 Welcome to Inventing Our Future and Think Ta Kauai. I'm your host, Brittany Zimmerman. Hi, and I'm your supposed to be co-host, Richard Ha. Wonderful. And today we are going to do a deep dive into our D category. So how are you doing, Richard? Oh, pretty good. Nice day, Sora. Wonderful. Good, good, good. Yeah, so Richard is going to help us on our category this week. I'm really excited about it because our D category is digging into dirt. So we are gonna have a deeper conversation about some of the things that Richard Ha does with dirt. And I think Richard has done a thing or two with dirt before. Is that right, Richard? Yeah, various different kinds of dirt and rocks and all kinds of stuff. Awesome. So we have the pleasure of getting Richard to have a long conversation with us today about banana farming in particular, which I'm really excited about. I know very little about banana farming. I've been to a single banana plantation area in Panama one time, and that is the extent of my entire banana-knowing knowledge. So I'm gonna utilize the next half an hour, Richard, trying to be a sponge and get as much of that banana information out of you as I can. How does that sound? Oh, that sounds good. Yeah. That's great. Awesome. First, what got you into banana farming, Richard? Where's the banana connection? Well, you know, I went to a U.H. and I flunked out of school and I went to Vietnam. Then when I went to Vietnam, I became an officer and we had this relationship where we took care of everybody and that lasted for the longest time. But when I came out of the Army, I decided that I wanted to go into some kind of business. So I decided that I would major in accounting because not the way to green visor, but to keep score. So I had a, and that was the purpose. So I had this accounting degree. And when I first came back, my dad asked me if I would help them market the eggs from the egg quail, which was going on at that time. So I became the core manager and I started interacting with the supermarkets and stuff like that. And then at that time, Chiquita started sending bananas into Hawaii and I was noticing that and saying, you know, gee, we can do that. So, and especially, you know, we had experience doing that as, you know, as small kids. So I started collecting banana boxes and just stashing it under the house. And little by little, you know, we started looking into it and say, gee, maybe, why don't we see if we can get up to scale because they're sending in a lot of Chiquita bananas. So that's how it started. You know, we got interested and then we, we were operating off the Wakioka chicken farm. And there was 20 acres on the side that was not being used. So we didn't have any money, you know, and back then, you know, we had a $300 credit card when it was hard to get a $300 credit card. And so we started, okay, let's figure out how we're going to do this and no equipment now, nothing except my Toyota Land Cruiser. So what we did was we started looking around for banana kiki and we got some and then we had to start planting and deciding how we're going to do this. So the way we did it was we took the Land Cruiser and drove it to mark the lines, you know, knock the California grass and then we sickles cut a hole, you know, and we didn't even notice spacing, but we did that and then we stuck it in the ground and then we just went to growth. So just waiting around, you know, punching bag, lifting weights, all this kind of stuff as time went on, but that's how we started. And little by little, you know, by the time the banana plants grew up and we didn't even know that when you took the big banana stumps, the bunch might be halfway in the banana plant, you know, so you may end up with a tiny, tiny banana bunch. We didn't even need, that's how much we knew. We didn't know very much. But nevertheless, we started, you know, it started growing and then just being resourceful, so we had to control the grass. So back then what you use was called Paracoa. There's a scull and crossbones kind of pesticide. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what you got to do, you know, and this is automatic, you play the wind, you got to be upwind and you don't want to breathe that stuff in, right? Right. So if the wind blows toward you, you hold your breath, you know, it's automatic, yeah? Anyway, so. That's a really good PPE right there. Yeah, yeah, I'll protect you, I'll hold your breath. