 Aloha and welcome to another episode of Hawaii Food and Farmer series. I'm your co-host, Justine Espiritu. This is my co-host, Matthew Johnson. Every other Thursday we bring on farmers and other representatives, organizations, individuals that are a part of our local food system. That includes nonprofits, that includes city or departmental representations, different groups that are acting as resources for farmers and helping to create a community around food and make it a better place. So who do we have on today? Yeah, before we even get to that, I'm just going to let everybody remind them that they can join the conversation by tweeting in at thinktechhi. And you can even call in by calling the hotline number at 415-871-2474. So yeah, so today we have a couple of great guests, some good longtime friends of mine from the Hawaii Ag Research Center. So with us today we have the executive director, Stevie Waylon, and we also have the Kunia Farm Station Manager, Jamie Barn. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Sure, thank you guys. Yeah, so just like Justine was saying, the purpose of the show is bringing on farmers and foodies and people are really just working hard to make Hawaii's local food system that much better and Hark is probably one of the, I guess, longer organizations that's been around so long that it's actually changed its name from White Sugar Plantation Association. Yeah, but also, Stevie, it's great having you on the show. You've been doing so many different things, helping a local ag from the sugar industry days and now to the more diversified ag days. So we're really excited to hear from the both of you on all the work you guys are doing. So why don't we start off with Stevie, if you can just do a brief introduction of yourself and then also a background on Hark. Okay, well, I've combined the two of them and I've been in the industry for a long time. Actually, I came to the islands in 66, was a science teacher for one year and then because I had the kids bringing in frogs and they dropped them into the principal's office. Yeah, they didn't ask me to go. It was enough of that. I gotta get out of it. Yeah, in your times up. Take your frogs with you. Right, right. So, and then I worked for a community pesticide and a local laboratory, one of 29 around the nation for a few years and then I was hired by the Hawaii Sugar Planners Association, which is an organization that started in 1882, changed its name to Hawaii Sugar Planners Association in 1895 when they created a research entity and went out for many years and crop improvement and stuff. Certainly focusing on sugar, but not just sugar because we were working for the big five who were looking at some kind of replacement crop. So, we were involved in lots of stuff and then moving on, big gap. In 2006, we changed the name to Hawaii Agriculture Research Center because just because we wanted the public to have a better idea that we were just not solely sugar and we were involved in a lot of stuff throughout the decades. It just didn't associate with that. And then in 2009, I believe it was, we actually were no longer a trade association. Okay, because it was sponsored just by the sugar companies and actually paid for by the sugar company. We then only had one company left because GNR was one of two, H.J. National GNR. And when GNR went out, we can't have a trade association. What was GNR again? GN Robinson, the last sugar operation on Kauai. Okay. So you can't have a trade association for a... A single organization. Yeah, yeah. Not much trading going on. Right. Or associating. So that's what we changed. They're actually pretty dramatically in what our mission was in a way because before as a trade association, you're part of the political scene and all the rest of it for your commodity. But now we're strictly like a church or a university where 501c3 charitable organization, scientific organization. So that was the change. I became the director in 1994 and have been there ever since to this transition. So we're transitioning from sugar, large scale to smaller scale. And from a trade association totally sponsored and paid for by an industry to one that's out there and everybody else competing for funds. Wow. And just for a little clarification, who is a part of the group? Is it different farmers, make up the members? So our board. So before when we were a trade association, totally the sugar operation, the big five were our board members. And then after that, we actually started, as they started downsizing, we started changing the board, bringing on different parts of the farm bureau, different commodity groups, lawyers, you know, just like a red and then, you know, totally turned it over from being operated or administered by the board, a bowl of sugar to a very diverse board, just like any other nonprofit. And so that's an interesting transition. I can only imagine the challenges associated with it, especially, I mean, just changing the name three times and changing along with the changing landscape of agriculture in Hawaii is super impressive. But I also want to hear from Jamie, who is a little bit newer to the organization. Yes. So you came on just a few, maybe four or five years ago. Yeah. So I've been, I've actually been at heart for like seven and a half years now. Oh, okay. It's gone by really fast. Yeah. So my background is less interesting in terms of ag topics, I guess. I originally wasn't intending to work in agriculture. I thought I was going to go be a physical therapist. So I sort of ended up in agriculture by accident, I guess, just sort of a series