Monthly Archive for April, 2011

East Maui Taro Festival in Hana

Published on April 30, 2011 in Ag Tourism, General Ag News and Notes and Taro.


HANA – The 19th annual East Maui Taro Festival will be held from Friday through Sunday in Hana.

Activities will include traditional foods, arts and crafts, cultural demonstrations, music and hula.

Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., there will be Makali’i voyaging canoe tours and rides at Hana Bay, weather permitting.

Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., the festival will unfold at Hana Ballpark with entertainment along with food and craft sales, Hawaiian cultural demonstrations and a nonprofit informational tent.

Sunday from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m., the taro pancake breakfast also will offer loco moco bowls. Tickets are available with varying prices.

At 11 a.m. that day, the National Tropical Botanical Garden-Kahanu Garden and Pi’ilanihale Heiau will be open to tours, followed at 2 p.m. with a Kapahu Living Farm tour in Kipahulu.

For more information, call 264-1553 or see www.tarofestival.org.

East Maui Taro Festival in Hana – Mauinews.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor’s Information – The Maui News

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Keeping weeds down in a wet year

Published on April 28, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes.


Add weed control to the list of elements of growing your 2011 crop that is being complicated as cool, wet weather continues to delay planting in the bulk of the Corn Belt.

If you’re too far delayed in your planting and were originally planning on using a quick tillage trip to knock down early-emerging weeds, you may not be able to pull that off this spring. “Preplant tillage operations can effectively control existing vegetation while preparing a seedbed,” says University of Illinois Extension weed specialist Aaron Hager. “However, as weeds become larger, the effectiveness of tillage to control weeds before planting can be reduced.”

Even if you are able to squeeze in a round of tillage as things start to dry out, it may lose some efficacy, Hager says. “Reduced weed control may also occur when fields are slightly wet during the preplant tillage operation,” he says. “Soil disturbance may not be as extensive when soils are retaining moisture, and clods are more likely to be formed. Weeds sometimes take root again after tillage when soil disturbance is inadequate and soil moisture is abundant.”

So, what’s the answer? If tillage is already done, you don’t have enough time before you plant, or you were already thinking of a burndown application anyway, Hager says you can control winter annual weeds with a little stronger rate of burndown herbicide to “account for the large and dense vegetation.” Continue reading ‘Keeping weeds down in a wet year’

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Corn closes ‘limit’ down

Published on April 28, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes.


Mike McGinnis

CHICAGO, Illinois (Agriculture.com)–The CME Group corn market closed limit down on improved planting weather outlooks Thursday.

The July corn futures settled down the 30 cent ‘limit’ at $7.29 1/4. The contract traded around $7.24, synthetically. The July soybean contract closed 31 cents lower at $13.53 1/2. The July wheat futures closed 34 1/2 cents lower at $7.76. The July soybean meal futures settled $7.60 per short ton lower at $354.20. The July soyoil futures closed $1.48 lower at $56.93.

In the outside markets, the NYMEX crude oil is $0.10 per barrel higher, the dollar is lower and the Dow Jones Industrials are up 36 points. Since 1980, silver hit a new record price of $50.

“As I said yesterday, with exact scenario today, we left technical gap areas below and the first one was $7.49,” one CME Group corn pit trader says. But, I believe it’s merely about healthy corrections. Otherwise, the market is still bullish long term.”
Tim Hannagan, PFGBest.com senior grain analyst, says corn, wheat and beans continue to remove the recent weather premium, as this last system is now over and there’s not another appreciable rain until next Thursday now. “This has the trade thinking some spring wheat and corn could be planted early next week in the upper Plains. But, even if planting occurs, heavy rains enter on May 6 & 7 and then again May 11 & 12, leaving us generally well behind on planting,” Hannagan says.

Rich Feltes, RJ O’Brien market analyst, says, weather concerns don’t stop after planting. “The market is still going to be hanging on the edge needing to know the crops will be getting timely precipitation in the absence of summer heat. For that matter, for the late planted areas, we will need later than normal frostings. And we won’t know that for months,” Feltes says.

Corn, Market Analysis, Agricultural Markets | Agriculture.com

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Start over on Big Wind, group tells state

Published on April 28, 2011 in Alternative Energy, General Ag News and Notes and wind farm.


A community group that opposes the development of large-scale wind farms on Lanai and Molokai is asking state regulators to reopen the bidding process for the projects, saying the original agreement is no longer valid because one of the developers dropped out.

