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The Hawaii Farmers Union United is proposing to establish an On Farm Mentoring program, funded by a grant in aid to farmers that qualify under the conditions of the legislation we are advocating for.

“Agriculture is critical to self-sufficiency and food security. Instead of continuing to import 90% of our food, we need to take steps to produce more food locally.  However, under the [previous] administration, more than 2,000 acres of irrigated, prime agricultural land have been taken out of cultivation, and the number of farmers has declined.  We are committed to making farming and local food production a thriving industry.”

That quote comes from Governor Ige’s action plan to change the way Hawaii’s government does its business, and we must agree. It is worthy of note, however, that the previous administration promised an agricultural “Renaissance” that never got funded, so we trust that this administration can and will do better.

At the core of the serious deficit of food production from our ‘Aina is the fact farmers that own their lands are aging, and selling their land, my family farm being a case in point. One solution is to get a new generation of farmers on the land, building equity in their farms, and empowering them with the tools they need to make a living growing our food supply. This bill we are proposing will be one of those tools.

If the average age of a farmer in Hawaii is 60 and Hawaii is going to double the locally produced food supply in five years, how do we lower the average age in as short a time as possible? If the average age of people paying taxes as farmers is 60 (I am a young one then, at 41), then that means about half of them are of retirement age or past. This is a mathematical certainty, and needs to be changed if Hawaii is to have any hope of food security.

My point of saying all this is that it is paramount that we don’t rely on people about to retire to grow our food supply, and we support our local economies by empowering our people to grow our food supply.   What we as a state need is a lot of young people in agriculture fast, and some real energy behind this effort.

At the HFUU, we have many young members, and we are building our membership with even more young famers who use regenerative techniques that build soil fertility by using compost and other recycled inputs. These methods are particularly appealing to many of the up and coming agriculturalists in Hawaii.

This is where farm mentoring enters into the story; we have a unique system of agriculture in Hawaii that includes the plantation, organic, regenerative and many other methods of growing food crops. The people with the hands on knowledge are leaving the industry one by one, and knowledge is being lost.

To stop the loss of this necessary and yes, sacred knowledge of how to sustain ourselves from our ‘Aina in the most isolated place on Earth, we need to harness the collective knowledge of those who are actively growing crops in a successful and sustainable manner.

Hawaii has farmers who are growing crops using little or no outside inputs. Should for some reason, imports to our remote location become prohibitively expensive, do we want to depend on that for our food supply, and pay exorbitant prices for our food? Rather, we would like to generate soil fertility locally, using what we have, in the way pre-contact Hawaiians did, albeit with a 21st century twist, using the global knowledge base to improve upon these practices.

What we propose is a direct payment to those farmers using regenerative and proven methods of agriculture to generate food for the citizens here. These farmers can then take their time to teach what they know, and have the resources to pay a worker to keep their operations running smoothly.

This type of education can and should be subsidized, as if we are truly concerned about becoming less import dependent, we need to invest in the true local agriculture, that depends minimally on imported inputs, if at all. There are examples across the state of farmers doing this, and they deserve our respect, and our collective support to share what they know with their communities.

Keep in mind that there are many forms of agriculture, but this zero import method is relatively unknown, and needs our attention, and that is the purpose of this piece of legislation, known as On Farm Mentoring, to have an import free method available in our toolbox of methods to produce our food. The nice thing about this method is that is is very affordable also.

When farmers are granted a stipend by this program, they will be able to afford to share their proven methods with their communities, and Hawaii can begin to whittle away at the unsustainable average age of the farmer, and bring it down to the youth who have staying power in this physically and emotionally challenging profession. While being an elderly farmer is pretty honorable, we here in Hawaii must not depend on our elder farmers to feed us, lets grow the youthful agricultural workforce we need, support On Farm Mentoring programs for Hawaii’s food secure future.

Regional food security will be achieved when we mentor our young farmers and grow our agricultural workforce.   At the same time Hawaii must grow a statewide network of food aggregators managed by farmer owned cooperatives. The cooperative model is especially important to local economies, as it prevents middlemen from profit taking, and leaves the profit with the farming communities throughout the state. These “Food hubs” will bring products to market and distribute them, something the average farmers are not equipped to do. This topic, however is the subject of another article.