of things that happened that kind of ended up with me being at Hark. But originally, yeah, so I was going to school to be a physical therapist. I ended up doing a study abroad program, traveled around the world and completely shifted careers and decided not to move to Omaha, Nebraska anymore and to move back to Hawaii. Good. So and then when I came back, I was going back to school again to get my master's degree in global leadership and sustainable development. And I ended up getting an internship at Hark, actually. And it was through the Kupu AmeriCorps program. Okay. And so I started out, yes, 2009 and have definitely found my passion. This is what I want to do. I never would have imagined myself working on a farm or working with farmers. I was definitely the generation that thought food came from the grocery store. So yeah, this is definitely a huge life transition, but it's been really awesome. So and now you're the farm manager. Yes. So I guess Hark has a few different locations. There's the Kunia location and then I guess there's two Kunia locations. That's correct. Yeah, three locations. Two locations now. So we have two locations in Kunia. There's our farm where I'm at the lower research site. We call it lower Kunia, but it's right after you get off the freeway. And then if you go up to Upper Kunia, that's where Stevie's at and where we have some agricultural housing that I think we'll probably talk a little bit about. And then we have another research station over in Manawili. And they primarily work on forestry and sugarcane breeding work over there. Okay. And so, Jamie, give us a little background on the station that you manage and what does that look like? I mean, being an entire farm manager, how many acres and what kind of things are you specifically doing? I'm doing a little bit of everything. So we're a nonprofit. So we have many different hats. We have a lot of different things that we do day to day. But I manage the Kunia farm, which is about 108 acres. We farm a little over half of that. And my job day to day is always different. There's never a dull moment. So I'm constantly learning a variety of different types of projects from consulting on things like an Ulu project that I did with UMAC to working on local forage and local feed projects and breeding high biomass grasses, all kinds of different things. So it sort of just depends on the day. It depends on the year. But everything you're going over there is for kind of research projects? Yes, it's all research based. You're not doing anything commercially? Well, not exactly. We sort of got into coffee and cacao production a little bit recently. But prior to that, no, we were primarily just doing research projects. So we have on our farm, I think, five or six acres of coffee about an acre of cacao. We grow papaya, pineapple, pretty much anything someone wants us to do research on, we can grow. So I've grown corn, I've grown rice, sugar beets. And so anything that anyone wants research on is that like UH extension agents? Is that different farmers that are reaching out to you or new farmers that want to start a project? What do you know about this? And then they want to copy your homework and start it. Exactly. It's all of that, actually. It's all of that. So what I've realized is in the past couple of years, it just depends on what people are interested in at the moment. So I came in working on biofuels specifically because in 2009, 10, everyone was interested in trying to find different forms of renewable energy. So I was working on a few different oil seed tree crops, one called Jatropha. I've worked with some other tree crops as well. But then I ended up getting into high biomass grasses. So that's a project I'm still actually working on. We're breeding grasses that are, they're basically, you can use them for either high biomass or for animal feed. So if you cut them when they're short, they have a high protein content. They're really useful for animal feed. But then if you grow them for a year or so, they're just an incredible amount of biomass. So yeah, that's one of the projects we're doing. And actually the grasses are pretty interesting because they're sterile, so they're non-invasive. And then you would manage them as a perennial crop. So you have all the, I mean, added benefits of a perennial crop. So you're not tilling your soil. You're not ripping the crop out of the ground. You're just going in and repeatedly harvesting. So you're sequestering carbon. You're increasing your soil health. There's a lot of really awesome benefits to that. So I think that kind of gets a little bit into how do we fund ourselves now? We were totally dependent on the sugar industry before. So this was a, there's a real big transition. Yes, it's a new business model for you. Yes, exactly. And yeah, we're scientists. We're not business people. So this has really been a transition. But it is, what is somebody willing to pay for? Okay. Now we do have some funding and that comes back to the village, which we can talk about a little bit later. But we really need to, we're really committed to Hawaii's agriculture. You know, we're not looking at exporting. We're not looking at working for mailing companies necessarily and stuff. But what does Hawaii need? Where can we help them? That's our tradition. That's what we've done. And so that's what we try to focus on again. So everybody was interested in biofuel crops. Like she says, okay, we did that. We had a little bit of funding that we can put in ourselves. But it really has to be funded from somebody who is interested enough in