An attorney for Friends of Lanai said a decision by First Wind LLC not to pursue the Molokai portion of the proposed project triggered a series of events that were not authorized under the original approval granted by the Public Utilities Commission last fall.

First Wind withdrew from the project after missing a key March 18 deadline set by the PUC to show that it was making progress on its planned 200-megawatt Molokai wind project. Castle & Cooke Resorts, which is pursuing a 200-megawatt wind project on Lanai, met the deadline. The two projects, dubbed “Big Wind,” would transmit electricity to Oahu via an undersea cable under a plan that is still in the preliminary stages.

Friends of Lanai attorney Isaac Hall noted that the PUC had to grant a waiver for the Big Wind project to proceed because its proposed size exceeded Hawaiian Electric Co.’s original request for proposals of up to 100 megawatts of renewable energy.

“Since only one party timely complied (with the PUC deadline), Friends of Lanai believes that the waiver is no longer valid Continue reading ‘Start over on Big Wind, group tells state’

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Exhibit opens on Hawaii’s creole language

Published on April 27, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes.


A new exhibit opens this weekend on Pidgin, Hawaii’s creole language.

The exhibit titled, “Pidgin: How was, how stay,” is to feature an illustrated timeline that connects history and the development of Pidgin English and Hawaii Creole.

The exhibit is to also feature audiovisual samples of plantation era and contemporary Pidgin.

The opening day event on Saturday at the Hawaii Plantation Village in Waipahu is to include screenings of documentary films in Pidgin, activities about Pidgin and local food.

The free event is sponsored by the Charlene J. Sato Center for Pidgin, Creole and Dialect Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the Hawaii Council for the Humanities.

Exhibit opens on Hawaii’s creole language – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

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Farmers protest against Japanese nuke plant owner

Published on April 26, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes.


TOKYO >> More than 200 farmers brought two cows to Tokyo where they shouted and punched the air Tuesday in a protest to demand compensation for products contaminated by radiation spewing from Japan’s crippled nuclear plant.

The farmers from northeastern Japan wore green bandanas and held signs saying “Nuclear disaster is human disaster” and “Stop nuclear energy” outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant damaged in the March 11 tsunami.

Radiation leaking from Fukushima Dai-ichi plant — about 140 miles (220 kilometers) north of Tokyo — has been found in milk, water and leafy vegetables such as spinach from around the plant.

“I could not sit still in Fukushima. I want TEPCO to understand our frustration, anxiety and worries over our future,” said 72-year-old Katsuo Okazaki, who grows peaches and apples. “My patience has run out. The nuclear crisis is totally destroying our farming business,” he said. Continue reading ‘Farmers protest against Japanese nuke plant owner’

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The incredible floating fire ant

Published on April 25, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Invasive Species.


By Brian Vastag,

Congress — and perhaps the rest of us — could learn a thing or two about teamwork from Solenopsis invicta, the dreaded fire ant.

When in danger of drowning, a colony of the critters — thousands of them — will save themselves by joining forces and forming a raft. They pile together and lock legs and jaws. So bound, an ant raft can survive for months.

Engineers studying animal oddities now report that together, the ants aren’t just stronger. They’re floatier. Airtight, even.

“Water does not penetrate the raft,” said Nathan Mlot, a mechanical engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology and lead author of the ant-raft report published in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academies. Even the bottom layer of ants stays dry, he said.

Engineers, Mlot went on to explain, think the rafting behavior might aid the quest for new waterproof materials and offer lessons for robotics research. Continue reading ‘The incredible floating fire ant’

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Growing olives on Maui topic of speaker

Published on April 25, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes.


WAILUKU – The Italian American Social Club will host a potluck dinner Tuesday with a discussion on the prospect of growing olives on Maui.

The event at 6 p.m. in St. Theresa Church’s Stawasz Hall will feature speaker Alan Battersby.

Battersby owns and operates the new Calasa Gulch Olive Tree Farm in Upcountry.

He promised to bring a “little touch and taste” of Italy with his green, black and purple olives. Battersby not only wants to grow olives but also produce olive oil on the island.

He also will discuss the history of the farm and its future, according to a news release from the Italian American Social Club. He has about 2,000 olive trees in various stages of growth on his villa-style property as well as grapes and assorted Italian herbs and fruits on about 20 acres, according to other news reports on Battersby’s olive venture.

The public is welcome to the meeting.

For more information, contact Don Tedesco at 214-6366 or email him at dstedesco@gmail.com.

Growing olives on Maui topic of speaker – Mauinews.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor’s Information – The Maui News

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Blue Plains upgrade could produce valuable farm fertilizer, but critics are wary – The Washington Post

Published on April 23, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes.


