Aloha & Welcome to the SOW podcast, aimed to provide educational support, information, guidance, and outreach to farmers, ranchers, and allied agricultural producers in Hawaii. In this episode, we hear from Daniel Anthony, kalo (aka taro) producer and advocate on the island of Oahu, about some of the history and many of the realities of growing this important crop in Hawaii.
This podcast is brought to you by University of Hawaii College of Tropical Ag. and Human Resources (CTAHR), and the Seeds of Wellbeing or SOW Project. This podcast is supported by the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Hawaii Department of Agriculture.
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Aloha & Welcome to the SOW podcast, aimed to provide educational support, information, guidance, and outreach to farmers, ranchers, and allied agricultural producers in Hawaii. In this episode, we hear from Daniel Anthony, kalo (aka taro) producer and advocate on the island of Oahu, about some of the history and many of the realities of growing this important crop in Hawaii.
This podcast is brought to you by University of Hawaii College of Tropical Ag. and Human Resources (CTAHR), and the Seeds of Wellbeing or SOW Project. This podcast is supported by the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Hawaii Department of Agriculture.
Resources:
Find out more about us:
The views information or opinions expressed during the Seeds of Wellbeing series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources or funders, and any affiliated organizations involved in this project. Welcome to a Seeds of Wellbeing"Voices From the Field" podcast, featuring voices of Hawaii agriculture producers for Hawaii agriculture producers. These podcasts are made possible by a grant from the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, also known as CTAHR and the Seeds of Wellbeing or SOW project and is supported by a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture. The intention of these podcast series is to create a safe space for respectful and inclusive dialogue with people from across a broad and diverse spectrum involved in growing and making accessible the food we share together. A diversity of voices perspectives and experiences can serve to deepen mutual understanding, to spark creative problem solving, and provide insight into the complexities of our agricultural system. If you or listeners have experiences with Hawaii agricultural ecosystem from indigitous methods, permaculture, small holder/farmers to large including multinational agricultural industrial companies, and everywhere in between, and you would like to share your story, please contact us. We welcome your voices and perspectives. In this episode we speak with Daniel Anthony on the west side of Oahu, who works in many roles related to agriculture, and while we speak with him about some of them, we focus on Taro. Taro, also known as kalo, is a grown up with great meaning to Hawaiian culture and people. This "canoe plant" so called because it was bought by the first settlers on their canoes to the islands, is often considered the source and essence of life or Hawaiians. It is traditionally pounded into a paste called poi using a stone pestle against a wooden board. So welcome Daniel Anthony to our Seeds of Wellbeing podcast. First of all, thank you for joining our podcast, and I'm going to say I don't know anything about you, so and maybe some of our audience members do not know who you are, so I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself about who you are, and we have two sort of, well, three playlists on our podcast series. One is the Research Extension. One is Voices From the Field, which are the voices of the farmers, ranchers and ag producers. And the other one is we call Experts From the Field who are policymakers, mental health professionals, or any of those who are not necessarily working in the field themselves, but they provide support. So how would you which one would you identify yourself with if there's any if we have to put you in a category of sorts?
Daniel Anthony:Oh, my God, I am. You'd have to do a poll out there, and depending on who you talk to, I might fit in any one of those categories at any time. I'm a multi generational community organizer. Growing up, sitting around the dinner table. Politics was something that was regularly brought into our discussion. My grandfather was actually... The IRS made a law because of my grandfather. He went during the war and paid his taxes and pennies. And the IRS made a ruling subsequently thereafter that they no longer accept coins as a form of payments. And he also has helped with many different movements outside of agriculture. He was the first resident physician at the Comprehensive Health Center in Waianae. That's my that's my dad's dad. My biological mom's dad has been an activist since he was 19 years old. In 1959. He led a political strike slash revolution in Fiji, that ultimately within 10 years, the British left Fiji My grandfather was somehow thrown into the political spectrum but in such a way that he had to move from Fiji, of which he moved to Hawaii and went to the University of Hawaii and has done a lot of different environmental political activities. He, his organization invested over $100,000 in the Waiāhole-Waikāne contested water hearing of which they offered that funds for legal services that they eventually won water, right. My stepmother who raised me her father was the last kuleana taro farmer in Waianae Valley. So I grew up in a taro patch that I got to see dry up for the first time in maybe 1500 years. And so those are that's a little bit of, you know, my upbringing. I was raised next to a 400 head piggery of which to Portuguese angels. Joe Pereira and Margie Pereira his wife ran the most incredible subsistence farm pigs chickens, ducks, goats, sheeps, rabbits, doves, love birds, dogs, no cats, a lot of rats, cows, and I grew up you know, eating from the land. During that period of my life My dad was a commercial ʻopelu fisherman. So between grandpa's house, taro farming, neighbor's house, pig and poultry farming, to Dad inshore and deep sea fishing. I don't know I guess. I wanted to be none of those things. As an adult. I just wanted to be rich and live on Hawaii law ridge and I got into the stone industry when I was 18 years old, my aunt and uncle owned a company called Bella Pietra, and for 10 years, I actually traveled around the islands, helping luxury development. I've supplied natural stone like granite and marble to tons of projects on Kauai, in fact, Kauai is the island that broke me.
Thao:What do you mean by that?
Daniel Anthony:I'm sure you're familiar with Kukui'ula, the development so I, I supplied natural stone to all of the very first homes of Kukui'ula. And I drove through Kukui'ula when there were like these yellow fence posts in like cane fields, and each fence post had a number on top of it, and that was the number of the lot that was being sold. And I realized that I was powerless to these wealthy people if I was their stone salesman. That I had no way to convey what they were doing to them without risking my job. So I quit my job and I decided to pursue representing native Hawaiian art, and during that my last project was Disney and we're able to see Disney Aulani have the largest contemporary collection of native Hawaiian artwork in the entire world is at Disney Aulani
Thao:Is that so? Wow, I did not know that.
Daniel Anthony:In the process of doing that. When I quit my job, I was 26 years old. And I I basically went to the taro patch for the first time since I was 16. And when I stepped in the taro patch my life flashed before my eyes, and I'm 43 years old now. I haven't left the taro patch since then. Since that moment at 26, I realized I knew what my calling was and I started to manifest becoming a full time taro farmer, subsistence farmer. In and along that journey, so my community in Waianae there's a couple of big nonprofit organizations, one of which is called the Kaʻala farms. And and Kaʻala Farms had these two elders from Miloliʻi on the Big Island that were the core elders in their cultural education. And these elders brought traditional poi making to Waianae, and my family being a taro family, we were familiar with it, but it wasn't until later that I'd actually pounded with my own family's equipment. My grandpa had a sandalwood poi board.
