 Aloha and welcome to another episode of Hawaii Food and Farmer Series. I'm your co-host, Matt Johnson, here today with Justina Spiritu. As always, we're here every Thursday at 4 p.m., where we're talking to Hawai'i's farmers, foodies, chefs, and people who are trying to make Hawai'i's food system bigger and better. As always, you can join the conversation by tweeting in at thinktechhi, and you are also able to join the conversation by calling in at the number shown below. So Justina, who do we have with us today? Hi, Matt. Thanks. So today we have Jay Boss, who is the farm coach of Go Farm Hawai'i. And it's super exciting. This is a program that's come up multiple times on the show, a program that's been developed. It's a partnership from a number of different organizations to kind of start bringing new farmers into the mix. And there's a lot of things that have developed from it since Jay and Nora came on board. Jay's also a co-founder of Counterculture and also known as Tiger Eye. Whoa. That's the first time I heard of that. I'll get an explanation on that. Okay. Thank you so much for joining us. I want to start with giving a little bit of background about you and kind of where the Go Farm program has kind of developed and gone from since you and Nora came on board and more about kind of the graduates and how the program has evolved. And then talk about some of your background and some of the other programs and developments that you've started here in Hawai'i. All right. Well, thanks for having me on. So yeah, Go Farm Hawai'i started, I believe, about four years ago. Steven Chang, who's been on the show, and Dave Riengett, who was at Winner Community College at the time. And Steve is with the Ag Incubator program. The Ag Incubator program. And then some other faculty and staff at CTAHR kind of saw the need for... There's like academic programs, but for people that want to get into like actually like on the ground farming, how could we create some sort of training program, both actually like the agronomy and some of the business at the same time. So yeah, they got some money from a few different organizations, the state. And it just took off, started. I think they were bold and just like started before like it was totally all ironed out how it was going to pan out. And so I came on about three years ago. I saw the very beginning of it while I was doing graduate studies and was out at the research station of CTAHR in Waimanalo and saw Fred Rapoon was one of the first farm coaches, which is now my title. And I've never done it, but I'm always like thinking I should get some like Terry Kloth wristbands and be out there and be like, all right, let's do some new apps. Come on. Like two rows of weeds. Two rows of weeds. Those are the codes from Rocky. Yeah, a whistle or something. Clipboard I do have sometimes. So yeah, so it started at Windward, kind of a Windward side and Leeward side program here on Oahu. And now there's a program at in Kauai and then working with Maui Community College and we're just teaming up with the Kohala Center, so there's going to be like a go farm program on each of those islands. And yeah, so I came on and it was a fun opportunity for me. I was partway through a PhD program and sort of missing teaching and missing being on the ground and so this position for farm coach came open, which I took and we happened to live in Waimanalo. Oh, great. Nice and convenient. And now we're on our seventh cohort just started for the Windward side program and when I first came on, I guess the first people were just coming out of Ag Pro, which is sort of like the second stage of the program and going into the incubator stage of the program. And so really, as I have been on and then my partner Nora eventually came on as like the coordinator for the Windward side of the program, we ironed out a lot of the curriculum and trying to make it flow more from Ag school to Ag Pro and now I have this pretty awesome website where we've got lots of readings, really a lot of nice material. I think people that go through the program probably are like, are you kidding? There's no way I could read all of this, but once they go through the program, they have sort of eternal access to that website so they can go back and do more of the reading as they go on through their trajectory. And you guys have all your lectures videotaped as well on there and is that directory exclusive to the GoFarm students or did you guys make that? At this point, it's not just like a publicly available thing, it's probably easy to hack into. Stephen Cheng, yeah, it probably is. It's probably easy to hack into, I'm not good at securing. Yeah, just use my password, which is, can we put it up on the screen, that'd be great. So yeah, a lot of the lectures are recorded and so that enables all of the different programs on this island and the other islands to have at least some shared curriculum instead of having to ask like, poor Jonathan Dienic, like, will you come over and do like the lecture again? Talk about soils, yeah. Who is like a soils rock star. Yes, great, you know, great. We have a really nice presentation and, you know, great people that we've been able to have come talk but we don't want to burn them out, so it's been great to have them on video and for me it was really fun having been in CTAR and in the program to have gotten to know, you know, some of the faculty and be able to sort of, you know, ask people to come talk who I thought their work and experience would be really, you know, applicable for people wanting to start out in small scale, diversified ag and the program in theory is, I mean, and in practice is agnostic on whether we're trying to teach organic practices or, you know, conventional. I think, you know, definitely the idea is that we're focused