FOOD CRISIS – JENNY PELL, director of Food Sustainability Hawai

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JENNY PELL, director of Food Sustainability Hawaii, initiating effort, Maui ‘Ohana Gardens, Permaculturist and Regenerative Agriculture planner and designer, joins Jason Schwartz for a frank look at Food security here in the Maui County islands; AND with Global Pandemic reframing everyone’s awareness of food shortages imminent and continuing in the near future. 4-17-2020

Summary & Transcript Below

1. 1. 1. Summary of Video Content: Food Security and Regenerative Agriculture in Maui County

Interview with Jenny Pell, Permaculture Designer and Food Security Advocate
Hosted by Jason Schwartz

1. 1. 1. 1. – [00:00 → 06:10] Introduction and Context: The Food Security Crisis in Hawaii

• Jason Schwartz introduces the interview with Jenny Pell, a decades-long permaculture designer, consultant, and educator focusing on agroforestry and climate-resilient farm design.
• Jenny explains her shift from farm consulting to helping people develop backyard food gardens during the COVID-19 crisis, emphasizing the radical need to address food security locally.
• Food Security Hawaii is the nonprofit organization behind the project Ohana Gardens, aiming to support local food production.
• Hawaii imports over 90% of its food, making it a highly food-insecure island community. This statistic is a critical insight into the vulnerability of the islands.
• Maui County offers year-round growing opportunities due to its climate, with the potential for multiple crop cycles annually.
• The pandemic and other disasters (e.g., tsunami warnings) highlight the fragility of Hawaii’s food supply chains, which depend heavily on imported goods transported by diesel-powered vehicles and ships.
• State and county leadership have historically underfunded agricultural initiatives, often prioritizing tourism promotion over local food security.

Key Insight: Hawaii’s extreme dependency on imported food (90%+), combined with climate change and pandemic-related disruptions, demands urgent local food resilience efforts.

1. 1. 1. 1. – [06:10 → 13:25] Historical Planning and Current Agricultural Efforts

• Jenny references a comprehensive food security report she contributed to that outlined a plan for regenerative agriculture on the 41,000+ acres of former sugar lands (notably, the Malama Aina report).
• Despite the plan’s quality and community efforts to buy land for local food production, the land was sold via no-bid contracts to large agribusiness (Mahi Pono) without community transparency or engagement.
• Efforts to engage Mahi Pono during the pandemic to pivot toward local food needs have received no response, indicating a lack of community accountability.
• The Hawaii Farmers Union and Farm Bureau have stepped up to support local farmers by redirecting produce initially destined for hotels and restaurants to local markets amid COVID-19 disruptions.
• Jenny highlights the Ohana Gardens initiative, modeled after WWII-era Victory Gardens, aiming for thousands of backyard gardens and food-bearing trees to boost local food production.
• The approach emphasizes culturally relevant crops tailored to local microclimates and cultural preferences, including Mediterranean, Asian, and indigenous Hawaiian crops.

Key Insight: While large-scale agricultural transitions have faced challenges and lack of transparency, grassroots organizations and farmer groups are actively supporting local food production and distribution.

1. 1. 1. 1. – [13:25 → 22:07] Backyard Gardening and Community Engagement as a Solution

• Ohana Gardens promotes a seedling subscription service to provide gardeners with monthly seedlings appropriate for their climate and cultural preferences, including perennial greens like Moringa and Chaya.
• The project aims to create:
  • 1,000 new backyard gardens in 2020
  • 10,000 food-bearing trees planted
  • 100 community gardens countywide (post-pandemic gathering allowance)
• To sustain momentum, the project plans to create paid positions such as volunteer coordinators and seedling managers and contracts growers to supply seedlings, thus creating local jobs.
• Educational components, including webinars, support gardeners in successful food production.
• Jenny emphasizes the importance of perennial food crops (e.g., banana, papaya, breadfruit, mango, avocado) to ensure long-term food abundance and avoid the pitfalls of annual crop fatigue and pest problems.
• The idea of salaried permaculture neighborhood coordinators is proposed to maintain community gardening support and resilience over time.

Key Insight: Backyard gardening supported by strategic education, seedling provision, and community coordination can rapidly build food resilience and create local jobs.

1. 1. 1. 1. – [22:07 → 28:41] Economic and Social Challenges; Mobilizing Community Resources

• Jenny and Jason discuss the economic recession and food shortage risks looming due to pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, droughts, floods, and policy issues like reduced migrant farm labor.
• Farmers are forced to plow under crops due to distribution failures, exacerbating food waste amid shortages.
• The decline of small family farms over decades is recognized as a root cause of current food insecurity.
• Organic, regenerative, non-chemical farming and integrated pest management are emphasized as key techniques for sustainable local food production.
• The “great pause” during the pandemic is seen as an opportunity to grow food locally and build community resilience.
• Ohana Gardens plans a GoFundMe campaign to fund materials, seeds, and labor, while promoting a local “Angie’s List” style service directory to connect people with local gardening and farming services.
• The project encourages community collaboration, skills sharing, and job creation, including support for culturally relevant food production.

Key Insight: The current crisis demands immediate community mobilization, funding, and systemic shifts toward regenerative local agriculture and social solidarity.