Thao:Wow.
Daniel Anthony:Oh, yeah, yeah, it's history. Yeah, all got sold all the chronics sold all of our stuff, but I got to use it once and I got to smell the aroma of sandalwood while pounding on my family board, it was like a dream. Anyway, these elders from Miloliʻi brought taro pounding into our community and influence my father. My father had quit fishing to work at Kaʻala Farms because he had recently been divorced and now needed to become a full time parent. And it's hard to be be a full time parent and a commercial fisherman. Especially a ʻopelu fisherman because you home at night, not home at night you
Thao:You kept it? know you can't you know ʻopelu. In working at Kaʻala Farms, my dad started to make implements boards and stones and started to make poi. It turned into, for him, a program called the ai pohaku workshop which for I believe 18 years operated with a variation of different nonprofit umbrellas, but ultimately at the Waiʻanae Intermediate School, which 1000s of students got the opportunity to use the equipment my dad was making and make their own poi. Well in that process, me as a 12 year olds, having access to a lot of boards and stones, and ultimately taro because my dad was doing education, I became the primary poi maker in the family. And so, I 43, I've been hand pounding taro since I was 12 years old. You know, there's two types of hands. There's the hands that that the poi sour fast and there's the hands that the poi keeps for a long time, and I'm lucky to have hands where the poi keeps for a long time. Throughout my teens, I was the primary poi maker in my family. All the aunties all would give me passes, like let me go because they needed poi for the baby party or the graduation party or something was coming up and so it actually kept me connected and in the good grease of those even when I probably didn't deserve it. I was extremely naughty, extremely naughty child. Extremely. My aunt who is now a senator. She's a senator, Maile Shimabukuro. When I was 14 years old. I figured out her passcode on her bank account, and I stoled$1,500 from her over a period of six months. And my family didn't know what to do. They thought I was on drugs. I was just poor. I hated being poor. I wanted stuff. I was 14 I was not cool.
Daniel Anthony:for for every person that I had hurt. And when I smelled like frickin pig slop when I went to school, you don't understand. My shoes sucked. I had two right slippers, every my mom passed away this this was the salmon bowl that I had single day, one size 12 one size 7. You know, it was like it was it. You know and I was mad at my family for for basically raising carved my mom right here. And this is what what I got back me the right way. I was like"Screw you guys. I don't want to eat good. I want to eat a McDonald's." They're like, from from my mom was was this was this piece that I had carved"Brah, we're poor. We donʻt eat at that sh*t." So I was like,"All right, I'll just steal from you guys and eat at McDonald's." when I was 14. And so yeah, my auntie I made a bear mask for Terrible. Don't recommend it. Yeah. My family didn't know what to do, so they actually called the police and I went through her and all the people that Iʻd hurt. I put sweat equity into the family court system. And in 10th grade, I went to a private Quaker boarding school in New Hampshire. During that year, I manifesting healing and change by producing something that had some incredible life lessons. One of the most incredible life lessons was for two months during a period would be able to tell a story just like that piece did right called intercession where you had to leave the school and pick any project that you wanted and make a presentation of that there. You know. Regardless of that awesome experience, I still project. Well, we had some some family friends that are living on the Suquamish reservation in Washington State. And Uncle came home and was kind of still sh*thead you know, when you're Steve is the medicine man of their reservation, and so I went and trained under this medicine man for two months, and a part of that was learning how to heal myself. I actually had to carve 15, 16 you know everything in life and no one can tell you a piece from Cedar in fact I have a piece right here. I had to carve a piece what to do. I ran away at just before I turned 17 and when I turned 18 I moved back to Oahu and tried Community College. Ended up, ended up taking Hawaiian language in Community College and the household, my stepmotherʻs household, great grandma tutu-lady was a native speaker. And so we grew up with Hawaiian as as a part of the daily vocabulary. And so when I went to college there it, it lit a fire in me. And one of the things that had happened was I read the Queen Liliuokalani story. Okay. And it really helped me to sort of identify some of the trauma that that I was burdened with coming from a community like mine, and I wondering why I was so angry. And one of the things that I felt really strongly about was the fact that Hawaiian language was, is, a recognized constitutional state language. But you couldn't really use it anywhere in Hawaii. And so, in 1996, I began a personal campaign with the judicial system for the use of Hawaiian language in the courts. And so it actually from '96 until 2003 is when I got my first Hawaiian language interpreter. It took seven years for me to finally get an interpreter. And now. I'm sorry?
Thao:Oh, I was gonna say you got such a rich history Daniel,
Daniel Anthony:I got some problems. Let me tell you I'm one of those guys Iʻm self motivated
Thao:Yeah, we won't say their, I would say challenges, my but I want to really connect what you're sharing with the ʻaina, with the land, and see if there's how the land or the aina healed you because you mentioned that you are taro farmer, and if there's any, if you can share with the all the all the challenges you sharing, and the traumas and how is then being on the land and being an ag producer, as a farmer, how does that transform, you if it has?
Daniel Anthony:I feel more entrenched in the battle for water and land than ever before. There is no other agriculture occupation. That is I would have to say, the next most controversial agriculture occupation, besides taro forming is GMOs. Yeah, and the GMOs are backed by multibillion dollar organizations and the taro farmers are backed by multi generations of connection to the land. Yeah, yet the guys with the multi generational connection to the land are bypassed. Yeah, our rights that have been constitutionally recognized within the court system, that the rights of water are for taro farmers first. And the reason is that taro farming uses less than 1% of the water that runs through the patches. That it helps to irrigate the entire landscape it helps to irrigate the lifestyle of our community, not just the food and the water gets returned back into the system. And so as this type of steward we've been criminalized, our water has been taken away for 200 years, every inch of river we have to fight for, even when the courts side with the taro farmers, no one holds the you know the entities accountable to return the water.
Thao:So can you reflect on the stressors, that how you see that being manifested among your, your, your neigh, your community members, then. How does that manifest, that that challenge that you you're sharing about?
