching to other countries saying you have to adopt industrial methods of farming which consist of large scale monocultures, highly mechanized farming and a reliance on chemicals to solve issues of fertility or to control pests. And while in theory this sounds very good, today we realized again that we really made a lot of mistakes in terms of the side effects of these industrial methods of farming. One of the main side effects has been the loss of biodiversity because when you farm extensive areas just with one crop you end up reducing the biodiversity that maintains the environmental stability of the environment. Awesome, thanks for giving us that background. We're going to take a quick 60 second break and then we kind of want to hear what's like the typical day or week in the life of the extension agent and what you're kind of doing out there and then get a little more into your specific research. Sure. Okay, thanks. Aloha, I'm Kaley Eakina, president of the Grassroot Institute. If you want to be an informed citizen we invite you to watch every week as we bring wonderful guests together on Ehana Kako, a weekly program on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network every Monday at 2 o'clock PM. We talk with people who know what they're talking about when it comes to the economy or the government or to building a better society. So we'll see you then on Ehana Kako which means let's work together every Monday at 2 o'clock PM on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. Aloha. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, meeting people we may not have otherwise met and helping us understand and appreciate the good things about Hawaii. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Aloha, it's summertime in Honolulu, Hawaii. My name is Steven Phillip Katz. I'm your host for Shrink Wrap Hawaii. We're on every Tuesday at 3 o'clock and we talk about mental health and general health. Join us. Thank you. Hi, welcome back to Hawaii Food and Farmers series. We're here with Hector Valenzuela and we've been talking story about the role of agricultural extension agents in the agricultural community. And I'd like to hear a little bit more about what a typical day looks like for an extension agent. So yeah, thanks again for having me. So again, we have at the university level, we have the researcher. We have the specialist that works at a statewide level and serves to assist the industries. And then we have the extension agent that works on the different islands. The extension agent often has a master's degree and maybe his responsibility may be to help a specific industry like the vegetable industry or maybe more generalized to help agriculture in general. So there's a couple of angles. One of them is to take care of fires happening locally. Farmers have an emergency because his crop has a big disease or an insect. And they call the extension agent, hey, can you give me a hand because of how to control this pest? And that's like a free service. That's you guys are just on call for that. Right, right. It's a service. So the extension agent will answer the email or answer the phone call and say, can I come visit your farm and see what's going on? The agent would visit the farm and she or he may have some recommendations. Or if they don't have the answer, they may reach out to the specialist or to researchers at the university level. If it becomes a bigger issue, like a bigger, everybody's having the same problem, then the agent might organize a task force of three or four faculty members. And hey, guys, how can we brainstorm and think about it? If there's no quick solution, they may actually develop a research program. Let's do some kind of research project to find out over the next year to determine a solution to the problem. So that's one angle of the responsibility. Another angle for the agent is to help the industry as a whole, to provide leadership, and to say, what's going on with the vegetable industry? And where do we want to be in the next five to 10 years? And if you look back over the past 60 or 70 years, you can see, how did the sweet maui onion industry develop? And we could attribute this to the vision of some farmers and extension agents that said, in maui, we could probably grow maui sweet maui onions. And how are we going to make it happen? And there was a lot of background research that took place to make this happen. So first, let's grow some onions in your farm in four or five farms. Let's start growing five or six different varieties of onions. Let's look at different fertilizer practices to find out the best way to grow these onions. And let's work with an economist. Let's work with a plant pathologist, with an entomologist. And over the next five to 10 years, this turns out into, wow, now we have a maui sweet onion industry. And today, maui sweet onions are the highest priced onions in the entire country. And if you look at the Kona coffee industry, it was the same kind of development that over the past 50 years, a lot of work, background work, took place between extension of farmers to help this industry to develop, right? So it is kind of like an awesome responsibility. And today, we're at the same level. And today, there's a big organic industry that is growing. And we need the same kind of leadership and interaction to how can we make this happen? And what kind of research do we need to take the organic industry from point A to the next level? Well, and that's a little different than picking a specific crop. That's a total method of farming and practice. So that's kind of interesting. Right, right. So it can deal with methods of farming or with specific crops. But one of the problems, and we talked about this earlier, Justine and Kristen, is that the concept of extension has been changing. And we are not able to assist farmers in the way that we were doing it in the 1960s and 1970s because of economic policies, because of less