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so that became second nature, you know, I knew what you got to do, yeah? So anyway, we started growing and then little by little we got some bananas to sell. So the way we would do it is with harvest, cut it up into pieces of hands and put it on where we used to have a chicken wire. And then we'd select the hands that were ripe to put in the box to send it down to where we were selling eggs to, in this particular case it was food fair supermarket. So we were doing that for a while. And little by little, you know, we started to realize, you know, in Central America, they actually use what they call banana gas to ripen the bananas. So yeah, because we, you know, I was a co-op manager, yeah, of the egg co-op. And so that's how I knew all these people. But they wouldn't talk to me when we were selling eggs but when we're talking bananas, now all of a sudden they actually talk to me. So when I was over there bringing the bananas, they'd say, gee, something wrong with these bananas. You know, they get, they fall off the hand, they get bruised easily and stuff like that. And I would go, oh, I don't know, we'll see what we can do and stuff like that. And I felt like a kid going to the principal all the time getting scolded for the bananas. So that's when I started looking into it and saying banana gas, okay. So we went out to gas pool and asked them, you know, do you have this special gas that they use for banana? And the lady told me, are you looking for banana gas? I said, yeah, that's what I wanted. So I had no idea what it looked like. So we brought it back and then you have to put it in. They actually had it. They had it on Island, the banana gas. Yes, yes, they did and nobody was using it. They just, they had it. Yeah, so we brought it home and then we know that you'd have to, you know, release it into a room to get the bananas to ripen. So we turned it on and holy smokes, it worked. So then we realized that you needed to have some kind of refrigeration to, and we didn't know why, but you know, so we got a little air conditioner and we started ripening the bananas. And one day we opened the door and the whole room, the air conditioner had frozen up because there was so much heat that it overpowered the ability of the air conditioner to handle. And it was, you know, we lost 25 cases. We were tiny, you know, we were small operators at the end. But then that's what it set us on this course. Oh, okay, so now what that means is we got to have insulation, we got to have the proper sizing, et cetera, et cetera. So we, and that's how we started. And from there we went to a couple. And because my dad's friend was a fireman and they had some extra land and stuff like that and they were growing papayas on it. And that was where the syndicons, if you go down there, the syndicons is down there and it's just where the pavement ends coming back toward a hill. So we started planting there and they had papayas growing. So they ripped the papaya, they ripped the lava and we planted it in the rips because it was real dry, yeah? And, but it actually worked. So we stayed there for a while, but as time went on, it was all hand labor, you know? And, but before that, I learned about when we started getting banana cake, we got it from Akusani Kamele down at our Maku property. He was noted for having the best watermelon. And I used to go over there to learn and get the banana cake from him, but mostly to learn, yeah, to see what he was doing. So what he did was, you know when the watermelon was like golf boss size, he would put a stick in the ground and see, you know, right down when it was that size. And then from there, he decided when it was time to harvest, not only visual. You know, like something to say, you knock on it and then it'll tell you whether it's ripe or not. He didn't do it like that. He timed it and he associated the different seasons longer during the winter, shorter than the summer. So we adapted that to bananas and how we did that was we put, we had to put bags on to protect the bananas, especially from, you know, the cinder was going off and anyway, we had to protect the bananas. And then we also had to determine when was the right time to harvest? Because just looking at it, you walk around a bunch several times, it's all judgment yet. You end up a lot this week and nothing next week. So what we did was we adapted what Akusani did. We put on colored ribbons, colored ribbons for each week. So during the winter, we let it go 18 weeks. During the summer, we go less than 16 weeks, you know, just by one primary color and two secondary colors. You know, so we had a... And why, what that did was it made it so you could see when you needed to harvest. If this week was already, then you only pull the ribs, you know. Oh, interesting. So what's the equivalent of you said you would mark it by time, right? When the watermelon was the size of a golf ball, when would you start marking the bananas? Is it right when? When you put the bag on. Oh. And then you tie the ribbon to the bottom of the bag. Then you don't have to go close to look at the bunch. All you gotta do is be far enough away to see the color. Oh, so you have a lot of time walking on the lava road. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it would be really, really a practical, yeah? Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow, that's really cool. That's a really great example of adapting knowledge from other types of agricultural practices and finding ways of utilizing that, right? And molding that into bananas. It's like a watermelon to banana. Yeah, and that's how it transformed the banana industry because before that, there wasn't an organized way to do this. Yeah. Yeah, so we transformed the banana industry. So another thing we did was going from there at Kapuho to coming into Kao and into, you know, Kapuho was all rocks here with cinder. Yeah. And then when you get to Kao, it's soil mixed in with the rocks, but primarily rocks. And then when you go to Kao, it's all soil. It's totally, totally different. So, you know, so when we moved into Kao, it was almost the same, you know, just kind of rocky and we did the same sort of thing. Yeah. But when we moved to Pipikil, now all of a sudden there's deep soil and it's muddy and stuff like that. And so we had to figure out how, and we never had that problem while we were on the rocks. Meaning if you were to drive tractors down when you're harvesting, if you're muddy, you get stuck in a mud. So how do you fix that? So what we did was, and we used to plant, you know, 250 banana plants per acre. And then after you harvest the first one, you let four go then you ended with 1,000 per acre. So that was the population. So we decided, okay, what if we went 750 per acre, but in a straight line, 700 individual plants. And that way you could mow the aisles. And that's where you could get traction. So that worked, you know, so we adapted again because we had to, yeah. But what was really interesting about that was think about this now. Instead of 1,000 bunches, you get 750 bunches, but the same amount of production is not more per acre. So the labor per bunch is much less because now you're only dealing with 750, bagging, you know, all this other stuff. So we did that kind of stuff, it was kind of fun, it became fun, you know. Right. And this was true during the time that I spent looking at some of the banana plantations down in Panama, but I was so surprised to learn that you only get one bunch of bananas per tree. Is that true for all varieties of banana? Yeah, yes. Except for, and this is very unusual, we were doing tissue culture and we had to go do tissue culture because we were, you know, well, we had to go do tissue culture. We made our own tissue culture lab and we started cold, we didn't know anything about it. So we did it. What we didn't know was that after you get the seventh generation, you start to get mutants. And when you start to get mutants, one of the mutants we got was a short apple banana with two bunches on it. Wow. Isn't that something? I mean, I'm just starting to comprehend of what you could do because of the, in other words, you could go find disease resistant plants like they do in Taiwan. Yeah, but it's a diversion. I, you know, you asked me if they were, we just one bunch and it is true. It's just one bunch for a plant. That's so cool. And I know there's a lot of other fruits where you can take the fruit and you can utilize that fruit and actually bury it and it'll grow a new plant fruit. Was that similar with banana? If I were to go bury a banana, would I get a banana tree? Not in this particular instance. You know, it wouldn't grow from Cavendish bananas. Yeah, so you would have to get the suckers that's off the side and plant those. Got you. I have a little offshoots that come off the bottom. Those are the things I need. Okay, those are the cakey. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, I was thinking some of the two biggest issues that they were facing down in Panama with the banana plant patients. Number one was pests. So when they will go to harvest the bananas, they'd have like these massive spiders or snakes that were harming the people who are harvesting it. And I heard there's not too many snakes on the island. Did you guys experience anything similar to that? No, you know, we're really lucky. Even once in a while you get a spider, but you know, that's not a big deal, right? Yeah, it's not poisonous spiders or anything. And we don't have snakes, so we didn't have that problem. However, there was a problem of the banana can catch fungus and stuff like that and deform it a little bit. So what they did in Central America was they had pesticide infused bags. So there's pesticide in the bag. But the problem with that is that it would make, if you did that, your workers would be constantly in contact with the chemicals. So we just decided not to do that as an industry, yeah? So we never did. Yeah, so in any case, just. Yeah, speaking of the chemical side of things, I was seeing also that after you harvest a hand, you know how they have like where it's cut, they would actually have like a chemical that they would dot on the end of where the banana stem was cut. And I think in order to keep it fresh or something along those lines, the tour was done in Spanish. So bear with me here on translation. But is that something that you