Daniel Anthony:Well, first of all, I think, for many years, the rightful taro farmers, nobody wanted to farm taro because nobody wanted to fight. Yeah, it was more easy for just go get one $50-an-hour construction job than it was to fight for your water, which is what my family did. And my papa I just paid for the water for his entire life to operate the farm instead of fighting for it because it was easier to go to work. He created a system that couldn't be perpetuated. Yeah, and so his son, my uncle, inherited the land. Ultimately, was on drugs, had a heart attack, died early. The house Lot went to his son the son sold it. Now are our ancestral family lands have been dry for a whole generation. They're still there. My mom lives on it. You know, my mom is is overweight. My sister is overweight. My niece is overweight. Yeah, they live on an ancient taro patch that helped keep our family strong for countless generations, and they eat canned food and rice every day. You know, the stress is for you know, for me personally, everything that I do is to one day be able to go back home and take back our family water. Yeah, and I'm not just a taro farmer. I farm taro to feed my children. I farm taro because I have a responsibility in this generation to make sure the next generation has seedstock. Yeah, I can just go and take, you know, huli and go throw it in my backyard, and it's going to be available next season. This plant needs continuous care. Yeah, I'm not a farmer to for for financial needs, although I need to make money. Yeah, it's one of those things that the reality is that the responsibility of the heirloom varieties has fallen to those that can't actually afford to take care of it. Yeah. Like nobody in the community can afford to just farm taro for varieties, you know, so the varieties aren't getting farmed. Everyone's trying to farm, the one that produces the most, which is turning into a mono crop situation. And these varieties as far as as far as the real treasure, yeah. What do I want to pass on to my children is 85 vibrant Hawaiian varieties that have an unknown economic force for the future. We don't even know what we don't know as far as their value, but we will never know if this generation doesn't steward it. Yeah. And kalo is a is a unique plant that has a very clear ancestral tie. Yeah, a completeness. We farm in systems. Every system feeds the next part of the system. I am. Thank you, Puea, you're awesome. And the idea is trying to inspire my children to want to live this way. Yeah not be farmers, but to live one with the land, to steward the land, to take care of, of the genetic seedstock. Every variety is like a tribe of Hawaiians, that if the rest of the people in the community don't farm, that tribe goes extinct. Yeah. And can you imagine losing a whole village of people because nobody had time for them? Yeah. And and
Thao:So how many kalo farmers do we have in Hawaii? Do you know?
Daniel Anthony:Well, I'll tell you what. The last the official agriculture statistics that they using, is there's about 400 acres under cultivation. In all of Hawaii. Yes. Ancestrally, they've identified about 20,000 acres is what it took to feed the Hawaiian people based on the numbers and and what they found as far as growing areas, right. Out of those numbers. You know, I mean, we can't talk taro without talking about the occupation of America, the Republic of Hawaii, sugar planters. I mean, this is like, it's a compounded problem that has festered, to the point where today, honestly, the tourism community, they need cultural practitioners. Yeah. Like everybody today is naming their development Hawaiian, right? Kukuiʻula. Kukuiʻula, let's develop all this ag land and name it a Hawaiian name. So people value it more, right? And we're gonna plant native plants, and we're gonna do all of these things. Well, that type of shallowness is felt. And when you find something that's deep and rich and real, that is also felt. And the future is going to need those that are truly comprehensive in in the lifestyle and practices of Hawaiian people. Yeah, yeah, you can write your PhD about it, but can you actually make the imu and feed the community?
Thao:Yeah, you're highlighting a very complex and important issue, but I imagine we don't want to alienate our listeners, right, if if we get on one perspective, you're going to alienate another group, right? So we want to be make sure, so I'm going to ask you to be, and this might be difficult and challenging, but can you perhaps see it from the other side and see, what what do you think would be their motivation and their stressor for what they're doing?
Daniel Anthony:I'll do I'll do my best. I mean, I think one of the biggest stresses for everybody in Hawaii is the reality, yeah, is that the land was stolen. So no matter what you bought, what you think you're buying what you have. It is some, it's connected to a bad deed. It's like having bad genetics. And so how you farm the land on stolen land, versus not stolen land is completely different. How you manage and use the resources. How the community social wellbeing evolves under these stresses shows you why we're so divided today. The reality is until Hawaiians and kalo farming have a secure place, nobody in agriculture is secure.
Thao:Because youʻre saying this is the the root of the issue.
Daniel Anthony:It's the literal it's the literal root. And until, until the taro farmers, until there's a place that you can just go and be a Hawaiian taro farmer, and it doesn't cost you any money in Hawaii to do and to participate in, no agriculture is is is feeling secure. Yeah, it's like, imagine that you're a pig farmer, and every day that you go to farm, your animals are agitated. Yeah, and then and then that builds that that becomes their normal set of lifestyle. Now as a farmer, you're always wondering why is there a problem? What is going on? And here we are in 2022. And there are the layers of problems and controversy and misallocation of lands and mismanagement of lands has become the norm. Yeah, yeah. When you look at the state and this and and let me share this with you. Okay. So in 2009. After after pounding taro, for, hold on uh, 15 years, I decided to start a traditional business making poi. And the farmers market and at Ward was like,"Yes, you want to come and pound taro and make poi? Yes, Daniel come!" So I set up, boom. The first day I go there, someone takes a picture. The following week, front page of the newspaper. Okay. "Farmers Market traditional poi maker, Yay!" The following week, Department of Health at the farmers market looking for me. The Department of Health tells me Daniel, what you're doing. You can't do it, you first of all, you can't be in a malo. Secondly, the FDA requires that all food prep surfaces be non-porous. So your wood and your stone is illegal, right? Because they say well, what if I do it in a certified kitchen and they just come in demo? They're like, "No, you can't even do it in a certified kitchen because of your equipment." I turned around, I spend the entire 2010 doing education, right, because the loophole was. this is how my father was operating, in Waiʻanae was, I can't sell you or give you hand pounded paiai, or poi, but I can give you all the equipment for you to do it yourself, and it's fully legal. So we did the education. In 2010 I was organizing a community, a community a taro festival, and in the newspaper article of the taro festival it said you could go to this one farm-to-table restaurant and actually try hand-pounded paiai, and the following week the Department of Health raided that restaurant and made them throw away 20 pounds of hand pounded paiai. Yeah, Boom! Makes the news. OHA gets involved. All these guys want to know what's happening. We started a small committee in December of 2010. In 2011, we introduced a bill in the House a bill in the Senate. Everyone told us it was gonna take 10 years, if we were gonna have a chance to, like "Don't be disappointed." By July 16th, Neil Abercrombie signed legislation legalizing traditional poi making. Come to find out, in 1911, Japanese taro farmers in Manoa using water from the duck pond to mix poi, caused a cholera outbreak. All the poi companies in 1911 were shut down after they traced it to the poi, and they created regulations so that you had to have a cement slab, pipe water, and a poi mill, in order to commercially sell poi. Thus, from 1911 to 2011 there was a 100 year prohibition that we broke in one year. Since then, right now I have in contemporary Hawaii, I have the oldest traditional hand-pounding taro business, Mana Ai. The bulk of our business is we actually ship fresh hand-pounded paiai worldwide with no refrigeration. Our recipe yeah has been tested and our recipe keeps for weeks, months, even years with no refrigeration. Because we follow the traditional recipe. This is important for your listeners to understand, nobody has held the community regulators transparent and how they define poi. Currently, poi is defined as the"unadulterated ground taro product containing no less than 27% solids." There's a subcategory of poi called "poi ready-to-eat" of which Hanalei and refrigerated poi is, and those pois contain no less than 15% solids. In my research, I came across 1942 Big Island regulations that stated "Poi containing less than 30% solids shall be deemed unfit for human consumption and the sale of such prohibited." So the poi that we eat today, by 1942 standards, is not poi. Yeah. And what we found was that, like all recipes, yeah, if I take your grandma's recipe, what's your grandma's favorite recipe that she you grew up eating? If I take that recipe and throw it in a blender, and serve it to people and tell them that that's your grandma's recipe, am I doing her justice? What happens when you change the recipe by one ingredient or one step? It's no longer the recipe. This is important, because the poi today does not follow the critical cultural requirements, which is, it preserves in the tropics with no refrigeration.
