I just got back from a conference on local farming in Northern Kohala. It was a big get-together for local merchants, restaurants, government representatives and farmers to spend a whole day talking about how they can collaborate better. But first let me tell the highlights of the day. There was this "Hawaiian version of Pan"-looking dude with a crazy huge hair and matching beard who showed up the session wearing only a sarong. That's right: no shirt, no shoes, just a thin piece of floral printed cloth and a big gap-toothed smile. To my great delight he stuck his "Hello my name is: Joey" tag directly onto his bare chest. Frickin' Hawaii. Joey was surprisingly well spoken and rallied a bunch of folks behind a campaign for life-time leases of 3 acre parcels to aspiring young farmers.
The farmers here have a ballsy goal of getting consumption of local agricultural products up to 50% in the Kohala community. A brilliant idea, but clearly the conference is just the first step. At the moment 70% of food grown in the area is shipped somewhere else. Only about 2% of food sold in restaurants and grocery stores is produced locally. Sadly, this is not at all unusual. Most of the produce, meat and dairy all over the country is shipped from somewhere else. It seems like eating is just a big game of musical chairs and I wonder how on earth it is more financially viable to ship your food all over the world, rather than eat it where its grown.
At the conference they touched on all sorts of issues concerning the local food industry and it turns out that one of the biggest is simple communication. The local merchants simply don't know what the farmers have to offer, and the farmers don't know what the merchants want them to be growing. Everyone, it seems, is idealogically on board with eating locally, which was a big shocker to me. Some were even willing to pay a premium for local foods. It's a miracle that no one needs convincing of the inherent value of a locally based food system. I think that because these folks live on a island, they have a deep understanding of the importance of self-sufficiency. That, and there's a whole lot of pride for food in these parts. Everyone seems to just love the papaya, sweet potato and guava that grow here so easily. They even like taro, which I cannot understand. I was super impressed by the tenacity, ingenuity and excitement of these folks for food and sustainability.
The farmers here have a ballsy goal of getting consumption of local agricultural products up to 50% in the Kohala community. A brilliant idea, but clearly the conference is just the first step. At the moment 70% of food grown in the area is shipped somewhere else. Only about 2% of food sold in restaurants and grocery stores is produced locally. Sadly, this is not at all unusual. Most of the produce, meat and dairy all over the country is shipped from somewhere else. It seems like eating is just a big game of musical chairs and I wonder how on earth it is more financially viable to ship your food all over the world, rather than eat it where its grown.
At the conference they touched on all sorts of issues concerning the local food industry and it turns out that one of the biggest is simple communication. The local merchants simply don't know what the farmers have to offer, and the farmers don't know what the merchants want them to be growing. Everyone, it seems, is idealogically on board with eating locally, which was a big shocker to me. Some were even willing to pay a premium for local foods. It's a miracle that no one needs convincing of the inherent value of a locally based food system. I think that because these folks live on a island, they have a deep understanding of the importance of self-sufficiency. That, and there's a whole lot of pride for food in these parts. Everyone seems to just love the papaya, sweet potato and guava that grow here so easily. They even like taro, which I cannot understand. I was super impressed by the tenacity, ingenuity and excitement of these folks for food and sustainability.
And what would a farming conference be without a fresh, local lunch? Our afternoon repast was 98% sourced from North Kohala (the only thing they bought was coconut oil, since no one processes that around here). It was a beautiful spread of everything from bean and potato salad, ceviche from some delicious local fish, three kinds of pork from a wild boar, poi, squash pie, beautiful big green salads and trifle of lilikoi and mango, and that's just what I can remember. My fellow WWOOFers and I contributed to the lunch by making sugar cane juice for the lilikoi lemonade.
Its criminal how many foods I regularly eat which I have taken so little time to think about. Sugar is one of them. It's in everything, and I never had any idea what kind of processing is behind it, or even what kind of plant it comes from. I guess vaguely I knew that it came from sugar cane, but what that looks like or how it grows are things I'd never considered. Yesterday we harvested some cane (it takes about 4 years of growing to get to harvestable size), cleaned it, split them for the juicer and then pushed it through this gigantic press which extracts the juice. The result is really sweet and sticky light brown juice that is only good for about 3 or 4 days. The sugar cane is actually a tropical grass, about the same size and shape as bamboo, but the inside is really hard, fibrous flesh that is super sweet when you chew on it. I snacked on a bunch while I was splitting the canes. A wheel-barrow full of canes made about 3 gallons of juice.
So, I wondered, how do you get white sugar from all this juice? Does it form crystals when you dry it? Is it dehydrated at high temperatures? I did a little research, and found out that it involves both of these things and, sadly, lots of chemicals, including sulphur dioxide, which remains in high levels in white refined sugar. Seems like it has more in common with meth than any plants when its done being processed. Which is not to say that I'll stop eating it, just noticing the similarities is all. And the cane juice mixed with lemon and lilikoi sure was heavenly. And I think its so damn cute that they call passionfruit lilikoi here on the islands. Doesn't it just sound more delicious in Hawaiian?
Its criminal how many foods I regularly eat which I have taken so little time to think about. Sugar is one of them. It's in everything, and I never had any idea what kind of processing is behind it, or even what kind of plant it comes from. I guess vaguely I knew that it came from sugar cane, but what that looks like or how it grows are things I'd never considered. Yesterday we harvested some cane (it takes about 4 years of growing to get to harvestable size), cleaned it, split them for the juicer and then pushed it through this gigantic press which extracts the juice. The result is really sweet and sticky light brown juice that is only good for about 3 or 4 days. The sugar cane is actually a tropical grass, about the same size and shape as bamboo, but the inside is really hard, fibrous flesh that is super sweet when you chew on it. I snacked on a bunch while I was splitting the canes. A wheel-barrow full of canes made about 3 gallons of juice.
So, I wondered, how do you get white sugar from all this juice? Does it form crystals when you dry it? Is it dehydrated at high temperatures? I did a little research, and found out that it involves both of these things and, sadly, lots of chemicals, including sulphur dioxide, which remains in high levels in white refined sugar. Seems like it has more in common with meth than any plants when its done being processed. Which is not to say that I'll stop eating it, just noticing the similarities is all. And the cane juice mixed with lemon and lilikoi sure was heavenly. And I think its so damn cute that they call passionfruit lilikoi here on the islands. Doesn't it just sound more delicious in Hawaiian?
