 episode of Hawaii Food and Farmers Series where we're meeting with Hawaii's farmers, foodies, and people who just care about our local food system. As always, not always, but most of the time I'm your co-host Matt Johnson here with Justine Espiritu. Say hi Justine. As always you can join the conversation and we hope you do. You can tweet if you're into tweeting at Think Tech HI and you can actually call in the hotline. We're really hoping for some phone calls today and the number listed right at the screen below 415-871-2474. And also too, you can check out the show later on YouTube at Think Tech HI, Think Tech Hawaii YouTube. There it is at the bottom of the screen. Thank you, Justine. So, Justine, why don't you go ahead and introduce our guest today. Awesome, thanks Matt. So today is gonna be a little different. We're not really gonna call it an interview. We're gonna call it just a conversation. We have two guests from the University of Hawaii from the Department of Geography. Just for the sake of time, I'm just gonna call them Mary M who is the assistant professor and we have Eli L who is an undergraduate student with the Department of Geography. And so you guys are working together right now on some interesting research and looking into some things that are going on in our local food system, particularly how folks are getting involved, why that's important and kind of the role that plays in food production here in Hawaii. So if we can start off with kind of making that connection between geography and your interest in the food system, if we want to start with that. Sure. Yeah, really interesting question. I think geography is a very broad discipline and for human geographers, especially we're very interested in looking at the relationship between humans and their environment. So of course, agriculture and food plays a huge role in our environment and the way that we that place is produced and place making practices. So a lot of geographers including Eli as an undergraduate student and myself and also our colleague, Christmas or Unata, is engaged in looking at how people engage with food and also looking at agriculture and the various ways in which agriculture affects our lives. So we look at it from a political perspective, an economic perspective, a social and a cultural perspective, as well as an environmental perspective. And that's really interesting to me because I think a lot of people, not me, but think of geography as like, oh, you do GIS. And so we talk about human geography. I mean, maybe kind of like, you know, you gave a great description on that. So in terms of like local agriculture, what are you guys looking at and seeing? Or what has been your focus with that? Yeah, so one of our projects that we're working on now is looking at the various ways that people value agricultural and food events in Hawaii. And what we see is that there's a growing interest and excitement around food and agriculture. And so people are really excited to go volunteer on farms. They're excited to do woofing, which is also known as the Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. People are doing meditation on farms, yoga retreats and various other kinds of activities. And we're interested in knowing where is this excitement coming from and what role does it play in the way people value agriculture, as well as the viability of agriculture in the state? I think that's an interesting point. When we talk about these kind of events that are going on, I think with farms we've talked about and in terms of that viability, I think there's been a message that farms have to kind of embrace this idea of the community being involved to kind of proliferate that image and get the excitement of supporting local farmers. And it's aside from just focusing on production, that engagement is really important in terms of their viability as a business or a revenue stream. Yeah, that's a really interesting point, actually. And what we found is that a lot of small farms, especially, that most of their revenue or more than 50% actually comes from these alternative revenue streams. So, for example, having different kinds of events or having farm fairs or these kinds of things make up a huge percentage of their revenue. Also, federal grants for various kinds of youth training programs or various kinds of community development programs. So, it's an important way that people are both supplementing their revenue as well as creating community through food and agriculture programs and events. And additionally, when people go to these events, they go to do yoga on a farm or go to a music event on a farm. It also gets them interested in agriculture, right? It gets them interested in, it educates them a little bit as well because they learn a little bit more about the process and about foods. And then, like myself, I went to a couple of events on farms, and then I was like, this looks really cool. Maybe I want to volunteer, get more involved. So, it kind of creates that awareness as well. So, with the, so you guys are just kind of seeing this trend, but what, what are you, I mean, guess what, what kind of results or what kind of things are you seeing? So, there's definitely an interest in these small agri-food initiatives and they're, they're adding on, like you said, other, I guess, non-farming activities on the farm that are a huge portion of their revenue. So, what, what kind of, I mean, what kind of conclusions or what, what are you seeing? Like, what, what does this all, I guess, mean? That's a really good question. I think it's really important to think about the, what we call the performative value of these kinds of events. So, rather than the economic value, the value that they play in re-articulating the discourse around food and agriculture and the significance of that for garnering support for things like local agriculture. So, for small farmers in Hawaii that depend on people valuing local agriculture, you have to develop that value, right? That's a cultural, that's cultural. And so to, for people, it's a, it contributes, and you need, it's part of social change and social change is oftentimes very slow. So, it's all of these things combined, you know, it's the bumper sticker that says, know your farmer, right? Or it's the, who may be your yogi at the same time. Right, exactly, exactly. It's all of these things sort of combined. It's more like a theoretical speak, you might talk about like the assemblage components of this broader, this broader articulation of what is food and agriculture? Why