Thao:something that's crucial, because you're saying that to be a farmer now, not only are you you need to know how to do the farming, you got to know all the politics and the policies and fought and navigate through all these other challenges, which makes agricultural production very stressful.
Daniel Anthony:So since 2011, I've organized Ku‘i at the Capitol, which happens on the opening day of the state capitol. Two years ago, 2020, we actually brought in two, 20-foot roll-off containers, and we filled ʻem with dirt. On one side, we imuʻd 2500 pounds of taro. On the other side, we wrapped, on-site at Iolani Palace, 8000 lau lau, and we fed 7000 people all from the community, right? This is what subsistence farming is these are the actions of subsistence farming. This is the power of community food systems. Because we have the power to feed community. Boom! That's what I've been working on strengthening. Yes, I feel like today, people look at agriculture as an occupation, not a lifestyle. Yeah, and it's interesting that it's agri-culture. Yeah, Hawaiian culture, already embraces and compromises a full spectrum way to farm and live on the land from mountain to sea. Right. As a cultural practitioner, as a father of Hawaiian children, my agricultural practices stem from the top of the mountain into the ocean. This is where we have taken the principles of Korean Natural Farming, and been able to isolate the Hawaiian indigenous natural farming practices and have begun to put them into use. So during COVID, we started a business called Aloha Organic making natural farming fertilizer solutions. And as a farmer today, my business Yeah, I'm a subsistence farmer is how I feed my family. My business is the agricultural products that I grow I use to make fertilizers to supply to other farmers and other food producers. That's my current business. And the reason is that there is more sick land in Hawaii than there is places that are abundant enough to support our food system. So, you know, a big stress if you're a farmer right now and your nitrogen prices went up 500% are you stressing? Yeah, if you live on an island and all of your agricultural needs are imported, are you stressing? Yeah, these are the these are the compound things that are actually affecting even big industrial AG. The reality is that the indigenous practices already provided the solutions to how to live on an island with zero importation.
Thao:So what is preventing the big ag or the powers to be, you know, from adopting these principles and practices, that you're sharing.
Daniel Anthony:I'll tell you what I tell you what, there's only one thing preventing it is they can't own it and patent it. Because we actually have created a pathway to make nature be nature, which nobody owns nature. Right? The reason that these big corporations don't do taro is because they haven't been able to legally genetically modify it and own the seed. And we've been giving away free rootstock for countless generations. Look since COVID hit our farm. Now, as even though I'm a subsistence farmer, our farm gave away over 40,000 huli during COVID. You want to talk about taro farmers, we have increased the amount of people farming Tarot in two years than in the last 25 years. Yeah, and the last two years they've been more taro farmers created then in the last 25 years.
Thao:So whatʻd happened? What did you do?
Daniel Anthony:COVID Hit and we and we we did things like we created the "5G Kalo Challenge" growing taro in a five gallon bucket. Right. And we used it as a mechanism to voice concern about domestic violence. Yeah, about food insecurity. Yeah. And sustainability. And the idea was, is that you could see a home with a five gallon bucket of taro growing in the front yard and know that that is a safe place. And the idea we wanted to create in the community was that we all need to have hands on deck in our food system. Right? If that five gallon bucket provides one dinner a month in laulau, guess what, we only need to feed you 29 other dinners. If every family just could grow one dinner a month, that has a huge impact in our ability to be sustainable. The other part is if nobody else is farming, when you go to make a decision about farmers and everybody making the decision is not a farmer, you're screwed. Right? What we wanted to do is put ag and farming in the hearts and minds of everyone in our community, hoping that that will trickle to our leaders. So that they you know, I mean, straight up, this is what happened this past year. So in 2021, the Capitol was closed down for opening day. And we said we weren't, I told him straight, we don't care, close it down, bring whatever you want. We're showing up. We brought 10,000 Hawaiian flags, we surrounded the capital in 10,000 Hawaiian flags. And then we gave out 10,000 huli. We had this idea where people drove up to the Capitol, brought farm goods and traded that for huli. And what we did was we single sourced farm goods. So the farmers that participated all got crazy new tents, new shovels, all kinds of equipment, right? Because how many people today had a father that farmed or a grandfather that farmed, but now they're a doctor, a lawyer or a construction worker, they got all of these tools, they're not using them. We were able to get people to take huli home, to put it in the ground, and bring tools and equipment for farmers. We were able to build these resources in house. At that event, we told the politicians, "You guys better do something this year, otherwise, don't be surprised if we do something." Well, this past year, we didn't go to the Capitol. This is the first year we decided not to go to the Capitol. We went and we cleared three acres of state land with no permit, and we planted 300 ulu trees, and we blew it up on social media. And every ulu tree that was planted had the afterbirth of a family member in the community planted under each and every one of them. We've had to use planting as the new form of protest. The new way to gather and hold community space for future generations. If the government isn't going to grow food for us to gather, which is our right as community. Right? This is where we have to remember that our cultural community depends on the whole system from mountain to sea to gather and sustain ourselves.
