Tag: Sustainability

November 7, 2010 Ag Tourism, General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Kauai festival celebrates isle food

GARDEN ISLAND RANGE & FOOD FESTIVAL
» Place: Kilohana Pavilion, Kilohana Plantation, 3-2087 Kaumualii Highway, Lihue, Kauai

» Date: Next Sunday

» Time: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

» Cost: $35 per person; $17.50 for children ages 6 through 12; free for kids age 5 and under. Tickets are available online and at 22*North, Larry’s Music Center in Kapaa, the Ukulele Shop in Koloa, Wrangler’s Steakhouse in Waimea, Scotty’s Music in Kalaheo, Hanalei Music’s Strings & Things in Hanalei, and Kawamura Farm and Deli & Bread Connection in Lihue.

» Phone: 338-0111

» E-mail: barbara@kauaikai.org

» Website: www.kauaifoodfestival.com

For once, Olivia Wu was at a loss for words. In 2005 the staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle’s Food and Wine section was on deadline for a story about eating locally grown food. Needing a catchy word to describe supporters of the movement, she sought ideas from Jessica Prentice, a respected professional chef, cooking teacher and author in the Bay Area who had been her primary interview for the piece.

Prentice coined the term “locavore,” based on the Latin words “locus,” meaning “place,” and “vorare,” “to devour.” Foodies embraced the term, and in 2007 the New Oxford English Dictionary chose it as its Word of the Year.

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November 5, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Earth’s carrying capacity is an inescapable fact

Physicists understand the mathematics of exponential growth. They, along with the rest of us often ignore its consequences, including the first law of sustainability: “Neither population growth nor consumption can be sustained indefinitely.”

Sustainability is a buzzword about environmental balance, recycling, energy and food production. It is a simple concept that brings a sense of environmental virtue if we feel that we are living “sustainably.” We know what it is but maybe can’t quite define it.

The report “Our Common Future” — also known as the Brundtland report (1987) from the World Commission on Environment and Development of the United Nations — defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” This definition of sustainability says nothing specifically about the environment, but a clean environment better meets those needs, and it is not only we humans that have needs.

Sustainability is related to carrying capacity, which is the maximum load that a given environment can support without detrimental effects.

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October 24, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Sustainability — reviewing our progress

by Diana Duff
Special To West Hawaii Today

Sunday, October 24, 2010 7:19 AM HST
Sustainability has become a kind of tired buzzword. Businesses are clambering to be labeled “green.” Political pressure to be Earth-friendly has caused changes that sometimes result in increased effort and higher prices, but most of us are still participating in endeavors toward zero waste.

Every little step toward a more sustainable lifestyle is good, but with all the buzz it’s easy to lose the impetus to continue reducing your ecological footprint. It may be time to check your progress.

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October 11, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Sustainability earns honors

HAIKU – Lloyd Fischel lives with thousands of golden tilapia in his backyard.

Although he could make a business off of harvesting the fish, he keeps the critters in their two large fishponds for educating students and the community about science and how to be sustainable.

“I think the message is anybody can grow fish or vegetables in a small yard for little cost,” Fischel said.

In the past six years he has been pushing that message as hundreds of students have visited his 2-acre Haiku property.

For his efforts, Lanikai Farms last month received a Heroes of Agriculture, Food and Environment award from the 2010 Hawaii Agriculture Conference “Celebrating Change” on Oahu.

Fischel was one of 10 groups of Mauians receiving awards. (See box). Fischel, who works with his partner, Karen Klemme, placed in the Food Business or School Doing Business With Excellence category. The conference was hosted by the Agricultural Leadership Foundation of Hawaii.

While Fischel, who is also president of the Maui Farmers Union, said he was humbled by the award and pointed to the achievements of the other winners, he feels he has a good program he wants to bring to the public.

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October 9, 2010 General Ag News and Notes, Vegtables Post a Comment

The Garden provides plenty at Common Ground

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.

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September 26, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Hawaii’s farm future: Fertile fields?

Introduction

In 2008, a report from the University of Hawaii-Manoa and the state Department of Agriculture estimated that between 85 percent and 90 percent of the state’s food was imported every year and concluded that there wasn’t much anyone could do to change the situation.

” … Even though Hawaii can conceivably grow anything that we consume, the quest to achieve 100% food self-sufficiency is impractical, unattainable and perhaps impossible, as it imposes too high a cost for society,” the researchers said.

Hawaii’s relatively small farms could never match the output or efficiency of the vast mechanized farms on the mainland, the report said. Island products would always be more expensive to grow and buy.

Still, the report was more a call to arms than a dark prophecy.

Pointing out that Hawaii’s geographic isolation left its food supply vulnerable to disruptions caused by forces and events beyond control, such as fuel costs, shipping strikes and farm production fluctuations, the report said it was of vital importance that the state not overlook the value of a small but thriving home-grown market.

A healthy agricultural base not only serves as a buffer against outside forces, it provides residents with fresher, tastier, healthier food and could put millions of dollars back into the island economy, the report said.

“I think we are at the crossroads,” says Dr. Matthew Loke, administrator of the state’s Agricultural Development Division and a co-author of the 2008 report with Dr. PingSun Leung of UH-Manoa’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. “Whether we can seize those opportunities or not, that’s our challenge.”

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