1. 1. 1. 1. – [28:41 → 39:31] Organizational Infrastructure and Policy Recommendations

• Food Security Hawaii has a volunteer team of 12-15 people, including artists, grant writers, and tech support, gearing up to launch the Ohana Gardens project fully.
• They offer a garden survey to map community needs, skills, and resources by neighborhood to target efforts effectively.
• The group is active on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and runs a newsletter called “What’s Growing On.”
• Collaboration with the University of Hawaii is underway to integrate community gardens and permaculture education on campus, aiming to develop climate-resilient agriculture programs and practical student engagement.
• The interview highlights the complexity of reforming institutional food systems, especially in schools, where centralized bidding processes make local food sourcing difficult.
• Jenny critiques the current subsidy system favoring large agribusinesses over small organic family farms, urging political education and advocacy to shift funding priorities.
• She proposes the innovative concept of a “food utility”—a monthly utility bill for households that would fund local regenerative agriculture and ensure sustainable food production, akin to paying for electricity or water.
• The need for paid lobbyists and political leadership to advance local food policies in Hawaii is stressed, noting current agricultural budget allocations are woefully insufficient.

Key Insights:

• Systemic change requires political will, community advocacy, and new funding mechanisms like a food utility.
• Collaboration with educational institutions can foster long-term skills and infrastructure for food resilience.

1. 1. 1. 1. – [39:31 → 44:52] Community Values and Cultural Resilience

• Jenny stresses the need for community responsibility (“kuleana”) in growing food and sharing knowledge, skills, and surplus resources.
• She encourages individuals to become local experts and leaders in food cultivation and to contribute meaningfully to their communities.
• The cultural foundation of lokahi (unity), laulima (cooperation), and kuleana (responsibility) is central to overcoming food insecurity and social fragmentation.
• Addressing homelessness and social inequities is intertwined with food security efforts, highlighting the importance of caring for vulnerable populations.

Key Insight: Building resilient food systems is inseparable from fostering social cohesion, cultural values, and mutual aid.

1. 1. 1. 1. – [44:52 → 49:25] Closing Remarks and Call to Action

• The interview concludes with a hopeful call to action:
  • Engage actively in local food growing and community support.
  • Utilize Ohana Gardens’ resources such as seedling subscriptions, educational webinars, and volunteer opportunities.
  • Visit foodsecurityhawaii.org and follow their social media for updates and participation.
• Gardening is described as a “balm for the soul” during stressful times and a practical step toward community resilience.
• Jason thanks Jenny for her leadership and encourages viewers to take part in the movement for food security in Maui County.

1. 1. 1. Timeline Table of Key Events and Proposals

Timestamp	Event/Proposal
00:00 – 06:10	Introduction; Food security crisis context; Hawaii imports 90%+ of food; COVID-19 and supply chain risks
06:10 – 13:25	Historical food security plans (Malama Aina report); Mahi Pono land acquisition issues; Farmer union support
13:25 – 22:07	Ohana Gardens Victory Gardens initiative; Seedling subscription service; Perennial food crops emphasis
22:07 – 28:41	Economic recession and food shortages; Community job creation; Local service directory concept
28:41 – 39:31	Organizational setup; University collaboration; Critique of subsidies; Food utility proposal
39:31 – 44:52	Community responsibility; Cultural values (lokahi, laulima, kuleana); Addressing homelessness
44:52 – 49:25	Closing remarks; Call to action; Website and social media info; Gardening as community resilience tool

Quantitative Goals of Ohana Gardens Project

Objective	Target for 2020
New backyard gardens	1,000
Food-bearing trees planted	10,000
Community gardens established	100

Core Concepts and Definitions

Term	Definition/Explanation
Food Security	The state of having reliable access to sufficient, affordable, and nutritious food locally produced.
Permaculture Design	Sustainable agricultural design based on natural ecosystems, emphasizing perennial plants and resilience.
Regenerative Agriculture	Farming practices that restore soil health, increase biodiversity, and improve ecosystem services.
Victory Gardens	Historical community and backyard gardens grown to supplement food supply during crises (WWI, WWII).
Kuleana	Hawaiian concept of responsibility and stewardship, especially towards family and community.
Food Utility	Proposed monthly household fee to fund local, regenerative farming as a public service.
Local Currency	A community-specific currency used to promote local trade and economic resilience (e.g., “Maui bucks”).

Key Insights and Conclusions

• Hawaii’s heavy reliance on imported food (90%+) creates extreme vulnerability to supply chain disruptions, climate crises, and pandemics.
• Local food production must be radically expanded through backyard gardens, community gardens, and regenerative agriculture on existing lands.
• Ohana Gardens’ seedling subscription and educational programs offer practical, scalable solutions to empower residents to grow food successfully in their microclimates and cultural contexts.
• Sustainable food systems require integrating perennial crops and long-term community support structures, including paid coordinators and local service networks.
• Systemic change demands political advocacy, increased agricultural funding, and innovative mechanisms like a “food utility” to financially support local farmers.
• Community resilience is deeply tied to cultural values of shared responsibility (kuleana), cooperation (laulima), and unity (lokahi).
• Food security initiatives must also address social inequalities, including homelessness and access to resources.
• Collaborations with educational institutions and local organizations strengthen capacity-building and knowledge transmission.

1. 1. 1. Resources and Contact Information

Resource	Details	URL / Social Media
Food Security Hawaii	Nonprofit leading Ohana Gardens project	foodsecurityhawaii.org
Ohana Gardens Subscription	Seedling and perennial crop subscription	Via Food Security Hawaii website
Social Media	Facebook and Instagram pages	Facebook: Food Security Hawaii
Newsletter	“What’s Growing On” updates	Signup via website
Community Survey	Map skills, needs, and resources by neighborhood	Available on foodsecurityhawaii.org

This summary provides a comprehensive and structured overview of the key points, initiatives, challenges, and solutions discussed in the video interview, strictly grounded in the source transcript content.