Thao:Okay, Thank you, Daniel. I can feel your passion, right, and I appreciate your passion, but at the same time I can playing the devil's advocate, you know, the others are gonna say, "Woah!" right? You know, let's say the big ag folks are like, you know, we contribute quite a bit. We help Hawaii in terms of the economy, even though maybe the food or you know, we produce the food or we grow food, and then we get export, but it does help the economy,
Daniel Anthony:I think, when you look at it in a dollar-to-dollar basis, the fact that Oahuʻs central lands are completely sterile and can produce no food after 100 years of chemical agriculture? They have they have spun out their ability to get a profit without heavy imports. That's that's the basic math. Yes, they are a big part of, of our economy, but it's very insecure part of the economy. Right? The question that I propose to big ag, always is, "What is your connection in sustaining this place, the culture and community?" Because here's the thing, right? Everybody recognizes this place as Hawaii. If everybody that lived here, actually applied 1% of their time and resources back to the culture and the community, we would have a flourishing community. Right? University of Hawaii is a perfect example of where they get huge amounts of money. But how much of that actually goes to the cultural community? To grow? No, what happens is the way that it is done, it is it has been split. This is this is always what I asked, Why are you feeling why are we like feeling bad for big ag when they have all the money, the resources, the leases and everything? We don't have any of that. Can you imagine our stress when my grandpa came home and the water was turned off because big ag had appropriated it illegally?
Thao:So how would you heal this then, this division?
Daniel Anthony:Guess what? This is where it has to start, yeah? These companies and organizations need to decide if they want to continue to be down the path of, of the division in our community. If they want to continue that perfect. They're going to continue it by not involving the culture and the people. The other part is the land. Yeah, a lot of these big ag guys, it was all state lands. So state, give us 10% of the land for the cultural community. You know, all of these lands that you're currently not using? Put a percentage in that in perpetuity for community subsistence agriculture. This is what is important to know. All the Filipino guys that are working for big ag, all of the Chinese, all of the Japanese, all of the Mexicans that are working for big ag, they all have to go to the store to buy their food. Yeah, yeah? Every single one of those guys, even if they are the best farmer in the world for big ag, there is no place for them to produce their own subsistence which means that that big ag farmer is as equally as part of the problem as everybody else buying imported food. We have to have a foundation that is based on feeding ourselves. What happens when our community can feed itself? Is we start thinking completely differently. Yeah, I am one of those guys. I'm super spoiled. Yeah, I'm riceist. If I eat rice is like $30 a bag for a little tiny rice, right? And I'm, I'm, I'm a quarter Japanese. My Japanese heritage. I'm a Tanaka. Which Tanaka means"rice farmer." Yeah? I don't eat none of that cheap rice. All my rice that I ever consume is some high grade rice. Why? Because I eat poi every single day. We generally pounding 150 to 250 pounds of poi every single week to supply first, our our base consumption is about 70 pounds a week of poi!
Thao:Oh, wow! Okay. That's a lot! Of course everybody loves the sunshine here.
Daniel Anthony:Yeah. Well, you think about it, right? In traditional Hawaii, a poor Hawaiian ate five pounds a day, a wealthy Hawaiian ate 10 to 15 pounds a day. Right? If my household is eating 5 to 10 pounds a day and I've got six kids and two adults, we some poor ass Hawaiians! Yeah, because if we were eating five pounds a day, we would be eating 30 pounds to 40 pounds a day, which is what I believe my family needs to be at, to honor my ancestors. Yeah? So subsistence is a mindset. That mindset, every big company that is operating in Hawaii, all of them gotta eat. There's a huge economy around just growing for us. Now, I have a question. Do you like the sunshine here? You like the rain here? Wouldn't you like it if your food felt the same sunshine and rain here every single day? And when people tell me that's not possible, what I tell them is they had the wrong leadership. Yeah, that's all it comes down to. I got into a big dispute with Kamehameha Schools. I got blackballed from Kamehameha Schools. I was one of the guys that led the anti-GMO movement against KS. And this is really why I was angry. I wasn't even angry that they want to just let guys do whatever they want to do. I don't care. You know what I cared about? Kamehameha Schools charging $7 an acre to Monsanto, and then turning around and charging $100 an acre to taro farmers. Now how, as me, a subsistence taro farmer, how come I'm paying 20 times what Monsanto was paying?
Thao:Yeah, explain that. What was the logic behind that?
Daniel Anthony:This is where I'm gonna get my ass in trouble. Because I'm gonna tell you the truth is all those guys when Monsanto came to them, and said,"Hey, you should lease us our lands." Because I got the story directly from the head of land. Yeah, Neil Hannahs told me straight, I met with him, because I needed to hear it from the horse's mouth. I didn't believe that KS was leasing to Monsanto! They kept it secret from our community. They said"Daniel, sugar had gone down, nobody was leasing the land, I had to cover this huge bill. Monsanto came to me and said,"Hey, Neil, you should pay us to farm this land. We're the only company in the world that can grow food using contaminated land and contaminated water." So instead of Kamehameha Schools, turning around and working on making their land better, they gave it to the low bidder because they could use the contaminated water from Lake Wilson. On the contaminated sugar and pine lands. Right? Yeah. And they all invested in Monsanto. I want you to imagine what $10,000 invested in Monsanto in the early 90s is worth today. Yeah, it's not ag we're against, it's against the Ag Futures. Right? And just like speculation is buying up our real estate, speculation has bought up our ag future. That's why they're holding all the water. That's why they don't believe in subsistence because they believe in the future, that it's going to have value, and they have enough money to hold on to it just for that. The other part, here's the truth is taro farmers, we hard to get kicked off the land. Once we on the land. You know what I'm saying? These other guys, they just kick them off, they do a development, right? The farmers, here's another stress, right? If you're leasing land, you don't really have security because the land zone change, they convert I mean, Hoapili, Kapolei, these are all areas in my lifetime I saw get converted from Big Ag to homes, and they did it in a way, because you don't have to remediate the soil. You just put a liner down and you put something else on top and you build the house on contaminated soil.
Thao:Yeah, so what you're saying, okay, ʻcause I might be wrong, but because you have such a rich history and heritage yourself that you're so connected to the land. So you the assumption is that everyone lives in Hawaii has that connection with or would feel that connection, but there are folks who may not feel that connection or don't feel that strongly so they're going to live their life in a way that's let's say, convenient. Why do I need to say that the native Hawaiians are the folks who are who've got this rich heritage needs to do that. Why do I need to live in a subsistent way, Right? I'm again, I'm playing the devil's advocate.