it. We're usually a business who wants to look at something. And so that's really how we fund ourselves now. And it really needs, I mean, there's entrepreneurs out there who are interested and recognize that they need to do a little research before they just jump into something. So the main crops that we've been dealing with, and like she mentioned, coffee. And we can talk about that a little bit later and how we're starting to use our own crops to try and fund our own programs. That's great. That's a little different from the resources and folks that have come on. So we're going to take a quick break and then get into your specific example about that. Okay, that's great. I'm Jay Fiedel. And with Ray Starling, I host Hawaii, the state of clean energy, four o'clock every Wednesday, the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, making discovery of what's going on in energy in this community. Ray, what do you think? We've got a great group of shows coming up, finishing out this year and starting next year. Dean Nishita has been with us today. He's the new consumer advocate, and he has told us a lot, but he's got a lot more to tell. So we're going to have him back and others like him in future shows. And Dean, how much of that do you agree with? There's a lot to be said, and I'm interested in seeing some of your other shows. Okay, we'll be back. Four o'clock every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii. Hello, I'm Mary Ann Sasaki. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law, where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics, and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me. Aloha, and welcome back to Life Food and Farmer's Series. I'm your host, Matt. Here with Justine, and we're going to jump right back into our conversation with Stevie Whalen and Jamie Barton from Hawaii Ag Research Center. And we're just having a heated discussion that we actually continued it over to the break. But we're going to have the rest of our viewers join in as well. So we're talking about this transition that went from a trade association into a 5-1-2-3 non-profit and changing your business model and saying you guys are scientists. You're doing ag research and figuring out how you continue to do the work that you're doing in changing agricultural economy. So if you jump right back in and talking about how you guys fund yourselves. Okay, so the traditional funding was a commodity group that recognized research was important and therefore they funded it. And even though it's always high risk, right? You don't get rewards for every year. It took us like 12 years to create a new product for sure it came. Okay, and that's through breeding techniques. All right, so you're going to have to be patient. You're going to wait for 12 years before you get a reward on your money. So when you have now the type of agriculture we have now smaller groups, smaller commodities, not necessarily real well organized. And they don't see they have a problem until the problem hits. By that time it really is too late for a disease problem or a pest problem. Okay, fortunately the coffee industry and this latest pest problem that they have. Okay, there was that pest problem throughout the world so they knew how to attack it. So the university and the groups stepped in to help them. All right, but they're not going to be funding research and we've been looking at coffee rust came up this past year about how that could devastate the entire Hawai'i industry. There's no funding for it. We started it maybe 20 years ago and we just, our breeder on the side doing this, because she knew it was important. And so then all of a sudden it's a crisis and said well, we have some potential new things. Rust is not here yet but we could send them off to other countries to get them tested. Because we're not going to bring the rust here and test them. We've got to send it off to another country where they have it and they'll test it. But nobody's funding that. So we thought how we fund ourselves. The commodity group's too small, they're not going to fund us. We looked at landowners. That didn't work either. But what we did, we have a coffee product in our fields and it's falling on the ground. Right. Okay. Lots of, both of them. Willie and F. Canilla. And so maybe we should be harvesting that and selling it. So that's what we started. And we just started a few years ago. We're still entrepreneurs trying to figure this out as scientists and so that seems to be going pretty well. It looks like we have a very specific variety that Japan likes. They will pay like $40 to $100 for this kind of, it's just raw or roasted. And so then we don't have very much of it, but we have buyers now. So that's the way we look. So you are exporting some. Yeah. Well, we haven't yet. We haven't yet. But we just talked to that. How much do we have? We've got the buyers interested in stuff. And then how much will that bring in? How much does it cost us to do that? And then how much will it bring in to help the coffee program? Now can we do that same model for the cacao program? And then bring in our own funds for the research that goes on. And then we partner with various universities. The biofuel crops considerably. That's the University of Illinois, Texas A&M to work together on that. We partner with USDA and the cacao program. They can bring funding to us as we partner with them. And then the partner bag has funds that we could go for grants like that. So that's kind of what we're doing. And then private entrepreneurs who want us to look at something, then we do that for a