Safety costs criticized – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

Published on November 28, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes, Sugar Cane and Water.

Many Hawaii farmers and ranchers say the cost of complying with proposed safety rules regulating dams and reservoirs will be more than they can afford and that they’ll be turning to the state Legislature for financial aid.

“We’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Alan Gottlieb, a past president of the Hawaii Cattlemen’s Council.

The proposed administrative rules were approved by the state land board Monday and forwarded to Gov. Linda Lingle. The governor’s approval is required before they take effect.

The rules would regulate 138 reservoirs in Hawaii that have the capacity to hold 5 million gallons or more.

State officials said the increases in fees would pay for costs of enforcing the new safety rules.

Critics say that besides the high cost, the regulations would discourage the operation of existing reservoirs, many of which operate on narrow profit margins.

One of the largest regulated reservoirs is at the city’s Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden in Kaneohe.

The reservoir, built as a flood-control project, usually stores 84.7 million gallons but has a capacity of 1.4 billion gallons, according to the state.

Farmers and ranchers say that while they support safety regulations in light of the 2006 Koloko Reservoir dam break on Kauai that killed seven people, the proposed rules place an unreasonable burden on businesses. Continue reading ‘Safety costs criticized – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com’

Kauai shrimp farm input still sought

Published on November 27, 2010 in Aquaculture and General Ag News and Notes.

LIHUE, Hawaii (AP) – Kauai environmentalists and business interests are clashing over whether to renew a federal permit that would allow a shrimp farm to continue discharging effluent into the ocean.

Sunrise Capital, a unit of the Missouri-based Integrated Aquaculture International, wants to renew its Environmental Protection Agency permit for a shrimp farm in Kekaha.

Sunrise currently produces white shrimp at its facility, mainly for local consumption and breeding stock for export. The firm has plans to produce everything from kahala, moi, oysters, clams, seaweed and algae to produce jet fuel.

George Chamberlain, a founder of Integrated Aquaculture International, told about 50 people gathered at a public hearing Wednesday that the effluent discharge ”has no impact,” according to the Kauai Garden Island.

Other supporters, who comprised about half of the audience, were focused on economic concerns.

”We need those jobs again,” said Tony Ricci, a resident. He contended critics are blowing out of proportion potential problems with discharges.

But other residents and representatives of environmental groups criticized the permit renewal.

Rayne Regush of the Kauai branch of the Sierra Club said her organization opposes the company’s application. If it were renewed, she said the frequency of monitoring should be increased, water-quality testing should also look for bacteria, and monitoring data should be made available online to the public. Continue reading ‘Kauai shrimp farm input still sought’

Limited Time to Change Hunting Rules

Published on November 26, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes, Hunting, Invasive Species and Native Hawaiian Plants.

Conservation Council for Hawaii News Release

The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources is proposing revisions to Hawaii Administrative Rules relating to hunting and game, and asking the public for their feedback. This is an opportunity to urge the state to change the hunting and game management paradigm to reduce the damage caused by introduced continental feral ungulates and game mammals, and provide more opportunities for hunters to help control animals and bring home the meat. Continue reading ‘Limited Time to Change Hunting Rules’

Contrails or chemtrails?

Published on November 22, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Globel Warming.

Some Kaua‘i residents are growing increasingly concerned over what they call ‘chemtrails’ in the sky, suspecting aircraft of spraying potentially harmful chemicals over populated areas. They have been tracking these trails, disseminating information and generating discussion online at kauaisky.blogspot.com. Government agencies assert that ‘persistent contrails,’ line-shaped clouds composed of ice particles, pose no direct threat to public health but may contribute to human-induced climate change.

Contrails or chemtrails?

Hawaii utility receives $110M loan guarantee

Published on November 19, 2010 in Biofuels, General Ag News and Notes and Water.

HONOLULU (AP) — The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative has received a $110 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Hawaii’s Democratic Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka said Thursday in a Washington news release that the loan guarantee will be used to expand renewable energy initiatives.

They say the guarantee includes nearly $73 million for hydroelectric plant improvements and a 10-megawatt naphtha/biodiesel fueled combustion turbine.

Inouye says the funds will help Kauai further harness the power of water and biofuel as part of the effort to lessen Kauai County’s dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Akaka says the homegrown energy sources keep dollars in Hawaii while reducing air, land and water pollution.