Daniel Anthony:I just say this to people, you don't need, I tell this to people all the time. You don't need to follow any of what I do. But if there's not a space for people like me, yeah. You know, what happened between the Israelis and the Palestinians?
Thao:There's a war.
Daniel Anthony:Yeah, there's a war. Yeah, and when you're when you look at what the War of the future is going to be about, it's gonna be about water. Water. Yeah. It's gonna be about water. And here we are in a place that that the indigenous people, right, look. It doesn't even matter as as we stand right now. You can say whatever you want the State of Hawaii, water is a public trust. Yeah? So just by saying that it didn't it's not an institutional trust, it's not a corporate ag trust, it is a public Trust. Right below that, yeah, it says that the taro farmers get first right to the water. So how you heal it is you follow the law, yeah? And you take the personal integrity. Yeah, this is what these corporations don't have. They don't have personal integrity. I'm not sure if you're familiar. But Grover Cleveland, when he was president wrote an executive order telling Dole to give the Kingdom back to the Queen. Yeah. Of which Dole said, "Oh, we're not Americans. You can hold me accountable." Right. And they waited for him to get out of office, this type of personal accountability. This is what I believe. And I tell this to Americans. Until Americans actually practice liberty and justice, Hawaii will be contentious. Yeah, and the regular everyday American needs to hold first of all themselves accountable to the Constitution. If this is what this country is built on, then there's a level of convenience that is no longer acceptable when it comes to the Constitution. This is the law of our land. Yeah, the Constitution has been broken. When we look in Hawaii, our Constitution is not being followed by the institutions, nor the corporation. So how you heal it is just simply by following the law. And, you know, if the GMO companies gave the good water to the taro farmers and the water goes through the taro farmers, and then it goes to the GMO companies, then we're gonna be more like partners than enemies. Okay. Yeah. But if you if the big ag need all the water at the expense of us, I gonna tell you what, the one thing I am definitely a good farmer at is raising radical kids. And for every one of me, there's now six of me right now, you know what I'm saying six of me, that are growing up. I have children that are younger than the bowl of poi in my house, which means they grew up and they can say that on their table in their house their entire life, there was a bowl of poi, that never empty. I haven't washed it in 12 years, I've only added to it in 12 years, it's never refrigerated. Yeah, when I die, my great grandkids are gonna say, "Oh, my ancestors are in this bowl." because our microbes are living in this bowl. And my dream is that in 500 years, when I'm not around, this bowl gonna still be around, and my family still gonna be eating poi out of it, and this will be one of the biological treasures.
Thao:Yeah, so I'm saying that, you know, you've got this wealth of information and a wealth of history and understanding. But how is your message getting out to those who don't want to hear it, or who are not ready to hear it, or it may not be in a way that they would like to?
Daniel Anthony:This is the thing doctor, I'm, I'm I'm so fortunate that I am just continuing a line of practice that goes back for 1000s of years. Yeah. And what I have seen is I have seen farmers come and go, I've seen saviors come and go, I've seen big ag come and go, yeah, all of these guys and their battles and everything. I've seen all of these big companies eat their words at least once or twice, I believe. Because I build soil every day of my life, that at some point, my soil gonna be more rich than theirs. Yeah. And literally, this is what I'm trying to work on right now. This is this is the big picture. This will impact every single farmer that's on state land that's leasing land. I'm working on a bill right now, that will allow for capital improvement on leased land. For soil building to be included as a way to capitally improve your land. If you can show that you're building soil, that means that that you've increased the value of the land. Yeah. These leases require you to make an investment in the land. If the investment can be in adding soils, actually poor farmers might be able to hold on to our land. Yeah, This is what I tell all farmers, all small farmers, all subsistence farmers, if they can erase the Hawaiian, taro farmers, you guarantee next. That we as indigenous people that want to eat from this place, yeah, we have to start to band together and create space for it. You tell me doc., where is there space? If somebody comes to you right now and says I want to grow taro, I'm a native Hawaiian, where can I do it? Do you have a spot you can send them to the gladly they'll be accepted?
Thao:No, I don't. I don't I don't know.
Daniel Anthony:So. You da smart lady. You work at the UH. But I tell you right now, if I said I want to grow GMO corn In 20 minutes I will be on the phone with by Pioneer, Syngenta, Monsanto, one of these guys would have a super awesome job for me and land, I promise you. And if you don't believe me, give me 20 minutes and I'll have a lease right now. Okay, that's how that's how crazy it is that there is no space in our current system. Everybody else's convenience is at the expense of the indigenous farmer. And it's at the point where it's starting to catch up with everyone.
Thao:So that's what you're saying, the stressors, even though it may seem manyfold and manifested in one community, the native Hawaiian particularly, you're seeing it trickled effect of to everyone now.
Daniel Anthony:There are so many, I mean, Iʻll give you an example. You remember the Superferry? Yeah. Yeah. How many Hawaiians was in the water blocking the Superferry in Kauai? Yeah. And it wasn't too many. Yeah, is because the way that the system has has systematically gone after the lowest denominator. Hawaiians are no longer the lowest denominator. And guess what doc? One economic swing? You could be in that system real quick. Yeah, one loss of funding one loss of this, one no hotel getting built, boom, you can have your car and your house and everything, and in two years be homeless. Because nobody homeless two years ago said, hey, I want to be homeless.
Thao:Right? Right. Security is from I've always held the perspective that security is an illusion that we think we're secure. But because I'm a refugee, so overnight, boom, you know, we had nothing, so it's not like
Daniel Anthony:So you know, the feeling right?
Thao:Yes, I know the feeling.
Daniel Anthony:Today, that level of security. If the smallest guy, the indigenous guy doesn't feel secure, how can anyone else feel secure? And if we spent the next generation healing that connection, it would increase the security across the board. Yeah, one thing we have to remember, when all the land was in Hawaiian control, they made space for the big sugar planters. They made space for everybody to come and participate. It was only when the tides turned, that there wasn't space for the Hawaiians. And this is an important thing to remember, as, as we all are people, no matter where you came from, at some point in your lineage, you come from a farmer.
Thao:You're right. Yeah, yes.