do we, why do we value it? What is the significance of valuing it? And why is it important? And so all of these things play a huge role in supporting local food and agriculture in the state. So despite the fact that it's actually a very small percentage of the economy, it does play a huge role in creating the space for broader structural changes and policy changes that we need to contribute to the growth of local food. So, so in your research, what are, what are the kind of things you've checked out that you've seen specifically what farms are, are doing? What have you checked out? Specifically what farms? I mean, you guys had Sean Anderson on the show from creating these farms. He does like stuff with Yo-Garden and other events. So that was where I volunteered once as well, actually, because like the environment there was really enjoyable. I really enjoyed being there. What else? And you guys checked out a couple of Woofer farms? Sure. Yeah, Mary did a lot of work with Woofer farms. So what is Woofing again for any of our viewers that may not be familiar with it? It's an acronym that stands for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. And it's actually a world, so it's a worldwide program and people do it. It's an opportunity for people to volunteer on farms for usually around four hours per day in exchange for accommodation. And there are more than 300 Woofing farms in Hawaii alone. And so it's an important way that especially small farmers are able to offset the cost of labor, as well as create these sort of unique creative opportunities for people to learn about organic agriculture and create new forms of community. You know, and one of the things I talked about before specifically with Hawaii being in an island, I think there's been particular emphasis to kind of experience Hawaii or get get a connection or a sense of community through food that we've seen volunteering at farms or living on a Woofer property has been this kind of gateway to experience a more authentic experience with Hawaii. I think specifically with tourism being such our dominant economy, like this is a way that agriculture can kind of insert itself into kind of compete in that economy in a way to kind of give that alternative experience. And I think for Hawaii that's particularly unique with the with the incorporating the food system into that. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that there's like definitely a strong connection between people seeking sort of authentic tourism experiences. So a lot of woofers are like we want to get to their motivated by the idea of having an authentic Hawaii experience. And so part of that is getting to know people in the community as well as sort of getting their hands dirty and stay in it for a longer period of time. And that's not exactly unique to Hawaii. If you around the world is I've done I lived and worked in New Zealand for a while and Woofing is a huge part of the agriculture system there where you have a lot of people who will travel for up to even a year or longer just going around the country or around a region volunteering on farms. And they see this as a way to have a more authentic tourism experience. And I think that's not unrelated to people's desire to have more sort of authentic connection with their food. So we can see this for example when you see like fair trade products and you'll see a picture of the farmer and they'll say meet farmer Joe who grew your coffee right. This is sort of one way where people seek out this intimacy with food and agriculture and they're also seeking out a sort of a more authentic experience authenticity I think is an important discourse to think about when we're thinking about the way people value these kinds of systems. So kind of taking like these these individual I guess farm experiences and some of the successes that you're seeing. Are you guys seeing this as a trend that could at a larger scale for the entire state help when we're talking about food security for the state or increasing the amount of locally grown foods. Is this I guess a trend or even like a recommendation like are you guys kind of trying to develop some kind of a model that that you could see working to make Hawaii more food self-secure. I mean one of the things we do look at with these agro food initiatives is what's the viability of these small farms right. So as Mary mentioned earlier like a lot of the revenue generated comes from not necessarily the produce although the produce is obviously a big part of it but from events as well. So if you're trying to figure out what the viability is and you can kind of put your thumb on it essentially. And that comes becomes a blueprint for other small farms that might want to start up as well so they can invest in like agro tourism right or farm tours or events like they can have that in mind as they work. I think that's definitely like part of that. Okay. Oh good. And another big part of that especially in Hawaii is like agriculture the sort of vision of agriculture is important for the marketing of place. Right. So this is obviously a tourist economy tourism economy. And so it's important to keep that sort of vision of Hawaii. You don't want to not have any agricultural land in Hawaii for example. So it's not just agriculture itself but it's the tourism economy and it plays into other industries as well. And so agro tourism in particular is an important way that people of that farmers in Hawaii are offsetting sometimes declining revenue through farming itself. It's a way to create sort of value added place based marketing. Yeah. So we're going to take a quick 60 second break and then we're going to get back to it because I'm curious of what that kind of balance is maybe between focusing on production or trying to build up this other side of it. So we'll take a quick break and get back into it. I'm Ethan Allen host of likable science here on Think Tech Hawaii. Every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. you'll have a chance to come and listen and learn from scientists around the world. Scientists who talk about their work in meaningful easy to understand ways they'll come to appreciate science as a wonderful way of thinking way of knowing about the world. You'll learn interesting facts interesting ideas. You'll be stimulated to think more. Please come join us every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii for a likable science with me your host Ethan Allen. Aloha Kako. I'm Marcia Joyner inviting you to navigate the journey with us. We are