Hawaii utility receives $110M loan guarantee – Yahoo! Finance

Reservoir owners, farmers contend proposed dam safety rules too costly

Published on October 13, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes and Water.

LIHUE » New state rules on dam safety could be too costly for landowners, several people testified yesterday at the first of four public hearings this week on proposed changes.

The main users of water from Hawaii’s reservoirs are farmers, and “farmers are struggling. It’s not a good time to tack on new fees,” said Howard Greene, representing major Kauai landowner Gay & Robinson.

Greene estimated that paying higher fees for dam safety requirements for its 13 reservoirs would cost Gay & Robinson $50,000 to $60,00 a year.

Proposed rules from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources will align the agency responsible for monitoring dam safety with laws on dam safety passed in 2007, said Edwin Matsuda, the department’s flood control and dam safety section chief.

The proposed rules include several new fees for dam owners, which help fund dam safety inspections, Matsuda said. There are also provisions for administrative fines and criminal penalties if there are violations. Continue reading ‘Reservoir owners, farmers contend proposed dam safety rules too costly’

The Garden provides plenty at Common Ground

Published on October 9, 2010 in General Ag News and Notes, Sustainability and Vegtables.

It’s an uncommon dining experience: you turn mauka off the highway in Kilauea, there are no advertisements, no string of cars looking for parking, no delivery trucks dropping off packaged food. No, it feels more like you have stumbled upon a 60-acre farm that happens to have a tranquil, open-air restaurant, where bananas and coconuts hang from the doors. A few feet beyond the tables are herb gardens. Beyond that is a massive garden, with rows and rows of vegetables. “You can sit down and look at where your food is coming from,” said Jay Sklar, chef and food-services director.

The Garden restaurant at Common Ground — a resource center for the community with many projects focused on sustainability — is leading the way to show what is possible for restaurants who embrace the “farm-to-fork” concept. When Common Ground — formerly Guava Kai Plantation — began the farming process over two years ago, the old guava trees, which were no longer able to produce fruit, were cut and chipped into a nitrogen-rich compost to make the soil healthy. They now continue to make their own compost with various materials on site, and mix it with oxygenated water in order to make a “tea” they spray on the crops. Sklar said they use no petro chemicals, and the practice of permaculture is used, meaning the landscaping is edible and plants are strategically placed in order to naturally benefit each other. Continue reading ‘The Garden provides plenty at Common Ground’

The last haul – Hawaii Business – Starbulletin.com

Published on October 31, 2009 in General Ag News and Notes and Sugar Cane.

Gay & Robinson’s departure means Hawaii has only one sugar grower left

By Allison Schaefers
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Oct 31, 2009

The Last Sugar Mill in Hawaii
Click for Larger Image
WAIMEA, Kauai » The sugar workers bringing in the last harvest at centuries-old Gay & Robinson had tears in their eyes, but this time it was not from the smoke and burning caramel smell that accompanies cane processing.

Amid a chorus of honking trucks, employees escorted Kauai’s last load of sugar cane from the field to the mill yesterday. Along the way, they paid homage to West Kauai, and the community responded in kind.

The convoy began at Makaweli Post Office and proceeded through Waimea Town, around the West Kauai Technology Center and into Hanapepe before stopping at Kaumakani Mill where the workers rode up the dusty drive like returning war heroes. They are the last of their kind on Kauai, the island that ushered in the state’s centuries-old sugar tradition with the opening of the first successful sugar mill in Koloa in 1835. They are the end of an era.

Continue reading ‘The last haul – Hawaii Business – Starbulletin.com’

The End of Sugar on Kauai – Is This the Beginning of the End for Hawaii’s Iconic Agricultural Products?

Published on September 24, 2009 in General Ag News and Notes, Pineapple and Sugar Cane.

Thursday September 24, 2009
Yesterday, Gay & Robinson announced that they would cease sugar operations on Kauai this fall, a year earlier than they had previously announced. This will mark the end of sugar production on Kauai.

When Gay & Robinson first announced its intentions in July 2007, there was anticipation that a partnership with Pacific West Energy LLC would merely shift the sugar cane business from consumable sugar to the production of ethanol. Those plans never met fruition.