Transcript

00:00

[Music] oh well hi everyone this is Jason Schwartz I am here at the neutral zone a little unusual for all of us we are operating using zoom I’m here at my home office and I have a guest who is also at her home office Jani Pell Jenny thank you for joining us and being here on the show oh it’s great to be here and it’s so fun to be able to do an interview with you Jason thank you you know I normally I’m a little awkward so it’s really if it seems odd to any of you out there it’s odd to me to just a matter of

00:48

figuring out how to make this all go smoothly so when you see it on TV if it’s a little blurry you know you’ll have to tune it again but Jenny why don’t you tell our audience who and what you are and why we got together today because I’m sure you can put it in a nutshell well I’m many decades long permaculture designer consultant and educator and over the years I really shifted my focus from different types of farm consulting into agroforestry climate-resilient farm design and then in the climate crisis I

01:26

mean excuse me in the Covid crisis moment we have shifted really radically with the meaning of that root word of radical into helping people develop their backyard food gardens so let me let me just stop for a second you have an organization what’s the name of the organization yeah I sat on the board of an organization food security Hawaii and our project Amyas Ohana Gardens okay so funny as it seems I always feel like I was born ahead of my time in 1991 when I started this nonprofit Maui Arts

02:05

and Music Association my neighbor they had a business called Eden Gardens and they helped people start gardens 1991 people okay so had we started some of these things years ago we wouldn’t be where we are now which is do we have two weeks of food here on the island if no absolutely not you know so this is the challenge you know many food advocates farm advocates farmers all the people across the Hawaiian Islands who’ve been engaged and encouraging and promoting food security not just because

02:42

we want dignified living wages for again occlude in our islands but because we recognize that we import over ninety percent of our food we’re uh turley completely food insecure here as as an island community I want to wake these people up out there did you hear what she said ninety percent of our food is not supplied from on our islands that means ninety percent and we knew that this problem existed for the last three decades and here we are like Americans seem to like to do something has to bite

03:18

them before they wake up so here let’s wake up people excuse me if I scream we have ninety percent of our food not from here and jenny has an organization that they want to encourage you to start growing your own food start becoming part of the solution now it is so you know in the wine islands and I mean we live in Maui County we have a year-round growing opportunity right so we we know that we can have three to four crops a year year-round with Sun and rain as long as we don’t run afoul of a

03:57

compounded emergency such as a hurricane but it’s you know in the climate crisis moment that’s meeting Cove in nineteen we’re already looking at what did emergency preparedness look like before a pandemic we were woefully unprepared here we are in a pandemic if for example like two weeks ago we had the tsunami warning well let’s just say that something happens to disrupt our supply chains somewhere else so in one of the key ports that delivers things to Hawaiian Islands if they go down because

04:30

all the dock workers are ill like the meat packing plants right are happening right now where we’ve had the largest meatpacking plants are all closing across the country because they’ve had radical outbreaks of kovat 19 within their meatpacking plants so if we have one disruption or two disruptions to our supply chain not even starting from here where it were challenged again so what do we do now you know we’re looking at we recognize the problem we’ve known about the problem we’ve been trying to

04:59

get state and county leadership to fund agricultural initiatives and it’s been very challenging and I think that you know at this moment while they’re debating whether or not to give the Maui Visitors Bureau three million dollars to promote Maui tourism or support for example local food security initiatives all across the county people are saying let’s not fund the Visitors Bureau right now let’s fund local food security let’s look at diversifying our economy to be resilient and we can at the same time

05:32

we’re being resilient we can also be climate intelligent we can be doing planting perennial crops that are going to start to address carbon sequestration long term perennial food solutions and and you know reducing our utter reliance on imported food that comes on diesel truck diesel ships and diesel trucks and so all of the food miles that they call it all that all that that’s embedded in our very food insecure supply chain we need to change that well you know we’re talking about a crisis here but you’ve

06:10

been doing this a long time the first time I came upon your name I’m a little slow Albert Perez of Maui tomorrow and I had a meeting cuz I was gonna run for council and when I I wanted him to be my campaign manager and when we sat and met he said you know Tasha is gonna be running I said oh really let me go talk to her and I made a choice to stand aside but at that meeting he gave me a copy of your plan for food security report yeah fantastic document it’s up on their website so people can go see it planning

06:51

sensible solutions for this huge piece of land that is what 41,000 45,000 acres that now mahi pono loans and I haven’t had them on the show although I’ve tried and we’ll try again to get them to be here with me it’s like you had a plan that was I thought extraordinary and that it integrated the growing but it also made sense about housing and and transportation Carter’s and things that made so much sense I wondered did anyone ever look at that plan and try to put it into some kind of practice so but so

07:33

what happened with that plan was before they announced the closure of sugar a lot of us were looking at the huge you know 30 million dollar a year financial losses being incurred at HC ns we knew that shuttering sugar was coming so we wanted to get ahead of that curve and they commissioned the malama eye on a report – what would it take to transition all of that land into regenerative agriculture whatwhat does that look like how do you do it what kind of um food hubs do you need embedded in that what kind of local how