guys, how do you keep the banana fresh? Did you guys also use this thing or was there other ways of tackling that? No, we never had to do that. And I noticed that that's what they do for organic bananas that they sell in the market for Central America. But we had to do that, no. Oh, wonderful. All right. And then I heard that there was something funny related to red Flintstone on your banana farm. Is there a story behind that? Yeah, you know, when we're in Kabul, everything was done by hand. And so we were trying to figure out, okay, how can we make this a more efficient operation? So the first thing we did was we asked my brother-in-law to help us build a structure so that we can do the packing. So when we did the packing, then we needed a converse, you know, roller converse, the kind that you can just carry around. So we did get that. Then we needed to get it into refrigerated containers. So how do you get it from there and to fill up the containers? So we, and with no money, yeah? So what we did was we bought a point lift that had one of the tires had a big part of it broken off. So every time the tires spawned, you'd hear, come on, come on, come on. But, you know, it saved the guys a lot of work. Yeah. So it was pretty funny. The French limestone was the name of the tractor. Yeah. Of the forklift? Yeah. Yeah, the forklift, yeah. Could you see their feet underneath? You know, so we were evolving, trying to become more efficient and more efficient with, and in a way it was good, you know, because we didn't have to spend money. We were very, very careful about not spending, overspending because we didn't have the money to start off with. So in other words, we didn't have money to lose, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. And you guys grew a lot, right? I think you were telling me that at some point in time at the height, you guys were producing millions of pounds of bananas, yeah? Yeah. At the height, we were at six million pounds annually. But at that time, of course, we had a ripening room, regular forklifts and trucks and this. And we just made these floors. Prime Flintstone was on vacation. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and really funny, you know, we bought a truck, you know, the big truck that hauls containers? We had a truck, but it was funny because it leaked and it was old and it was cheap, right? So the kind that was driving it used to wear a hat with a, you know, I forget what you call them, it's, you know, like a cartoon kind of thing with a little towel on the hat. Oh, wow. Oh, no way. For fun, yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you had mentioned before too that you guys, you guys brought a lot of students, right? You guys really into the education side of things. You guys would host tours and go talk. Can you tell me a little bit about the education piece? Yeah, and we were always wanting to, you know, share with the schools and what we do. So we'd have kids and my daughter, you know, one day was giving this group of kids a tour and they, you know, a bundle of energy. So she's talking to them and she's, okay, now students, which way does the bananas grow? Facing up or facing down? And half the kids would say up, half would say down, then they jumping all around and they didn't know, but they just had an idea. And then at the end of the day, you know, Tracy thought, okay, now students, when your mom and dad goes out shopping and you know, she made the case that the kale banana is the best tasting bananas. Yeah. When they go shopping, what will you tell them? What will you tell them to buy? They all yelled in unison, yellow bananas. And we quit marketing the young kids. As long as it's yellow, we'll buy it. Yeah, yeah, it's real funny. That sounds great. Richard, then I've seen people open bananas and eat bananas in really strange ways. Did you have a preferred way of opening a banana? I think mine was pretty traditional. Now I, my favorite is apple bananas, yeah. So it's the normal way, you know, where the stem is that attaches to the hand. Yeah, yeah. And then they open it up and, but what were you thinking? Did you hear others? Man, I've seen people open bananas in the weirdest ways. A lot of people say like that you open upside down. So I know some people who open it up, they'll like hold the stem at the bottom, almost like a way to hold the banana, right? And then they'll peel from the top. Almost what I would think of as upside down. And then I've seen some people eat bananas in strange ways too, where I wish I had a banana so I could show this, but where you poke in the middle and it always separates into three. Ah, okay, okay, okay. You know what I'm talking about? And then they'll actually pull down the one third, the one third, and then the one third of the banana. I mean, I feel like I'm archaic or something. I mean, I just, pfft. Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know the experience of that. I haven't seen that, but I can see somebody doing that. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. And then you said, you were kind of inspired to do all of this because of the amount of chiquita bananas that you saw being imported. What was the impact on chiquita for you guys getting up and running? Was there still a lot of chiquita being imported? Or did you guys end up taking a lot of the market here in Hawaii? Well, at one point when we were doing six million, we were supplying quite a bit, more than half of the total number. Bananas is a tremendous volume that's sold. Yeah. So we did make an impact, but we didn't have 100% of the market. Yeah, understood. Did chiquita ever call you? No, not really. But when we, there was a time when they were trying to certify the Central American bananas talking about chiquita banana once, an engineer came through that he was going over to the Philippines. And then he called me because we had this certification, equal OK certification. And then I realized what they were trying to do is they were trying to extend the life of the bananas to get at a better taste like Hawaii because we're north of the equator. It's not three longer than in Central America. So the taste is more complex. So they were trying to do that by doing elevation. And I wouldn't say all bananas were better than chiquita bananas before that. But after that, I was sure this is a mention there because that's what I thought. I didn't know the reason though, but that's the reason. Yeah. Got you. Oh no, that's really, really cool. And so I was thinking, I don't know if this would be helpful. How much does the soil and the health of the soil impact the banana, right? The quality of the banana. Yeah, it's huge. The bananas need a high amount of potassium and of course phosphorus, not as much. And they need nitrogen to grow. But they also need acid soil traps some of the nutrients and makes it less available to the plants. So you need not, you don't need acid soil, which we have predominantly on our coastal. So what I'm interested in is trying to see if there's a way we can, how can we do that without bringing in stuff from Kauai High to throw on the soil to change the pH? I don't know, maybe biochar, I just don't know yet. But just keeping that in mind, yeah. Yeah, and I think that might be interesting. How do we feel about doing and digging into dirt part two where we go into the soil science? Yeah. Yeah, I think that'd be super cool. Yeah, we'll bring on one of the soil scientists and we'll do a digging into dirt part two where it looks into. Yeah, what's actually going on in soil? What is soil, right? What's happening in the dirt? And how does that affect our cultivars, our crops and life numbers? Yeah, because if the soil is rich with compost and stuff like that, it makes a huge difference in the size of the bananas and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. OK, let's do that for next time. All right, any other last minute antidotes? There are things that you think we really should know about banana farming. Oh, I can't think of anything right now, although there's a million things that I really can't do. You know what it is, is we've always had to plan from day one, 10 years into the future. You know, it was always OK, where do we want to be 10 years from now, not where we want to be today, 10 years from now. That way, you can make small changes to move toward that objective rather than all of a sudden get hit with it and then you're in big trouble. So we've been doing this forever and it works pretty well and that's the biggest thing I think. OK, yeah, no, that's really exciting. And I think there's a lot of lessons learned that we're going to be able to pull not only from the banana. I think other episodes will get to talk more about how that translated into tomatoes and then indoor agriculture and a lot of stuff that we'll be able to garner from that. So we'll kind of utilize this as a foundation. He is for what we can build on. And I'm really excited about that because I think it fits really, really well with the long-term thinking that we discuss often and that you bring up fairly regularly with the Keoki and Mamia organization. So really excited to learn more. Thank you so much for sharing some of your banana anecdotes and knowledge with us, Richard. It's good fun. All right, then with that, we have to wrap up. We're out of time here. So I wanted to say thank you to everybody. This is Inventing Our Future on Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you to our viewers for watching. If you want to get on our email advisory list to see a complete listing of our shows, you can sign up for them on ThinkTechHawaii.com. And we will be back in two weeks, so please tune in. And we can deep dive into our Digging into Dirt Part 2 on soil sciences. Until then, I'm Brittany Zimmerman. Thank you so much for watching ThinkTechHawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.