With the end of sugar production on Kauai, only Maui’s Alexander & Baldwin’s Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. remains as the only producers of sugar cane in Hawaii. Poor economic conditions and drought conditions on Maui have cast a shadow on the future of sugar on Maui.

It is not beyond comprehension that within a few short years, Hawaii’s two iconic agricultural products, sugar cane and pineapple, may be no more. Currently Maui Land & Pineapple Co. Inc. is the only remaining producer of pineapple in Hawaii. Cheaper sources of pineapple elsewhere in the world and huge financial losses have cast doubt about the future of that operation as well.

Continue reading ‘The End of Sugar on Kauai – Is This the Beginning of the End for Hawaii’s Iconic Agricultural Products?’

Monsanto Hawaii Science Education Grant Fund Applications Now Being Accepted – The Honolulu Advertiser

Published on September 2, 2009 in General Ag News and Notes.

Applications are now being accepted for the Monsanto Hawaii Science Education Fund. This Monsanto Fund grant program is open to public schools serving students at the intermediate, high school and college grade levels on the islands of Maui, Molokai, Oahu, and Kauai.
Established in 2005, the Fund helps provide Hawaii public schools with programs, tools, supplies and equipment to enhance science education in the schools, and encourage today’s students to consider a future career in the sciences.

Monsanto’s recent round of grants supported a wide variety of educational endeavors such as alternative energy solutions, forensic studies, biotechnology studies, an aquaponics facility, solar powered cars, hydroponic lab, robotics competitions, and supplies and equipment for courses in chemistry, biology, and agriculture.

Continue reading ‘Monsanto Hawaii Science Education Grant Fund Applications Now Being Accepted – The Honolulu Advertiser’

Oahu gobbles resources as other isles make do – Columnists – Starbulletin.com

Published on August 30, 2009 in General Ag News and Notes.

By Cynthia Oi

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 30, 2009

Maggie Cox makes a good point. If public libraries on rural islands are to be closed to save the state some money, it’s only fair that libraries on Oahu share the pain.

Cox represents Kauai on the Board of Education and though none of the libraries at the top of the list for shuttering are on the Garden Island, Cox speaks in defense of the stepchildren of the state.

They are the Cinderella regions of Hawaii, exploited for the natural beauty they have largely retained while most of Oahu has been so disfigured it is no longer eligible for the tourism image of unspoiled paradise.

They are expected to do the heavy lifting for undesirable projects like prisons and military training grounds, but stand at the back of the line for the good stuff like technologically top-grade schools and medical facilities.

Continue reading ‘Oahu gobbles resources as other isles make do – Columnists – Starbulletin.com’

TheGardenIsland.com – Managing uncertainty

Published on August 26, 2009 in General Ag News and Notes.

IAL meeting creates more questions than answers

By Lois Ann Ell – Special to The Garden Island
Published: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 2:11 AM HST

KAPA‘A — What began as an informational meeting about the designation of important agricultural lands turned into a heated discussion about Kaua‘i’s agricultural future.

Dr. Karl Kim, a professor at the UH Department of Urban and Regional Planning, presented a slide show of the Koloa-Po‘ipu pilot agricultural lands study he and his colleagues conducted for the Land Use Commission. He was the guest speaker at the monthly Wailua-Kapa’a Neighborhood Association meeting Monday night at the Kapa’a Library.

Continue reading ‘TheGardenIsland.com – Managing uncertainty’

Withering loans – Hawaii Business – Starbulletin.com

Published on August 23, 2009 in Ag Tourism and General Ag News and Notes.

Hawaii farmers find that loans are fewer, smaller and more difficult to obtain in this economic slump

By Allison Schaefers
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 23, 2009

Wall Street is as far as you can get from the 8-acre Steelgrass Farm in Kauai where the main attraction is chocolate, but the trickle-down impacts have made for bittersweet returns.

"We just got turned down for a loan again," said Tony Lydgate, who helped his children, Emily and Will, purchase Steelgrass Farm in the 1990s. "Our revenues are in the low six figures, but we can’t even get a $20,000 line of credit."

The Lydgates, who have about half of all the cacao trees on Kauai, offer tours to supplement their farming income. Still, they need more capital to establish an agricultural cooperative that harvests cacao for commercial distribution.

"We can’t expand at the speed that we would like, too," Lydgate said.