on sustainable practices but almost everybody that comes into the program, you know, has a really strong interest in organic practices so that, you know, to a certain extent has influenced, you know, who we've asked to come talk and about what subjects and so yeah, I mean, I think it's developed especially on the windward side and at Waimanalo into like a really robust program and all the other programs are are younger but are on the same trajectory and, you know, trying to churn out some some good farmers and I think at the moment I think we have like around 15 people that are in the incubator program in Waimanalo and then the leeward side program is kind of now moving up to Wailua and they're gonna be starting another incubator up there and I think on all the other islands that's sort of, you know, down the line in the next year or two is to have an incubator program as well and then there are all these neat things that people that are in the incubator or have come through and then gone on to find their own land have helped start like farm link which I think you guys have had, people come talk about which is a, you know, a lot of the people in the incubator sell through farm link and we have a big walk-in refrigerator on the research station in Waimanalo that, you know, both people in the incubator program and other farmers who are selling stuff through farm link on the windward side can come drop their produce off which is nice for them and so on to drive into town to do deliveries they can just go, you know, drop it at one place and then Rob and Daniel and others drive around and schlep the stuff around and then friends with farms cooperative sort of was born with a lot of incubators and other folks. We've had on the show as well. So they also use our walk-in refrigerator and again a lot of people that are both in the egg pro to a certain extent but but especially the incubator and well and then that's great to see the things that have developed because the program is, you know, you're teaching folks how to farm getting them to start up their business but what has it been a surprise to you to see the farmers that kind of graduate and kind of take the initiative to kind of address these other issues that are going on in Hawaii and make this collaboration. Now you have this like wide network of graduates that also I think you have a lot of them come and speak and do some of the lectures as well to just talk about kind of the field of what's going on. Yeah with the marketing I think it's been great you know we have gone to a number of national conferences where you know there's like this whole kind of burgeoning like incubator farm movement so there's like a lot of them around the country and in a lot of cases they kind of like baby the incubator farmers where the incubator farmers will grow the food but the staff and like the organization that's hosting the incubator farmer they'll basically run a CSA and just tell the farmers like hey we need from you you know a hundred bunches of kale this week and so the farmers are just farming and then the staff are like the middle people so the so the farmers never really develop you know marketing skills and business skills and you know partly I think it's just because we have a you know a small staff and are a svelte organization and and partly I think it's just you know Steven's philosophy which I think has been great which is sort of like no way like we're gonna create like the opportunity for these people but we're not gonna like hold their hands and baby them and so I think the people that have succeeded have succeeded because they you know have taken the initiative and have started you know started the co-op and started farm link and sort of seen like needs and then instead of you know being like somebody should do something about this have done something about it and then yeah everybody has benefited from that which has been really really really inspiring to see and like Nora and I are sort of always joking about like purposefully like programming our like obsolescence like and when like when we started you know we were growing a lot and producing and you know selling to the Waimanalo co-op and we started selling to a few restaurants and to farm link and then we would sort of like the people who really wanted to like step up would be like hey you should like take this account and so now like we don't have to like do any like you know we're not we're doing much less actual production ourselves now and people have taken those accounts over which is you know that's that's the whole yeah purpose so that's been great to see people step up and do that I'll just get ready to finally be able to ask a question but I just found out that it's time to go to a break all right so when we come back let's promise that some questions okay that's great so you're over right back for a very healthy summer watch Viva Hawaii we're giving you the best tips and with our best health coach here so Viva health coach Viva la comida saludable hello ha my name is Josh Green I serve a senator from the big Island on the conus side and I'm also an emergency room physician my program here on think tech is called health care in Hawaii I'll have guests that should be interesting to you twice a month we'll talk about issues that range from mental health care to drug addiction to our health care system and any challenges that we face here in Hawaii we hope you'll join us again thanks for supporting think tech hello ha how you doing there lassies and laddies this is Angus mctech get on think tech Hawaii and I'm my favorite show he bought she talked with my good old buddies good oh the tech side and Andrew the security guy please join us every Monday no it's Friday every Friday from 1 p.m. to 1 30 p.m. here on think tech Hawaii