08:08

many how much wood local people buy what is the export equation where’s the case studies and the precedents that show how it works right and halfway into the report they announced the closure of sugar so um quite a few groups included I know first and others we tried very hard to put together a group of buyers to buy that land meanwhile while we were knocking on a and B’s door saying hey we have potential buy we want to sit down with you and negotiate buying this land they were already in no bid contract

08:45

negotiations with Monte pono but didn’t tell anybody so we were we were pulling together money pulling together organizations pulling together this consortium of buyers to do all prioritizing local food regenerative AG perennial crops feeding the Hawaiian Islands first value-added processing working with all the supply chains the restaurants the hotel’s the local markets etc but they basically told us to sit on the bench outside the door and did not let us know that they already were in these negotiations with another

09:17

buyer you know that was a brilliant plan and when I saw it I thought this should be made more public and I don’t know how many people have seen it but I thought it was really very well done and you can you can look it up online it’s WWF future of male org and you can download the malama aina report again no I have actually reached out to mana pono in more than a few ways and said we’d like to hear from you in this pandemic crisis about how you’re pivoting to serve local food needs and we’re looking

09:55

forward to seeing your announcement about how you are also changing your farm plan to help feed the Hawaiian Islands nothing they did not respond at all so even their community outreach leadership did not even answer well that’s a really first question they hired tre Lawrence to be their PR person I’ve never gotten a response back from her I have been very very gentle and I think loving and talking with chanson Suey and trying to get things going on I heard great things about what was his

10:31

name Nixon rusty yeah Mary Goodson he’s gone I’ve hear all kinds of stories and none of that matters except that we still are all of us very open to being supportive of my pono but now that my PO know which really could do a lot especially working with people like you and other groups there are lots of other independent farmers and people with backyards but those independent farmers have started through among them the Hawaii Farmers Union but you’ll tell me there are other groups of responsible

11:11

farmers that want to supply produce and things for our local market this is an odd time when I just before this covin thing hit many of you have seen on my show and an interview with Michael Smith Michael is a a regenerative agriculture guy who came out of Montana there was a movie Jenny I think you remember there was a movie called the need to grow and he was featured in it because he was growing algae creating a product of hydrogen and methane using a jet engine to create biochar and fight o suta khals so that

11:54

things grow like Jurassic Park now that’s just one of many examples of things going on and and they’re right in the middle of that and I had a local farm group that was thinking they’d like to have it there at their location in fact we could get rid of invasive species there are all kinds of great things going on suddenly we’re all on hold and just like your group you’ve shifted to food security now and helping people plant gardens you would shared with me that you were going to be and I

12:24

think you are growing seeds and creating starts so that people that have blue thumbs instead of green thumbs can get out and you help them till the land and you help them plant they just help guide them ok so that’s a great segue into sort of what we’re up to so I just want to just close my thought on that first question which was farmers union has really jumped in to support farmers and to make sure that the food that the crops on the ground right now that their distribution and their supply chain is

12:55

interrupted to hotels and restaurants that that food is is sold in the local market so they’ve been really stepping up to assist farmers one and getting the produce that they have out to be consumed right so they’re the right here in the local market and what does it look like to expand those operations to feed local population so I would say let’s just put the farmers union there they’re there and supporting farmers and and the Farm Bureau as well so that their farm advocates farm supporters

13:25

what we’re doing at ohana Gardens is we’re looking at having a Maui County wide iteration of Victory Gardens just like in World War one in particularly in World War two when people were called to do their civic duty to provide for their own families within a year or two those backyard gardens were supplying 40% of household food and vegetables and fruits and eggs and chickens and things like that so we know we can do that here we know that before the colonizers came that the Hawaiian population fed its

13:57

entire population on local food we know that it’s possible and it’s not to say that there weren’t times of famine and drought because there are always our cycles of those things so what does it look like to have a resilient food secure Maui County across all of Maui County Lyon Molokai also right I like to eat vegetables I’m a vegetarian I want to grow vegetables like I don’t want to just eat local Hawaiian canoe crops even though I really enjoy them we had the opportunity to grow all kinds of things

14:29

in all our different climates so we want to support people in their backyards to grow their own garden and we really want them to be successful and the way that they’re successful is that they grow things that are one appropriate for their growing area so if you’re in haiku or you’re in Lahaina you’re gonna grow really different things like you’re never gonna get cukes cucumbers in haiku but you highly likely would have great tomatoes and Lahaina right so let’s make sure that we’re getting you things that

14:58

are gonna grow really well where you are and we also have really different cultural tastes here so some people are gonna want to have a Mediterranean garden and some people are going to want to have Asian greens and some people are gonna want to have indigenous crops and so in our support of backyard gardens we’re gonna have a couple key things that we’re looking at what’s the easiest to grow what grows well in your area and what are your particular cultural tastes so our concept is to do a seedlings

15:28

subscription service so let’s say you had a small backyard or even a container garden just in pots outside you on your lanai you would sign up to get a flat of seedlings every month that’s appropriate for your growing area and in your cultural palate you could also opt to get a food bearing tree every month or a bundle of perennial greens like Moringa or Chaya of katuk these are things that you just stick that stick in the ground and they grow and they’re very nutritious greens that just keep providing providing

15:59

provide so moving into very quickly into solutions what’s happened around the country and is now happening around the world has just been a run on seeds we anticipated that about six weeks ago partly because my sister lives at the epicenter of the outbreak in Italy so we were alerted really early on how serious this was going to get and we put in an order from an initial donor we ordered $1,500 of seeds they’re all here now and those have become a very precious commodity so rather than give