here every Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. and we really want you to be with us where we look at the options and choices of end of life care. Aloha. To Hawaii Food and Former Series I'm your co-host Matt Johnson here with Justina Spiritill and Justine who do we have with us today? We have Mary M. and Eli. You don't even want to try? Don't want to waste time. Don't want to waste time. The Department of Geography at UH doing some interesting research and analysis on agro food initiatives or food events. Things are that are cultivating kind of a sense of a community between consumers and farmers and we're kind of talking about that that balance of of where that gets us or how that contributes to the viability of small farms. And so I'm I'm wondering when we're talking about small farms that really represent this kind of local identity and representation of Hawaii and how much effort they need to to put into these kind of events versus maybe the focus on production itself. One of the things the interesting things that I've learned from talking to farmers and working with farmers is they're they're a little bit isolated and we talk about how they there's so many skills they need to have and they're producing their product. They have to market it. And I think this idea of putting on these initiatives that's it's a very conscious effort you have to take and not everyone is able to do that. Maybe that's a question I have of are there farms that are doing this and farms that aren't and kind of that what's that different capacity. And when we talk about Kahumana or Greenrose those are farms that really are it's kept alive by a community and maybe farms like family farms like whole farms I think is maybe just getting into it because that's a smaller family thing. If you kind of want to touch on that here's a business from Greenrose right. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that really that question really it really comes a lot of that a lot of the differences are around labor issues. Right. So for when a lot of farms try to scale up that becomes the sort of bottleneck in which it's sort of that either things either far that becomes the issue that a lot of farmers deal with. So when people try to scale up they have to start increasing their costs and when you have to increase costs for labor if you don't have family to help out on the farm then you're going to be hiring people for around twelve dollars an hour is around about the going rate. And so this becomes that one of the big differences between farms that don't pay that don't pay directly for labor or who have subsidized labor versus other kinds of other types of farms. And that's what is one of the big differences between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. So for example on the U.S. mainland around fifty to seventy percent of agricultural laborers are undocumented workers. Fifty to seventy percent. Yeah. So it's unclear the exact statistic because of the legality of it. But around fifty to seventy percent. And so when you look at Hawaii where we don't have that many undocumented workers in the same way that maybe California might we pay a lot more for labor. And so that is what makes the production that's one of the reasons production in Hawaii is significantly higher. And one of the reasons why if we want to increase local food production we also need to increase local food consumption. And so that's where these kinds of events really play a huge role. And just like drumming up that demand for it. Right. Absolutely. You have to create the demand right. So it's a again it's like a cultural shift. And so that's why these events are important in creating the demand and creating the consumption. And that will play a huge role in farmers ability to scale up. So you think farms that don't engage in these kind of activities these kind of events are they putting themselves at a disadvantage if they don't put resources and brainstorming into into doing these kind of things. Well I guess not necessarily right. Like you mentioned whole farms earlier like they're doing quite well. You know they have a very successful like you know means of producing and selling their product right. So it's not necessary behind it. But that depends on that depends on the model right. That depends on what system you have. If you have like a real like a value added product or a niche product that fits into a market really well. You might not necessarily need to do like these kinds of events initiative. So it depends. OK. That's interesting. I mean I think what's most interesting to me is that there are so many different types of models where I think back in the day and which is changing as people think about oh going into farming. You're just thinking about going and working in the dirt and and just pulling weeds and which is definitely still and always going to be part of agriculture. But it sounds like what you guys are seeing the trends are is that there's different ways to do it where you don't have to just go in and be you know hardcore production type farm. I mean you still need to have those kind of farms and you're going to have those farms which is good but there's more diversity also to with the types of technology that's available. So aquaponics is becoming super popular which is also creating other I guess revenue streams for the aquaponics firms because there's so much interest in it. So people are coming in doing tours. I know Marys garden just started doing yoga as well seems like yoga. The next thing I was talking to the farm manager who's like the last person I would ever expected to be interested in yoga. But they're smart they're entrepreneurs and they're you know finding opportunities and also working with like Nica Caldari they started doing on farm tours and they realized that they're able to do that instead of actually going to the farmer's markets. And farmer's markets are a great outlet for products but also can be very time consuming costly and it's a hard thing to do. So it's an interesting shift for Nica Caldari where for the longest time they're like gotta go to farmer's market gotta go to farmer's market and now they get to stay on the farm and a large part of their customers are are coming to them. It's not really a question. Because it's a conversation. So why don't you lead us into a question. What's on that list. So looking again at whooping when we talk about the disadvantages to labor costs in Hawaii is that I've always is whooping then kind of controversial in that