The Lydgates are not alone. As the economy has slumped, more farmers in Hawaii and elsewhere have found that the crop of loans available to them has withered. Continue reading ‘Withering loans – Hawaii Business – Starbulletin.com’

HAWAII AQUACULTURE

Published on August 18, 2009 in General Ag News and Notes.

Hawaiian stilt, aeo (Himantopus knudseni) forages in an abandoned catfish farm within Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge on Maui<br />Click for Larger Image

Hawaiian stilt, aeo (Himantopus knudseni) forages in an abandoned catfish farm within Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge on Maui
Click for Larger Image

CLICK HERE to view the PDF file for the Hawaii Aquaculture Report.
Please visit the website for more information:
http://www.nass.usda.gov/hi/
————————————————————-
Contact Information:
Mark E. Hudson, Director
USDA NASS Hawaii Field Office
1421 South King Street
Honolulu, HI 96814-2512
Office: (808) 973-9588 / (800) 804-9514
Fax: (808) 973-2909
————————————————————-
"HAWAII AQUACULTURE" reports are available on our website and also PRINTED annually. Subscriptions for PRINTED copies are free to those persons who report agricultural data to NASS (upon request) and available for $2 per year to all others.

Hawaii grown aquaculture reached a record $34.7 million in 2008, increasing 38 percent from 2007. Algae sales accounted for 45 percent of the value and amounted to $15.7 million. Finfish sales by weight valued at $7.0 million, comprised 20 percent of the total. The ornamental category was pegged at $3.3 million or 10 percent of the total. The ‘other’ category includes seed stock, brood stock, and other items counted by number, accounted for 24 percent or $8.3 million. Hawaii County continued to lead the State in aquaculture sales with $27.8 million or 80 percent of the total value. Sales from Honolulu, Kauai and Maui Counties accounted for the remaining 20 percent.

KauaiEclectic: Musings: Planning Overhaul

Published on August 16, 2009 in General Ag News and Notes.

And so, it seems, is the reality of the state’s budget crisis, with The Advertiser reporting today that proposed layoffs in the Department of Agriculture could imperil food imports and exports.

On the import side, [Big Island Rep. Clifton] Tsuji said, he’s already heard from a major produce importer who warned that a dramatic slowdown in the time it takes to have items inspected could spell the end of the import of certain types of lettuce or other food products that perish easily. "If they don’t have the inspectors, they might have to cease importing these items," Tsuji said.

It’s a double-edged sword. If some stuff’s not coming in, it could increase demand for locally-grown veggies and so spur production. But if we don’t have enough inspectors, it harms exporters, who are a major force in Hawaii’s diversified ag sector. It also increases the risk of more pest species being introduced, which is a major concern for the native environment, farmers and our overall quality of life.

It raises, once again, the question of whether Hawaii is serious about ensuring that agriculture is part of its future.

That question will be front and center as Kauai goes through the process of identifying its Important Ag Lands. We’re the first county to do such a study, which is mandated by Act 233. Dr. Karl Kim of UH has been awarded the county contract, and he’ll be talking about the process at a meeting set for 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 24 at the Kapaa Library.

I was talking to Farmer Jerry the other day, and he said the most important message that needs to be conveyed about the IAL process is “it’s not gonna be the third Mahele for the developers.”

KauaiEclectic: Musings: Planning Overhaul

TheGardenIsland.com > Business > Kauai Business > Path to sustainability

Published on August 9, 2009 in General Ag News and Notes and Sustainability.

Hanalei Click for Larger Image

Kaua‘i now imports approximately 90% of its daily food. This situation renders us vulnerable to interruptions in shipping, rising fuel costs and an increasing scarcity of certain foods in the face of rising world population. Some experts claim that the demand for food has already exceeded the supply. These conditions invite predictions of serious food shortages for our island at the same time that profits from our food expenditures are going to off-island suppliers rather than strengthening our local economy.

On the average the entire State only produces somewhere between 4.4 to 5.8 percent of our food supply. Specialists at the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agricultural have pointed out that if we doubled our production of local food we would be avoiding $120 million in imports and creating more than 3,000 jobs. Farm related business income would increase, they predict, by about $64 million, and of course, other economic benefits would occur. Similar estimates regarding the benefits of increasing local food production have been suggested by Governor Lingle and also by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

TheGardenIsland.com > Business > Kauai Business > Path to sustainability