16:31

people packets of seeds which they may or may not know how to plant water take care of you know and or leave the packet in the rain and all the rest of the seeds are POW we’re going to be doing a seedling subscription service so that you can have we want to take the guesswork out of it for you and help you be really successful it’s great and I imagine with all people growing different things there is maybe you’re doing it a clearinghouse so that someone who grows tomatoes can trade with

17:01

someone that has something else because yes you shouldn’t getting everyone to do what they do well in the right areas has that been coordinated in any way yet well that’s what Ohana Gardens is all about so there’s where we want to be do provide people with the seedlings the you know perennial greens cuttings and the food bearing trees so our goal is a thousand new backyard gardens and ten thousand food bearing trees in 2020 and on top of that once we’re allowed to congregate we want to be able to have a

17:35

hundred community gardens so those are big goals so how do we get there we have to have volunteer coordinators we have to have a seedling subscription manager we’re creating jobs by contracting growers to grow the seedlings for us we have to distribute that we have a huge educational component that has to happen and we can do a lot of that online through webinars I co-hosted how to start your backyard garden webinar a couple weeks ago with some friends on the mainland we had over 500 people attending from all around the

18:06

world it’s good want to do the same thing here but the other part of what we have here in the Hawaiian Islands and on Maui is we have a really intact indigenous agriculture lineage to learn from so being able to really bridge the gap between the Quine indigenous farmers and growers and note that lineage of master farmers and be able to grow things that we already know grow so well here sweet potatoes Lulu Kahlo you know we really need to get those crops in people’s backyards – oh my god yeah

18:44

so in this whole process I think the biggest piece to me the biggest piece is getting people to do more than talk about it because it I’ve been hearing this kind of story for 30 years more I’ve been here since 1988 and I have literally heard this conversation and when I ran for politics in the early 90s and I was the radical I was green and now it’s like of course everybody is embracing these things in words what do you what do you find is gonna be a way or what do you think is gonna be a way

19:29

to get those thousand gardens and ten thousand yeah well hundreds have already started so on I’m monitoring Facebook I’m on several Facebook groups one is called apocalypse gardening one is Maui backyard farming swath and so people are just posting day after day after day I started my garden I can’t wait Maui sustainable solutions all these groups are supporting backyard gardening already and people now that they’re home and they can’t leave their property they’re like I’m gonna plant food I

20:00

guess it’s some but we’re calling it it’s a call to farms you know and Facebook you’re using mostly mostly Facebook Facebook and Instagram yep and because I’ve already involved with you know with a lot of regenerative AG and local farming solutions I’m already linked into those groups and but now I’m seeing them proliferate proliferate every day with backyard gardens so this like I live in a Makawao I live in a very local neighborhood and everyone’s home and everyone’s backyards are

20:34

getting cleaned up and the hedges are trimmed and that things are being mowed and the garages are cleaned out and you know we can see that there’s this huge amount of energy that now that people have time to take care of their Ohana and in our for our project Ohana Gardens our motto is it’s your kuleana to grow food for your Ohana I mean it’s you know in other words it’s your civic duties like it’s time to step up and provide for your families if you’re out of work and you’re at home and you can put in a

21:02

garden and we can help you this is the time to do it and I think the big deal is to make sure that that it’s enduring beyond this crisis hold on we’re gonna plug in so what happened in Victory Gardens was that for you know several years people grew loads and loads and loads of food but because they had never really done it before by year two or three the pests and the weeds just got people down and then they were back to work so this is why it’s so important to include perennial food in this equation

21:34

so this is the banana tree and the papayas and the breadfruit trees and the star fruit and the mangoes and the avocados what can you be putting in the ground right now that’s gonna have a food equation that in three to four years we have real abundance one of my big ideas is if we could salary permaculture neighborhood permaculture lists that would that was their job to make sure that in their neighborhood people were supported in their gardening efforts that community gardens were up and running that they were checking in

22:07

on people to see how it’s going what kind of materials do they need and that was their long-term salaried job was to be in the abundant resilient neighborhoods support network that’s critical I think that’s critical because otherwise these things are just flash-in-the-pan even everyone’s great spirit goes away yeah question back I mean do you think that the coming economic challenges and the food shortage challenges that are right on the horizon here I mean they’re not even in the horizon they’re like in the

22:42

closer distance than that you know the flash in the pan of yeah I want to grow my garden versus my tourism job is gone for five years and the US stimulus package is woefully too low and you know I’m stuck at home for three more months and you know I honestly think that we’re not in just for an economic recession I think we’re in for either a deep recession or a real global global depression I feel I Ferrara and I read the news every day and several different news sources and clearly food shortages

23:16

are upon us so we’re watching farmers 1 droughts and floods and tariffs and we were already struggling farms across the United States and then and internationally too and now we’re looking at these interruptions in the supply chain that started with denying temporary visas to farm work health right so the whole you know let’s not have migrant farmers that the crops are rotting now these supply chains are interrupted because they’re not delivering to their regular supply chains farmers are plowing under tonnage

23:55

–is of food tonnages tonnage is of food are being plowed under today because of bad supply chain reality and two separate tracks because all the things that were geared to it business and commercial now have nowhere to go it’s got so all that food is going away it’s just a horrible thing it’s a travesty and you know I’ve seen a few farmers sort of step up and say here here’s my mountain of potatoes come help yourself great unless important gleaning is important and being able to just you