sense of capitalizing on free labor. Yeah I mean if you talk to farmers especially small farmers that have woofers there and then talk to farmers that don't small farmers that don't host woofers of course there's an unfair advantage right. So what you're doing is if you have a farmer that hosts woofers and they don't pay for labor they're going to be they're going to be able to sell their produce for example the farmers market for cheaper than farmers that pay for their labor. Right. So that is definitely a tension that we've heard some about from farmers and yeah I think that's an ongoing discussion or among farmers in Hawaii. Although there is some difficulty there with whooping we've seen before with woofers don't typically have lots of experience in farming right. So yeah like make mistakes or maybe it's a little bit slower production records are not entirely sure they have to be trained on the jobs obviously that takes like effort and hours from a manager from whoever. Well that's what I thought there's a little bit of like a sacrifice and the level of production my experience with volunteering with farms they have to you know they've got their routine and their system and that whole idea of trying to bring the public into you know they have to paint it in a certain way they can only do so much and so there really seems to be that balance of of how much do we bring these community helpers into help. And so I'm always interested in how farmers balance balance that because I know like yeah Kahomana for the longest time they had a large woofing program. I think they decided to scale back just for the kind of reason that you were describing where they're actually starting to produce more. I think they've gotten to a point where they still have woofing program but you know there are you know set backs to that as well. And also have like the apprenticeship as well. They have people on for longer periods of time. So it's kind of a similar idea where you take someone who's maybe newer to agriculture doesn't know as much then you give them the time to you know to learn and to like become part of the whole whole system they have set up as well. And it's far more reliable as well if you have someone on for like a set period of time. Yeah what we see is that a lot of people a lot of farmers that host woofers they if they're scaling up they ultimately will scale up slowly into some sort of internship program. So they have more of a commitment because there is a huge opportunity cost if you're spending all your time training people to pick weeds or different kinds of techniques. How about with act tourism. I mean I think there's a lot of potential around that what what models have you seen that you feel are working really well or that you've been impressed with. Tons of opportunities for act tourism in Hawaii. It's one way that tourists like to again it comes back to this sort of seeking out an authentic Hawaii experience and agriculture really can play a huge role in that in terms of people saying oh I want to go you know have lunch on a farm and we're going to go meet people and have a tour and we met this tour guide and he's from Hawaii and he told me all about the community these kinds of things these intimate encounters are really important for people who are seeking these kinds of experiences which there's quite a huge market for definitely. And we definitely see that also with farmers markets right so like the KCC market. I don't know the numbers but I would say a high percentage of the people at the KCC market are actually tourists right and so they're coming for some of the prepared food but also to get a sort of local flavor of Hawaii. So they'll buy some of the prepared food bring it home and there's this sort of value added place based marketing around sort of like local Hawaii honey for example. I think I see a lot of that success too with the integration even with locals. The idea of these dinners these farm to table dinners. I know a particular mushroom farm that throws awesome parties. And that idea you know even to give you that advantage you know when you're at the grocery store it's like oh I know yang. I'm going to take those really kind of yeah shaking that barrier between consumers and farmers. And so some of your your research as well goes into why kind of farmers get into this or kind of take this on is not true kind of looking into their their motivation with this kind of like changing landscape of the viability. So can you share a little bit about what you've what you've heard from farmers. On that. Oh go ahead. OK. Yeah. So we're really we're interested in looking at what motivates especially new farmers in Hawaii. And this is really interesting given there's a lot of a lot of initiatives to to encourage people to become farmers in the state. And so there's these sort of new new farmer training programs. And a lot of people that enter these programs a lot of them are very young and really interested in sort of in these kinds of experiences as well as people that are retired are looking for second careers. And so oftentimes what what we often hear is that people are valuing these types of experiences for way more than the sort of the economic aspects to it. So they're not trying to go into it to make a lot of money rather they're trying to go into farming because they value it for other reasons. So the community they build around farming as well as contributing to the production of local food and other reasons why people and also the lifestyle. Right. So with new farmers the other the other group of large group of new farmers and even larger than the sort of then farmers that go through a lot of these training programs are new are new immigrants. So you have farmers from for example Lao and Thailand that are coming to that are farming in Hawaii. And so there's good thing they're not on the president's fan list. Right. Yeah. I mean that's a big issue. That's another show. Yeah. So there are various ways that new farmers are valuing farming in Hawaii. Some farmers are valuing it for the lifestyle that it offers while others for example new immigrants oftentimes are valuing it for the livelihoods that it offers. So this is sort of this the lifestyle and livelihoods is an interesting way to think about the various ways people can value farming. So we have 20 seconds left. Awesome. Yeah. Definitely. Don't cut me off. Thanks for coming on and sharing some of your research. Yeah. And having this conversation with us. Great conversation. We're out of time. All right.