service fee. So I actually want to ask Jamie here. So with some of these projects that Stevie's talking about from the, because kind of like identify like, okay there's a problem here. But then at the farm management level when this is handed over to you saying, okay we need you to do these trials or what are some specific examples or something that what's it look like when it's given to you? What happens then? How do you do these trials or what are you doing? It depends on what it is. I mean sometimes, we're basically just identifying whatever the specific issue is that they have. Usually, I don't know what would be a good example of something like that. So okay a good example would be we were working with a group that was interested in growing high biomass sorghum for energy. And so we would install a trial for them where we plant sorghum every month. We measure the old, we collect the data. We report it to them and they say okay this variety is the one we want to work with. These are good candidates. These are not. And a lot of that is under confidentiality. So we can talk about it generally but the data that's produced goes specifically to them and that's it. We don't get to do anything wrong with it. We probably do half a dozen projects like that a year. So it just depends on the group and what it is they want. So like another thing we're doing right now we're looking at animal feed. So we're trying to produce more local animal feed rather than relying on imported animal feed. So for the cattle industry we might be interested in something like this as an example. Cattle, goats, chickens, everything pretty much. And so we're running trials where we're just planting different species, different cultivars of different species in different environments, collecting data, reporting it to the funders, the farmers, whoever wants that information. So kind of changing topics but also similar. So talking about the Cunea Eco Village, is that the right? The farm worker housing. Because that's kind of a, I mean it's under heart but also it's kind of a separate project that you've been working on for a while. You're talking a little bit about that? So back in about 2005 and 2006 when Campbell was selling all their agland then they came to us and said, gee, we have a deal for you. It wasn't, it wasn't. They had the village that was very difficult to sell the property with the retirees on it and decrepitated housing and all the rest of it and they wanted to get rid of the land so they called it out. So this is old farm worker housing. This is Del Monte. Del Monte land, or not Del Monte land but Del Monte was leasing the land then they went out of business and so the land owner had this infrastructure and families living there getting to know what to do with it. Yeah, exactly. Well I wanted to get it out of there. Responsibility. So they came to us and said, yeah, we'll give it to you. You know, and there was some caveats associated with not that important but so, and of course I bought that I was absolutely crazy because they had plantation housing. They know how difficult it is and keeping it up and the expectations of the people living there. Like, you know, you come in and change your light bulbs for them. Come on. But that's the kind of expectation that the plantations produced through the years. They did everything for them. But anyway, so we ended up with another 100 acres, 119 acres up there. We had 121 units on it and about eight warehouses, a gym, wonderful gym, some chapel, you know, kind of a very small community. You have some good parties in the gym. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, we're still having them. She's not getting invited, I guess. Well, go live there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, then the houses are 80 to 100 years old. Wow. And you know, so we have gotten the funds. It's a very difficult, complicated sort of low income housing and to renovate 82 of them. Well, renovate 42 and 45 and build brand new 37. Oh wow, okay. Yeah. They look exactly the same. However, it's an historic district and you've had a lot of limitations of what you can do and cannot do. Right, and the people we were working on have been very helpful realizing this is low income housing. We can't put these things back exactly like they were. But we've kept most of them, especially the ones facing the road, exactly like they were from the outside. Inside, they allowed us to totally change, make it a modern house. Beautiful. I mean, it's beautiful on the inside. Plus they added extra bathrooms. So they have two bathrooms. This is just the one like they traditionally had. Took down a barrier wall, made it like a big open great room instead of the apartment level, a small room. So this is already being completed. It's been completed in May. Some of the houses, the renovated ones, many of them are complete and the new construction is still going on. But anyway, big plans built us the playground. We got the Locations Real Estate Company Foundation. Went by one day. There's one woman who used to drive by there. She's so excited. She went to the foundation and got funding for us for the playground. So people just kind of stepping up and helping out. It's kind of cool. We're having a community day on the 25th of February. If you want to come ahead. We're going to do planting and painting our gates and build the playground. So small ones, but we have a vision for two more. And this housing is specifically for agriculture workers. Agriculture workers. Because if you don't, and it's rental forever, if you sell like they did in