24:28

know look my tomatoes are rotting they’re gonna be rotten in three days come get up you know at least there’s a few people with compassion like that or the ability to make that happen but what what what does that look like we know that the disappearance of a small family farm over decades and decades and decades and that you know get bigger get out that happened in the 80s you know the consequences of that are upon us now so looking at us as an island community in archipelago community what does that

24:57

translate into actions we can take right now to build capacity for a resilient future and that is know for me it’s organic it’s being able to do regenerative non-chemical farming and helping people learn all the techniques for those pests when they come what is integrative pest management how does it work how do you do it in your backyard how do we hold companies like mangu pono speak to the fire to not use paraquat and their fields that are gonna damage the reefs I mean all of these things

25:30

mean I’m I’m on another perspective I’m just I feel like the coral reefs that aren’t getting all that sunscreen all day every day going oh my god thank goodness you know I can really feel this they called the great pause you know that we’re in right now but while we’re in the great pause and things are gonna the chips are gonna fall where they will we have this opportunity to grow food in our backyards and what is your coo Liana what is your on I like to eat what would you like to see in your neighborhood how

25:58

do we support that how do we get funding for that we’re about to go live with our GoFundMe campaign in the next couple of days and that money goes directly into buying materials seeds hiring people to do installations you know sharing that wealth in a job creation way if you’re the tomato guy in your neighborhood let’s make sure that you can either share those or trade those or sell those in your neighborhood so all of that is coming together you probably remember Angie’s List remember Angie’s List yeah I do yeah so

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we want to do Angie’s List so on our website we’re gonna have I’m Joe I’m a carpenter I can build your backyard garden I’m you know I’m Kayla I can build your fence to keep the pigs out you know here’s how much I charge per hour so we want to showcase people who are available for hire as well as other really amazing local farm organizations that are already in motion doing really good work for a second because we’re here at the we have sponsors for the radio station

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I’m gonna take a cut and then we’re gonna come right back so you guys hold on we’ll be right back hi we’re back that was short and quick and easy I’m here with Jenny pal Jenny I your food security group what is the name of the organization again so the nonprofit it’s a local 501c3 nonprofit food security Hawaii and the name of our project is a Hana gardens and you’re gonna be up on go fund me as a Hana Gardens will be up on mana Gardens yep I mean that’s our nan that’s the name of

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the nonprofit word and initiatives of food security Hawaii so people can go up there and contribute what they want and get in touch I’m sure it has all kinds of contact numbers and things yeah so we’re we we have a team of about 12 to 15 people that have mostly been volunteering I’m an amazing an amount of hours and I just really want to thank my crew for stepping up and we have everyone from artists and tech support and grant writers and we’re all in high gear to get the Hana gardens launched

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and we have a newsletter called what’s growing on and you can sign up for a newsletter and there will be links in there to our webinars how to sign up for a seedling subscription service and all kinds of other information about the project we’re going to be hiring a few key positions I may need a volunteer coordinator I’m gonna need a subscriptions manager things like that we have a couple of jobs that we’re gonna need to fill and the go fund me should go live and our newsletter and we also have a garden

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survey so the survey is I think you know it takes maybe five to eight minutes to take and it’ll tell us what neighborhood you live in it has a whole list of questions about your skills and your needs and what you have to both offer and what you’re looking for so for example you might say I’m a beginning gardener and but I have these tools in my backyard or I don’t have any tools or I’m I’m a beginner all the way – I could teach this – I’m want I want to volunteer – I would

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like to learn more – I want to get paid to do this so this is so if you take our survey it really helps us know by neighborhood and district how you know whether we’re the hotspots of people that it really wanted to dig in where can people get to that is it ready for people to look at now or is it all gonna be coordinated for the GoFundMe thing or what um the website is just going live and the surveys are just going live if you’re on Facebook the easiest thing to do is to like our Facebook page food

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security Hawaii or go on Instagram hashtag food security away and you can find our website food security hawaii.org we’re not quite like mean the survey is live and I think the newsletter is live the GoFundMe should go live tonight or tomorrow well what’s nice about this is this is not live and so by the time they’re looking at this these things will be up and ready for consumption yes the ye org food security ye org plus you can be found on Facebook good good good yeah I hope that everyone realizes that

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um even if you don’t have a garden and you’d like to put your two cents in and and make yourself available I’m sure you’re open to hearing from them – right absolutely absolutely I mean it what I would love to be able to do is to gather the manam the expertise of people who I’ll use again you know tomatoes as an example I was the most amazing tomato grower 10-15 years ago but I’ve retired but here’s my secrets you know we want to be able to showcase you in a webinar we want to be able to learn from people

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in the community one thing that I’ve been really keen on for many years is is really looking at this in a lineage way like how do we really develop a lineage of skilled people within our communities embed those skills in our community so that over time we have these people that we can call on who are the uncles and the auntie’s who really know things that we that we don’t in the general public anymore have you have you had a much sharing with the college and the AG program they have

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there that’s a great question I have one really great connection at the University of Hawaii Gary Albert’s he in his undergraduate class in business doing Business School they’re gonna help us with some of our business plan needs as well as creating web content for us and I would love love love to see the University of Hawaii campus here on Maui have a community garden and so that’s a proposal we need to put into the Dean and to the to the college itself but that’s in the works

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they have hosted you know they through their extension they offer permaculture design classes and all kinds of things so that’s been really great to watch that grow I think the university is a great resource for us and I’d love to be able to help them develop both climate-resilient arts and food security parts of their mission and they have an Ag program right now I’m just surprised maybe after our show but maybe we’ll knock on their door again but sure seems like this kind of a program in