Daniel Anthony:And and so that common sense of agriculture has left the building. Yeah, and every indigenous agriculture community has something to offer to healing the planet, because industrial ag honestly, has ruined more than just Hawaii's farmlands, is doing it everywhere, which means that the new technology is going to actually be fixing it. And if you can fix it using traditional lifestyle practices, then simply by living, you can make your soils better. Right now we help people make small subsistence pig pens on Oahu, no smell, and residential communities. We help them develop a soil building plan. That's what we do on our nonprofit site. We give away huli. Last year, we put out 4000 ulu trees in the community. We are, like I said, we do both the subsistence farming, the social community farming. Right now we've got about maybe four acres under cultivation of taro, but we got 85 varieties.
Thao:So you know, one of the things that we need to do for this project, um not only you, but I'm committed to doing is to elevate the respect and appreciation. So farmers across the board. What do you how do you think we should do that? How, do you have any ideas for increase the public perception that the respect, you know, just like they have this like"teachers are heroes," "first responders are heroes," health care you know, during this COVID. How is it that farmers and ag producers are also heroes?
Daniel Anthony:I think I think the question comes down to how do we define a farmer? Yeah. And and I think there's a difference from a commercial chemical ag producer that is exporting everything. Yeah, I think the hero we have to the hero farmer is that guy that's feeding your family. Yeah, and that could be your dad, that could be your mom in the backyard garden. That could be a small one acre plot down the street. That could be the guy at the farmers market. That could also be Larry Jefts who's, you know, growing the biggest farm on Oahu, but he's, guess what? He's feeding the community. So to me, I think we need to first identify, this is actually one been one of my projects, how do you identify an indigenous farmer? How do you identify a sustainable farmer? How do you identify an organic regenerative farmer? Right? Yeah, farmer is just a term that we have applied to somebody that does something with dirt occasionally. There's many different levels to it. Not all of them are good. I think it's being educated and identifying which ones actually interact with their dinner table. And then investing in those people. Right? Everyone is familiar with a startup. If it has no investment, there's no startup. We're in, indigenous agriculture is in a startup phase where we've burnt out all the expensive ways to farm. Yeah, if you can start a farm and farm with nothing, you almost have a chance. You know what I'm saying? Because today, right now, a majority of the new farms are people that are all going to college. Yeah, and yeah, I don't know if youʻve ever seen those guys try for dig a hole, but it's different. Yeah. And and I don't I don't disagree with them, but unless, you know, here's my question. Where's the funding for all the non college graduates? Where's all the funding for the guys that don't have a high school diploma? Because I bet you if you go to go around the world, there's more people with no diplomas, farming and feeding community than there are guys that are. Yeah. So how do we get the resources to those people? Because I tell you this much. I do not write as beautifully as the guy that works for UH at Kānewai Loʻi, yeah, but he get all da million dollar grants. But with no grants, we put out 40,000 huli in the community and produce food and sustenance, right? If we had an investment, we had support, I honestly think people would be like, "Oh, my God, this works!" right. It's the fact that the indigenous farmers have been demonized as people that are trying to overthrow the system. Guess what our system is 150% unsustainable. Just getting to 100% unsustainable, seems like a huge task. And everybody that is living that way will look at you as somehow trying to thwart their convenience.
Thao:Yeah, so. So keeping us accountable, because I am with UH, and with CTAHR what would be your recommendation that we do for this project? I mean, it suppose it is focusing on stress and our charge is to focus on help with stress management and, and all the stressors that I mean, we can't provide, like, let's say production resources. Yeah.
Daniel Anthony:I'm going to share this with you. I'm going to share this with you. Yeah. Yeah. I call it the "grumpy uncle syndrome." Okay. Yeah. So if you go into the taro farming community, what you're gonna find is the majority of the indigenous taro farmers are these super grumpy uncles that all use chemicals, and alcohol and illicit drugs. Yeah, that these are these are guys that that they'll never come and talk story with you, but this is their reality. Yeah. Is thereʻs so much pain in this single occupation of taro farming that the people that are currently doing it are purposely putting themselves in a place, so that nobody wants to continue it. And do you know how hurtful that is? As a as a? You know, can you imagine you're a 75 year old taro farmer, and then, you know, you gonna be the last guy for farm on this land because you know like your grandson struggle his whole life. And you also know that because your of your grandpa's chemical addiction, that your lands are not as fertile as they used to be. And because of your education, you don't have the skills to navigate out of chemical ag into something sustainable. And because fertilizer prices have just gone up, because everything is back-ordered, everything that you know about agriculture is at risk. So you tell your family"No, be one farmer!" You'd be one a**hole. You always drunk, you using drugs, right? And then nobody go see you.
Thao:That's very painful. I mean, just hearing that. It's very painful to me to hear that.
Daniel Anthony:And I tell you what, I not gonna be that uncle. My farm partner, yeah, don't laugh, this week today, he got his third hydrocolon therapy. Last week, I went to go get hydrocolon therapy. Weʻre trying to literally figure out how to not be a**holes. We're trying to figure out if it has something to do with our physical wellbeing and the things that we've collected in our system over a lifetime of processed foods, even though we eat good. I come from a processed food upbringing, you know. These are all the things that we are looking at. How do we build a lifestyle that is really sustainable, that we want to pass on, and that those around us want to continue? Yeah, yeah, that's honestly what I'm trying to build. I'm not trying to build a farm. I'm trying to build a way of life for my children's children's children to still be in Hawaii and have value.
Thao:So when you say a way of life for me, I hear that you gotta have right speech, right thoughts, and right action, right? So how are you have all those three in alignment? Whatever you do, you gotta have the, you know, your speech needs to be pono, your thoughts also needs to be clean, which means that you've got integrity in your actions as well. So perhaps of if there's any way we can support that. I'm all ears.
Daniel Anthony:You know, I will have to stew on it. I uh I, myself, am just trying to be an example of one of the ways to get out of the system. Yeah, and I have seen many of my friends transition from the Western full time employment economy, to some type of ag entrepreneur economy. And I believe that, you know, unfortunately, that whole thought of convenience really changes when there's no ship to supply the convenience. Yeah. And then you realize that the farm down the street is actually way more convenient and satisfies you on so many different levels. It's almost like we live inside of a huge turd. Yeah, we've become accustomed to living in that third that we don't even want to stick our head out of it and be like, "Oh, my God, there's the rest of the world going on!" you know? I mean, you know, I don't I don't I don't desire the Costco hotdog, right, but when I go to Costco, the line is super long.
Thao:But you know, but some of us who are in the turd, and you tell us, "Oh, it smells better up there." they're just so used to being in the turd, you don't want to go, you don't want to look up, right?