By Darryl Fears,

After moving tons of earth for an expansion, Stafford Regional Airport in Virginia faced an embarrassing problem: severe and seemingly irreversible baldness. Virtually nothing grew on its dusty, damaged land.

The airport’s worried manager, Ed Wallis, tried different treatments before he was advised to consult with officials at theBlue Plains Advanced Water Treatment Plant, a sprawling facility at the southern tip of the District that processes 375 million gallons of the area’s wastewater per day.

Airport officials liked what they saw and began accepting a dark substance called a biosolid from Blue Plains. Five months later, grass started to sprout. A year later, it was thigh-high.

“It was unbelievable,” Wallis said.

That transformation a decade ago is a legend at Blue Plains, the first thing officials from the plant mentioned recently while promoting theirbiosolid fertilizer. That’s a fancy scientific marketing name that masks what the biosolids truly are — sludge made primarily from human waste.

Probably the world’s original fertilizer, this cleaned and treated version of what was long known as “night soil” may well loom large in the future, too. Continue reading ‘Blue Plains upgrade could produce valuable farm fertilizer, but critics are wary – The Washington Post’

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Rare plants thrive in Big Island Forest preserve

Published on April 23, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes, Invasive Species, Native Hawaiian Plants and endangered species.


The Nature Conservancy says rare native plants are once again thriving in a Big Island forest preserve now that a fence is keeping out pigs and mouflon sheep.

The animals, which are not native to Hawaii, destroy native plants and habitats by trampling on vegetation. The animals accelerate erosion and pollute the water supply with feces and diseases.

The nonprofit organization installed an animal-proof fence around its Kaiholena Preserve in Kau in late 2007. It took the conservancy and local hunters another year to remove all the pigs from the 1,200-acre lowland forest preserve.

The Nature Conservancy said Tuesday the nuku iiwi, a native vine traditionally found in Kaiholena, is among the plants that has returned. The vine’s reddish-orange flower resembles the curved bill of the iiwi honeycreeper.

Rare plants thrive in Big Island Forest preserve – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

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Land officials vote to revert Aina Lea land

Published on April 22, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes.


The state Land Use Commission on Thursday affirmed its decision to revert land owned by Bridge Aina Lea and DW Aina Lea to agriculture.

The commission voted 6 to 2 in favor of adopting its proposed decision and order, Commission Executive Director Dan Davidson said. The order was slightly amended from the proposed form; the amendments will not be available until Monday, Davidson said.

Hawaii County officials may allow the construction to continue, despite the commission’s ruling, a spokeswoman for DW Aina Lea said. Planning Director Bobby Jean Leithead-Todd did not respond to a message left on her cell phone seeking clarification late Thursday. The spokeswoman said the building permits for the project were issued by the county, in accordance with county zoning, and the state commissioners did not intend to issue any ruling on existing structures.

Infrastructure for the project has not been completed; as of the last report to the commission, the existing structures did not have electricty or running water. Continue reading ‘Land officials vote to revert Aina Lea land’

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Big Island groundwater tested for radiation

Published on April 22, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Water.


Hawaii state health officials have sent samples of Big Island groundwater for testing after the release of radiation from Japanese nuclear power plants last month.

West Hawaii today reported Friday health officials took samples from Waimea’s groundwater supplies to be sent to the mainland for testing.

Results are expected next week or early next month.

County officials are to ask the Board of Water Supply to approve a contract change that would allow for in-house lab tests for radiation or to request tests from the lab contractor.

Big Island groundwater tested for radiation – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

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Pennsylvania: the ‘ground zero’ of the US shale gas drilling boom

Published on April 21, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes and Water.

The Guardian

Last June, Tony Zaffuto arrived at his fieldstone cabin in the forested hills of Pennsylvania’s SB Elliott state park to find a notice pinned on the front door: “Danger. Do not occupy dwelling”.

A blowout at a gas well in another popular camping spot, in the woods of the Punxsutawney hunt club, also in Clearfield County, had shot a 23-metre (75ft) combustible gusher of gas and toxic waste water into the air. It took the gas company, EOG Resources, 16 hours to control the well and the authorities had to carry out an evacuation.

It was not Zaffuto’s first encounter with the dangers of natural gas drilling. In 2009 the spring that was the cabin’s only source of water was contaminated by toxic waste from a pond serving the gas wells. Five other nearby water wells were also contaminated.