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coordination with a place that is grinding out people that we hope have something to do when they get out of school and they’d like to stay on this island I don’t know why that isn’t already happening but we’re gonna encourage that I hope that one of my dream permaculture design jobs for a very long time has been to design college campuses and of course the reason that you have the summers off in the college in that schools years is because you used to go home to work in the fields and in the crops and that’s

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just not true anymore so you know a simple shift of having winters off I mean Maui may be different because we’re year round anyway but if you had winters off and we’re on campus in the summer and those campuses were designed to have food forests and the paths between buildings in the quad we’re lined with raspberries and blackberries or Surinam cherries or whatever we to eat here food bearing trees rooftop gardens this there live in dorms you could have water catchment systems and passive solar hot water that food could

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go straight into the cafeteria like there’s the the the wholeness of the permaculture design for a college campus is the most logical thing ever so being able to transform parts of their campus into self-sufficient resilient abundant you know carbon responsible campuses that would be that would be an excellent design challenge what also is untrusting i have a friend in schools that is running a foodservice thing and he tells me that all the food is coming from other places and approvals and it’s such

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a maze of system to try to get close and get food in there susan and the challenges that cisco you know these gigantic food greater than Marriott they bid like on a per meal basis insane for public school so you know for 69 cents per meal or whatever the low price is there Cisco truck will back up to the cafeteria bpp and then load these trays of schlock that the kids don’t even want you have a solid waste problem on the top of it so you know when you look at Alice Waters and what they’ve done in California with the

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farm to farm to school programs and what we’re doing here with grow some good those guys are amazing and they’re woefully underfunded like we need to fund all those crews important for the public to know that they need to open their mouths here I mean everyone wants food for their kids in school and like you said and they all take a bid and they go for the lowest bid or and for 69 cents you got to provide a nutritious meal what kind of nutritious really gonna get for 69 cents it’s time for us to

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recognize that you know in the United States we keep subsidizing the wrong things but we subsidize can AG corporate farming but we don’t subsidize local organic family farms that are the ones that are the backbone of resiliency and crises so and a big farm collapses after they’ve polluted and you know all the applied glyphosate and paraquad and all the things that they’re still doing and the you know small family farms have gone out of business because they don’t have access to the same subsidies you know if

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we recognize that if we want to elevate farmers to be important people in our society because they feed us we need to make sure they get a living wage and what does that look like why would you prioritize Koenig which pollutes the waterways and pollutes the soil and interrupts the soil food web and has no higher yields over time over the family farmer what is your answer to that I can’t understand that except when we talk about someone supporting the politicians that’s maybe one is it just

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that the politicians aren’t being that they’re not being educated on to what they’re creating and continuing perpetuating because we know that people get involved in politics in theory because they want to help but they need to be educated better yes I I would say you knew what was a great quote you know you can’t you can’t solve a problem using these same structures that set the problem up in the first place I mean you gotta really think outside the box now and at the popular global population

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that we are and the climate crisis that’s upon us and the dwindling resources and the you know anything from fisheries where the fisheries are collapsing to clean water etc what do it so hyper localizing your economy both in food and appropriate technology and renewable energy micro grids all of these things these are the important considerations now if you want a resilient local community you have to go testify like tonight you know we is the last chance to testify for agricultural things in the county budget people have

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to step up and do their civic duty which means you have to be trained to know how to participate in your civic duty and so one of my ideas this will sound very radical to a lot of people but just know you have a water utility and you have an electric utility so you pay a monthly bill for the service that you use all right what if you had a food utility so you’re a household of one or household of six you have a utility bill and that salaries farmers to grow local regenerative AG that is moving towards a

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perennial food system that is more yield over time with less work and you were it’s not food stamps it’s not EBT you paid that utility just like you pay your electric utility what if we salaried farmers to grow for the school lunch program no I didn’t I I these I I’m sure really where would that begin in the legislature having them understand the importance of this and coming up with some number this is this is where you know compassionately challenging our state and county government to exercise

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leadership in local food abundance resilience and emergency preparedness and all the rest of those important things for our community and what does that leadership look like at this juncture anding water under the bridge all the years we’ve been asking them to do that and they haven’t stepped up I would say that this is the moment for our leadership to say wow maybe we should have funded that report on what exactly will it take to feed Maui County maybe we should have taken less than you

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know more than 0.04 of the budget for AG and you know even if we magically even had one percent of the state budget for agriculture it’s more than double that we have now so how do we get our policies of what new do we have to have paid lobbyists who’s gonna pay for that I mean it’s like it’s it’s a challenging question but in this crisis that we’re in right now these things are coming in two very clear focus we are not prepared we are not preparing and the citizens are saying here are ways that you can

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step up and support local food initiatives backyard gardens are one really important way regenerative AG is another really important way exploring climate resilience solutions that impact our local communities another way you know setting up distribution aggregation and distribution centers through food hubs is another way you know that there’s all these key things that people in this county have been working on tirelessly for a pittance you know it’s like how do we support these really important local

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jobs in a job crisis right that’s gonna have real enduring results and you’re right it’s not just flash in the pan they have to be designed to be enduring I’d like to also somehow find a way to have people being paid in something other than dollars for these jobs so that we can expand based on people’s services and value because coming upon dollars may not be around and available but having a I’m glad you brought it up because one branch of Ohana Gardens is working on a local currency and we have