and you can also find us on YouTube he bought she talked hello thanks for joining us Hawaii food and farmer series my name is just any spirit you this is my co-host Matthew Johnson today's guest is Jay boss aka tiger eye thank you to everyone for joining us so we're getting getting here the background and kind of re or new kind of developments in go farm and and how it's going really quickly can you go over again but the different stages sorry I'm just hanging out here maybe I can get a couple coffee or something I don't know I'm fine I'm fine don't know if I mean we could try to pull up that one slide but you know basically you know I think this was Steven Chang's doing all I get confused even still but we wish that the slide this slide that had was like a poster that and it had like a nice little like trajectory that showed like the different stages there we go I mean it's kind of hard to see where it says stages and curriculum but so yeah basically it starts with ag curious and that's like oh I'm I've heard of this program I'm interested in so you just come to a one-night seminar that's either you know it's it's wherever in our case it's at Winner community college and you guys get like hundreds of people showing up for that yeah I'm not paying a hundred the last one for us so I think was in the 60s so yeah ag curious and then you know we bring students and at the different stages to kind of talk about their experience and not like in a mean way but we try and you know scare some people off like this isn't a joke but you're gonna be like outside sweating like bugs are gonna eat your plants you're gonna be you know sad sometimes so yeah then they do ag exposure and that's you know three or four weeks where we'll you know they'll come and work at the site with people in the different stages to kind of see it and yeah get a sense for what the program is about meanwhile we're kind of checking them out like is this person taking like water breaks every five minutes and you know pulling up people's crops instead of the weeds and then we'll go on some farm tours and so you know typically that'll be like 20 people so it'll go from like a hundred or 60 down to 20 and then from that 20 is typically really difficult we got to pick 12 people because 12 is like how many plots there are so it's cutthroat I mean they're yeah yeah that's I mean we tell people and you know people that don't get in then we're like we'll go volunteer on some farms or you don't give up apply next time and so we've had people you know people like persevere and apply again and they typically it's great awesome all coach tell me the same right there you go so yeah we go ag curious ag exposure and then they come into ag school which is four months long like introductory style and then from that to ag pro we're looking at the ag pro plots there and then the ag pro they do business planning and they run like a little csa like a 10 member csa for 10 weeks they got to make money and that one especially is like a you know a ton of work people put in like 20 30 hours like a full week yeah and then once a successfully complete ag pro then that makes them eligible to go into the ag incubator stage which is cool so with ag incubator actually get to the lease yeah they're leasing yeah for up to three years shared equipment and then the idea is you know during that time they're kind of getting a wreck you know like a track record in terms of business in terms of production and then it's easier for them to go out and lease land or get a loan because they're not just very somebody walking in like oh I like to I'd like to start a farm and the state or chaos or whoever is like yeah so like have you ever done it it's all movie one time huh so I mean but that's what's really you know fascinating I mean really one of the largest challenges talking about having a more food secure state is you know there's all these different issues right access to land but also having people interested and available and skilled to go out and farm yeah and I mean that's the amazing thing about go farm it's you know one of you know there's only a few programs are actually focused on trying to do this so one it's fascinating that you have so many people showing up for a curious so that that's great but then actually get him to a point I'd you know this is the skills that you need on both the business side and the agronomic side but then also showing them the realities of this is what you got to do to be able to do it but in a much better way than just saying like if you're trying to lease land from a normal landowner saying oh okay yeah here's your 20 acre lease go for it good luck yeah there's no access to water no equipment yeah all those kind of things so it's it's great what you guys are doing it's it's huge I think it's really an amazing I think it's an amazing program and I and I think that for me it's been really interesting to have you know at least the part that I work with be on like a land grant universities research station which you know from my perspective like that's what land grants especially in this state like should be doing is you know figuring out how to like make the state more food secure so I mean I think it's great that there's people that are just like members of the public like learning how to produce food doing that on a program that's you know on the land grants land and accessing a lot of the extension agents and faculty extension to extension yeah I mean and you know in my opinion that's what like our tax money should be going for and that was like the purpose of the land grant and you know many land grants I feel like have yeah for money reasons sort of like lost their focus a little bit and you know just because like they work they're like a research arm of industry because