And yet Zaffuto is right behind Pennsylvania’s natural gas boom. He supports the idea of US energy security and he wants his country to reduce oil imports.

“Throughout all this, I am pro-drilling, but I want to see it done correctly,” Zaffuto, a businessman whose family have owned the cabin since 1921, said. “Having it done correctly will not cripple the industry. If there is money to be made they will comply. If there is enough natural resource of gas in the ground, they will drill and they will abide by the regulations. It’s simple.” Continue reading ‘Pennsylvania: the ‘ground zero’ of the US shale gas drilling boom’

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6 isle farms sued for labor practices

Published on April 21, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes.


Federal authorities have filed a civil lawsuit accusing six Hawaii farms of “unlawful employment practices” in association with federally indicted farm labor contractor Global Horizons Manpower Inc.

Global Horizons’ owner and employees are already facing several forced labor criminal charges in what’s been called the most sweeping labor prosecution in U.S. history, but no farms were implicated in the crimes.

However, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleges that supervisors from the six island farms and two others in Washington state were “engaged in, and more importantly knew of, or should have known that this was going on, and took no action to remedy it.”

The Hawaii farms are Captain Cook Coffee Co., Del Monte Fresh Produce, Kauai Coffee Co. Inc., Kelena Farms Inc., Mac Farms of Hawaii LLC and Maui Pineapple Co. The lawsuits were filed Tuesday in Hawaii and Washington.

Global Horizons is also named in the lawsuit. In Washington state, the two farms charged are Green Acre Farms and Valley Fruit Orchards.

Aloun Farms, named in the federal indictment against Global Horizons, was not implicated in the EEOC lawsuit. Aloun Farms owners Alec and Mike Sou still face separate federal forced labor charges in a case unrelated to Global Horizons. Continue reading ‘6 isle farms sued for labor practices’

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Sharing Mana’o

Published on April 20, 2011 in General Ag News and Notes.


I’ve been thinking about job satisfaction and general happiness. It’s like the chicken and the egg. Which comes first? Seems logical that a satisfying career would be a major factor in one’s overall contentment. But some experts say it’s the other way around – that the key to job happiness is being happy in general, and that you don’t have to find fulfillment at work in order to be content in life.

It’s a moot point for me, because I’ve always had jobs I enjoy. And I’ve always enjoyed life in general. I’m one of those rose-colored-glasses-wearing, sunny-side-of-the-street kind of folks who annoy the heck out of other folks like my late husband, Barry. He used to joke that my eternal optimism was a mental illness, that normal people just aren’t that happy all the time, especially while on the job.

But then, as I used to tell Barry, my work life is far from normal. I’m fortunate to be able to do what I love and love what I do. Besides radio broadcasting, storytelling, acting and writing, I have a wonderful day job. For 15 years, I’ve worked for Kaunoa Senior Services, a division of the County of Maui’s Department of Housing and Human Concerns. Far from being a stereotypical cog in the grinding wheels of bureaucracy, Kaunoa is an efficient, enlightened agency with an admirable mission: to continuously create special and exceptional experiences and opportunities to make the retirement years of Maui’s seniors feel like the best years of their lives. Continue reading ‘Sharing Mana’o’

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Feds say firm abused Thai farm workers in Hawaii, Washington

Published on April 20, 2011 in Coffee, General Ag News and Notes, Macadamia Nuts and Pineapple.


The U.S. Employment Opportunity Commission announced today that it filed lawsuits in Hawaii and Washington state against Global Horizons Inc., a Beverly Hills-based farm labor contractor, and eight farms, including six in Hawaii.

The agency said Global Horizons brought more than 200 men from Thailand to work on farms in Hawaii and Washington, where they were subjected to severe abuse.

The EEOC contends that Global Horizons engaged in a pattern or practice of national origin and race discrimination, harassment and retaliation. Hundreds of additional potential claimants and witnesses are expected, the EEOC said.

The agency said the Thai workers were assigned to work at these farms in Hawaii: Captain Cook Coffee Company, Del Monte Fresh Produce, Kauai Coffee Company, Kelena Farms, MacFarms of Hawaii and Maui Pineapple Farms.

The Washington state farms named in the lawsuits are Green Acre Farms and Valley Fruit Orchards.

The lawsuit follows criminal charges brought against Global Horizons last year. The U.S. government in September indicted Global Horizons owner Mordechai Yosef Orian and others with exploiting about 400 Thai workers in forced-labor conditions from May 2004 to September 2005. Continue reading ‘Feds say firm abused Thai farm workers in Hawaii, Washington’

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