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one of our advisers as an economist Fernanda Ibarra she’s been working with us to explore what is the most long-term local community local currency that we can do and so the law says in the net United States you can create your own money within your County as long as you only spend it in your County so we can have a countywide local currency you know Maui bucks or whatever we want to call them and they could be a coin or they could be a piece of paper or they could be there’s all kinds of ways to

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develop local currency but that’s what’s something we’re looking at right now in our project good good good I know that there’s a lot more we can talk about and we are chewing up an hour of time here so right now probably I think it would be important for me to give you the floor to talk about what you think is most important that you really would like our audience and viewers to take away from this their next steps to do okay yeah I think thanks so much Jason I appreciate that opportunity you know someone who’s

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worked in local food solutions for many decades now and tried to help farms move into organic and perennial regenerative agriculture Maui County has a really really unique opportunity to shift into a diversified economy that elevates indigenous agriculture local regenerative agriculture in ways that support us and our ecosystems across the whole county when you do the right kinds of Agriculture you don’t damage your watersheds you protect your reefs and these ecosystems that are ultimately are

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what provide for us are the things we have to really keep in mind as we make these agricultural choices moving forward we can do our part right in our backyard right on our balcony we can choose right now to learn how to grow food that feed our own our Hana we can become a repository of knowledge ourselves of some important skill that our community needs when you are the person in your community that is the expert in something and people turn to you for your advice and your minato that’s an important person in your

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community so when we talk about let’s all you know you know let’s all have a potluck and belly up to the table said what are you bringing to the table so if you you can’t just expect to belly up to the table and fill yourself up and leave someone else to do the dishes like you have to actually bring something to the table you could bring a skill you have to bring materials you have to bring your knowledge you have to bring your willingness to learn you have to bring your surplus and from that abundant

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table we have enough to share so I’m asking my community please think about how you might participate in this great shift that’s upon us rather than being fearful that we’re not going to have enough let’s plan right now to have plenty and I was listening to Walter Richie last week and said we have to prepare our Hana so that we can share we have to share right now well it’s funny you bring up walter ritty there is a crisis in Molokai going on right now I don’t know why I heard

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the name walter ritty it brought it up there are people that have a couple of people I know that are homeless and the community in Molokai has no markets they have supposedly places for homeless and help but nothing going on here this is someone I know very well who’s out on the streets and it’s just all about Aloha seems to have gone away in Molokai so walter ritty I hope you all loved I appreciate Walter but I want to see some real action in having people not only talk about this but do it if you’re not

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Hawaiian and you’re on Molokai you have challenged the prejudice and the things that have been doing in our community maybe it’s a side and stepping into a different subject but we really have to learn to love each other and but this is true and all the rest of my County right here and I’m in as well it’s like the homeless people have no water they have no toilets they have they they are getting caught up in police sweeps you can’t be here you can’t be there no leadership and so we’ve been you know

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we’re monitoring that you know through our friends and through our contacts that work in these organizations and it’s really really important for us to take care of the people who are challenged in our homeless and houseless and what for whatever reason whether they just can’t pay the rent anymore and if we don’t have programs that are going to help people stay in their homes that homeless situation is going to explode in our faces well I’m it’s the interpersonal stuff that we

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have to when you see someone that’s hungry help them when you see someone that has a need think about helping I mean like you said you don’t want to come to the table and say okay what’s here at this table from this but was it John Kennedy God knows us hopefully younger people know who that was that was our president who said ask not what your country can do for you it’s what can you do for your country what can you do for your community to make this a better place and elevate the

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mood so we all help each other because there really should be no shortage even now in what we’re doing but we all hoard things and polarize and the things that yeah but think about food it’s like you can’t really hoard your bananas like you got to eat them now or they’re gonna go bad and so you know being able to set those systems up you know in a community and in a culture that the foundation of that culture is lokahi in laulima right and and kuleana and yeah that’s great you’re right and then in that

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understanding and solutions in the food area maybe we’ll adjust our values and lots of areas yeah I know I I’m hopeful I mean I I put myself in the epochal optimist camp it’s all going to hell but it’s gonna be just fine and so you know in that spirit of it’s all gonna be fine it’s only fine if you help make it fine you yourself and your family in your neighborhood and what are you doing today to make that happen and I know that we’re all under you know enormous stress from this pandemic crisis and you

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know one of the things I love about gardening is that it’s really a balm for the Soul you know like we get out there in the garden and you know I’ve expanded my kitchen garden three times in the last few weeks and everybody’s helping and neighbors are giving us oil and we’re leaving all our extra you know avocados and the thicket neighbors pick them up and we’re part of that even in this little small way like it feels really good and I’m looking at putting a garden right at the end of our driveway

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in a Hana garden just so people can see it when they go by and just to showcase that if you pull some inspiration well Denny thank you for all that you’ve been doing and face you for leading this charge toward food security and for all that you’ve done now and will be in the future food security hawaii.org and so many of you who’ll be seeing this you can go right up there and jump on in with both feet and be involved thanks to I really appreciate you helping us get in the word out it’s important absolutely thank

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all you guys for joining us we’re gonna leave you and we will see you again and we’ll have Jenny on and we’ll see how things are going and we’ll be encouraging you more hopefully to do something that you’re gonna want to do it’s gonna feel real good Thank You Jenny for being here on the show and thank you guys for joining us Aloha hello everyone [Music]