many of the other plantations or sell them to their staff, which is nice and everything, but then it's no longer agriculture worker housing. And this area is a big area of ag and makes sense to have its own agriculture worker housing rentals forever. So that's what we're doing. So this is a big deal because we hear about this every year at the legislature, where they're trying to allow farm worker housing on ag land. But we know the problems that that has created where you get these ag McMansions basically pretending that they're doing agriculture by putting up a couple of fruit trees. But you guys are really kind of addressing both sides of the issue where you're providing something affordable for the farm workers, but then also ensuring that it stays with people who are in the ag industry. And the county's been just so great with us for this, you know, because there's lots of rules in all the rest of it. But they've come for it. We have not rezoned. We're still ag one. And they're allowing all this rule breaking essentially giving us variances and the rest of it because they know we're doing it in ag. And we're not going to create gentlemen's estate. So they just really, really been helping us out on this issue. And has it been all positive feedback on that? Is anyone fighting you guys on that? Or it's been very supportive. We try to keep quiet under the radar. It's going to blow up another show. It's right off. It's been under the radar. And people would, I mean, immediately it came before when we were talking about this. I mean, it's taken us eight years to get the funding together and the rest of it. Oh, what are you doing? And then I'm going to have to get the first spade in the ground. So we got the spade in the ground and it'd be done in May. So we're really kind of pleased with that. And do you already have farm workers that have applied or? Well, we had some that were there already. And then it's been a nightmare because, you know... Oh, before? Okay, yeah. Yeah. So their house needs to be fixed. So someone we kept empty because we knew this was happening. So they fixed up the empty ones, the new people, the people that had been there moving to that. But, gee, they want their old house. Sorry, you can't stay in your old house. Because you have to move into this and we can't move you back. So there's been some logistic nightmares but everybody's been very patient and worked through there. And we're still having some of those upsets but we're getting through this. So we have a few more minutes. I always like to wrap this up with just kind of like, what is the future for you guys, for Hark, but also just the... I mean, as the local ag scene is transitioning even more, what do you see happen next and what is both your individual roles but also Hark's role in continuing to strengthen the agriculture sector? Jamie, why don't you start? That's a challenging question. I guess what I know, I feel like I'm taking a test right now. I guess my focus, and I'm not sure if I'm properly answering your question, but my focus has been to just find the things that can have the greatest impact, the things that everybody has in common and focus on those things and work as hard as I can on those things to make ag work for everybody. So an example of that is something I've been talking about with a group of people recently where we want to do an equipment share program. They do these things. It's not a new idea. They do these things on the mainland, and usually it's run through like a soil and water conservation district and they purchase tractors or implements, things that farmers need, but they might not have the capital to use, excuse me, to purchase. And so they buy them and people are able to rent them out and lease them out. And so I see that being something that's really useful for small farmers in Hawaii, especially because the average size of a farm is like five acres. So sometimes you don't have $50,000 to go buy these giant pieces of equipment. So I mean, those are the types of things that I'm really trying to focus on to help Hawaii Ag move forward. And I see the future of it being people coming around those kinds of things, the positive things, and really trying to work really hard to make them happen. So we're glad to have Jamie because she's always positive. I'm too mistaken. What, you're not always positive? No. I've been doing it longer than me. Oh my God. But no, the vision is there and we plan to be successful in the next century. That's kind of our tagline now. We have a big sign up in our organization that there's some big banner up there, you know, successful in the next century. So we were around for the first century of this. We're going to be around for the next century. So we'll just do what we have to do to keep it moving. And it's not going to be easy. It's tough. And some people, you know, there's so much polarization going on now. I mean, that's a problem. We need to, what's the common interest? Jamie's really good about that. What's the common interest we can gather around rather than everybody pointing fingers and saying this is no good, that that's no good. It's just, you know, we're small now and we've got to be better organized. Everybody. We've got to work together. It's really hard when you start seeing the polarization that's going on. So that's all. That's my negative part. Great. Well, nice to wrap it up on that. We're out of time. Thank you guys so much for joining us and we'll get an update from you later. That's very welcome. Thank you. Another 10 years. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.