funding from the state. So it is a challenge for extension agents. Agents now are required or expected to have research funding for a few research projects. So they don't have the time anymore that they used to have in the old days to interact with farmers and to brainstorm in the way they used to do in the old days. So for the community, it is important to say, we need to have that type of extension support to be able to reproduce what we have done in the past. Where is the opportunity to express that or say that's important? Is that something you do at City Council? Or is that something you write a letter to the university? Or how can people show that support? Right. So over the years, another responsibility for extension has been to promote leadership skills in the community with farmers. Because farmers are very individualistic. They like to work by themselves and they don't like to work with other people. But how to teach farmers to work together and help them to do so. And over the years, you develop the Papaya Industry and Grants Association, the Coffee Growers Association. So as we move on, I think we need to continue to promote, as we have a new generation of farmers, to help them to organize and to work together to come as a one voice and say, this is what we need. And over the past 10 or so years, I've been working with the Hawaii Organic Farmers Association. And early on, I worked a little bit with the Farmers Union as well. And I think it is important for these organizations to come together and to say, this is what we need to promote organics or to help small farmers in the state. So the Farmers Union and HOFA that you mentioned, that voice could be saying, this is what we want done in the university with our extension agents. Getting that push from those kind of groups could make the change or determine the path of the university. Right, right. So as the university continues to promote more biofuels or genetically modified crops or chemical based industry and as other industries push for their own agendas, it is important that the small guys, the small organic farmers, the small indigenous Hawaiian farmers growing taro or calo, that they come together themselves and say, no, it is important that we also do some research to help our industries as well. And does it have to be either or, or you say like the wrong agenda when you talk about biofuels, but to some people is that that's what they think is the right agenda. And so it's just like you have to balance, can the university, is there just not enough resources to go with either or? So they really have to make a decision of what they want to focus on, put your energy and efforts into. Right, the university definitely cannot be everything to everybody, right? So you do have to prioritize. My position is that the university has been turning away from food production over the past 40 to 50 years. So our own department of plant science in the department at UH, over the past 30 or 40 years had a big emphasis on big emphasis on ornamental crop production, how to assist the nursery industries in the state. And this is because the nursery industries had a lot of political influence that all Japanese guard in the state say this is what we need. So we almost didn't have a support for vegetable crops or food crops or food production. So my angle, of course, now we have a huge consumer demand for organics. The people want local food, local grown produce, and there is a constitutional mandate for the state to become self-sufficient in food production. So these small farmers that are growing food crops, I think they need to organize and to say definitely food production is a top priority for the state. So while do we need some research on orchids or nurseries, our top priorities should be how can we grow more food for the community because even the governor just came out saying we need to double food production by the next 20 or 30 years, right? Do you see any clear changes that could help meeting that goal? It is, there's a lot of tension and there's a lot of debate, but I think it's very important for the community to continue to put a lot of pressure and support to say this is really important for us. This is a public university, it's not a private university, and the university should really be doing research to help to meet the needs of the state, which is to produce food that is healthy, to have agriculture that doesn't contaminate the soil and the aquifers with pesticides. But it is a big struggle for the community to say we need organics, we need to support small farmers. Awesome, that's a lot of good information to hear. And we actually only have one minute left, time goes by so fast. If you wanna just a last note or story, like I just like to hear an example of a farm or a farmer or a particular crop that you have a good heartwarming story to share with us about in 60 seconds. Right, the main storyline from those that promote industrial ag is that organics doesn't work. And we actually in Hawaii, we have a legacy of many organic farmers over the past 40 to 50 years that have been growing all over in all parts of the state and that have been successful at growing all kinds of different crops, coffee, vegetable crops, pineapple, sugarcane organically. And there are a lot of really success stories. We have too many success stories to share. We have mojala farms in the North Shore. We have 10 in the North Shore, mile farms which has incorporated organics and education. Too many successful stories in Hawaii and globally that say organics is definitely possible in Hawaii and also internationally. Awesome, well, we'll just try to feature each one on the show so we can get a thorough analysis or presentation of each of them. So thank you so much for coming on to share your story and your thoughts and ideas. Thank you for co-hosting with me. Thank you for having me. Yeah, and we will see you guys next week. Thank you. Thanks.