industry has put the money and so you know seed is a good example of that and you know that's one thing I think we wanted to talk more about is this neat project came out of good you know both people just in the you know farmers gardeners teamed up with some people from CTAHR and started this thing called the Hawaii public seed initiative which is affiliated with the Kohala Center if you're interested Google Hawaii public seed initiative they had a couple of meetings around the state kind of you know talking about how do we produce more seed here how do we figure out people that want to grow food how do they find out what varieties are going to do well and so on their website those started this cool thing that's called like the seed selector tool so you can go on there and like put in your I don't know if you're laying a lot of to the land lot latitude and longitude or you just put your address in but basically it's like built in with with a map and people with similar climactic conditions around the state it's going to show what they've said which varieties have done well for them and now it's moving more and more towards trying to do some seed production actually here in the islands so you know trying to get varieties that are well you know well adapted to our our conditions here and so that's just launched a website and it's Hawaii seed growers network and I think in 2017 they're gonna start offering actually seed for sale that people in this network have grown so we're growing some seed right now in Waimanalo some like flint corn you know for flour or polenta and some Jamaica or Roselle or it's got all these different name red zinger it's like what's in red zinger tea we're growing some seed of that and so it's the point to like bring new products to market or just what you know will grow well yeah I mean partly it's to find like you know new and novel either crops or new and novel varieties but I mean at the end of the day it's really about you know what can farmers instead of like randomly getting on like a mainland seed company's website and they're like oh this is this awesome cucumber but it's like this is an awesome cucumber in California um and you know really farming for me here and so I've been here farming for you know four and a half years now has been like a really humbling experience like the pest and disease pressure out here is just like hardcore and you know like I said you know we're gonna we tell people that you're gonna be sad especially if you're wanting to do things um you know organically it's just like you know every day practically students like oh I'm trying to figure out like what's going on with my like beets why are there all these holes in it's like oh that's like the beat army worm and oh what's going on with this and oh that's like I don't know what fungus their bacteria is clogging the vascular system but I don't take care of all those problems for them I wish I could but so you know so that's where you know variety trials you know that the university does and we can draw on or um this Hawaii public seed growers network has sort of um you know done some variety trials and we just did this dry bean trial so trying to identify varieties that do well here the bean fast that we had last week because if you can find a variety that does just does well because it has like genetic characteristics that make it adapted to you know the heat to pests and disease like that's just gonna make your life as a farmer easier instead of having to fight and spray and pamper something to try and keep it cooler so yeah this is a neat this is actually a really neat example right here basil downy mildew is like this huge issue and it turns out actually that I didn't realize this until a couple years ago there's a really big basil industry here in Hawaii and there has been some trouble with people spraying unregistered fungicides on it and that's for this you know new disease basil downy mildew that came in in like 2010 and it's an issue on the mainland as well so through like personal connections and yeah just in seed and ag world we got some varieties from Vitalis seed which is a Dutch seed company that's breeding for you know genetic resistance to basil downy mildew so we've been doing that and Leeward Community College has done some trials on that Jerry Sugano the Oahu extension agent here on Oahu is doing that and that picture that we were looking at was Paulo one of our stellar incubator students so he was growing that got to sell the basil you know see these different varieties decide okay this one's like not getting basil downy mildew but it tastes like junk or this one hey bud you coming on here's your co-guest all right who's this guy this is Kailu hi Kailu he's a farmer farm coach in training he's a good leader so yeah that basil program has project has been you know really neat and do you get the go is that tied in to go for him at all do the students yeah so we end up you know a lot of the trials that we do who's who's out on the medium when he was just a little guy oh who's that on the sweet potatoes so yeah we try to involve students and really instill in them you know from the get-go and interest in seed and interest in doing variety trials and yeah just keep people excited and experimenting because that's the only way you're gonna succeed well that's we just kind of ran out of time but thanks for coming on to share my pleasure thanks for coming on Kailu yeah it's great to hear more about your background as well as watching myself I did the same thing yeah so we're here every Thursday with a new guest so please join us again next week Tech Hawaii Hawaii's leading digital media platform for civic engagement raising public awareness on tech energy diversification and globalism great content for Hawaii from Think Tech