Daniel Anthony:You don't, you don't want to look up, yeah, totally.
Thao:So that's a great metaphor and an analogy. Yeah. So I guess from our perspective, what we're hoping to do is share these stories as one way, right, and the more stories of resilience and different perspective, but I have to, you know, I need to also include perspective of the other folks, because otherwise, we'll come across as being very biased.
Daniel Anthony:And I can tell you right now, you are not a biased person. I myself have a have a lot of experience in knowing that how you widen the middle is sometimes running to the extreme. Yeah, so for I for myself, like I don't even try to be like, I'm not even trying to find the middle ground. I'm running to the opposite end of the spectrum, because as I run to the opposite end, the middle ground grows, yeah?
Thao:Well, I don't know, because it seems like in our culture, it's very polarized now in so many different ways, right? And I'm, in some ways, I'm also concerned for Hawaii is also very, even within the Hawaiian community, there's polarization. So it's, it seems like the extremes are getting even more extreme. And there's no middle way. Youʻre either either this camp, or youʻre either this camp, and what we're trying I'm trying to say is like, you know, stress, suffering. If you're a rich man, you got rich men suffering your poor man, you got poor. Suffering happens, because prison means you're not content and peaceful in your mind, no matter what conditions you're in
Daniel Anthony:The middle ground is our food. The rich man gotta eat, the poor man gotta eat. Right? And so that, that that food place is a very powerful place. And to make sure that the the indigenous community, the local community, right, doesn't have that security gives the power to someone else. And so the work that we do is very threatening to institutions and entities it is naturally, it has always been. The reality, though, is that I'm like you work for you. Ah, I work for the culture and the land. Yeah. And when you working for UH, come across me, right, and we're on opposite sides, you better really think about what you're doing, because we are coming from the land and the culture. We're not telling you what to do. We're encouraging you to do better. Yeah, yeah. And if you cannot find a way to do your job and to make the culture and the land happy, you should be fired. You suck at your job, and we need people that are good at their jobs. Yeah. And I know that just because someone has a PhD doesn't mean that they know sh*t.
Thao:I agree with you on that one.
Daniel Anthony:I I have met just as many super smart guys with PhDs as I've met super not smart people with PhDs. The question always comes out to, what are the results? Yeah, if you do your work and the community is stronger and better than I might be more favorable to follow your results. If you do your work and it doesn't, well, you would expect me to also be wise in that. Because I have hung out, you know, like I said, my auntie is a senator, so I grew up at the state capitol. My grandfather is a Caucasian medical doctor who graduated as the valedictorian of Thomas Jefferson Medical School in Pennsylvania in 1959. So the reason everyone saluted him and gave him high respect, because he was a badass. I sat under those board tables. I've heard all of the different perspectives that go around, and I know that it's okay if I see something that you don't. Yeah, that all of the experts that told me that traditional poi making was never gonna happen. Yeah, I I'm one of the few guys. I beat the Department of Health. Yeah, the Department of Health they donʻt lose too often, but when they come to Uncle Daniel, they kind of they don't know what to do, because I also have the ability to call for experts in every single field necessary to compel a win. Yeah, and I know this because my ancestors communicate with me, yeah? And it seems like, how does your ancestors communicate with you? Well, I tell you what, you come hang out with us, and you wonder how we do what we do, our ancestors real strongly with us, and they help to connect us with knowledge that ain't in the books. It's the kind of knowledge that you got to scoop out of the air. You got to be a intuitive farmer, you got to talk to your land, you got to believe in it. You got to have that connection. You got to see it grow.
Thao:Well, your answers are right there. Your nose, your eyes, your blood. That's your answers. I don't see you. I don't know what your great grandmother look like, but I do because it's right there on your nose, and your face, right? That's why it's manifest, that you are the manifestation of your ancestors.
Daniel Anthony:Farm farming is also, you know, it's like a dog has traits. Yeah, they got the sheepdogs and you got these certain dogs that do certain things. I come from a long line of farmers. It is in my DNA. I might be able to translate soil better than somebody who just got into it and went to school. Yeah, there's there's certain things that we are only learning to describe. And our senses that you've just said, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, are actually our lower senses. Yeah. And they're able to prove that there's all kinds of rays that are unseen floating around the universe. And if we don't believe those impact and affect us, well, I believe that you're just not looking at all the resources that are available. You know, you asked what is the solution? The solution is for us to come together and eat together. The solution is create places for us to farm and grow food together. Yeah, the idea is for us to be less fearful and more willing to support. The solution is also resource sharing. Yeah, if one group only get the resources well, that was the division to begin with. Yeah, if you and you're both competing for for showing whose knowledge is more powerful in creating this impact, and you get all the money, and I no more da money. Yeah, I will tell you this, though, I've been in that situation multiple times, and I've crushed the opponents, because I don't need money. Yeah, I've built this relationship with the community that we don't waste each other's time. And when we need the community to make that change, they rally and they believe, because we also haven't abused it. Yeah, I don't I don't call for it and ask for help if I don't need the help. If I can dig the hole myself, Iʻll go dig ʻum. Yeah, but when we got to wrap 8000 laulaus, we put it out to the community, and in three hours, we wrap 8000 laulaus.
Thao:Youʻve got a large community. Yeah.
Daniel Anthony:You know, and it's because I, like I said, I don't just farm food. I raise my kids. I raise my plants. I raise my animals. I fertilize, weed, and water neighbors, politicians, businesses, right? I'm in that middle area. You're like "Daniel, what do you do?" Guess what, it sucks. In order to wake up and be excited I have to do a little bit of everything because, at some point, everything that I do crushes my heart and my soul and my spirit. But it's the other thing that shows the growth that feeds my heart and my soul and my spirit and gets me to wake up and to want to continue to do this every single day. Yeah?
Thao:So what are you farming mentally and emotionally?
Daniel Anthony:Right now, a lot of inner healing. Yeah, I'm 43 years old, and I am going through midlife. recentering, yeah? Midlife refocus. The most influential farmer in my whole life was a couple Marge and Joe Pereira and they were the pig farmers that were next door and my dad was a fisherman. And so you know, after you eat ʻopelu for like the 37th night in a row, and it's like the sixth time that you like you got raw ʻopelu fresh tonight for dinner with leftover baked or ʻopelu from dinner from the last night and then you got you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, oh my god, I got six different types of ʻopelu for dinner tonight, Mom, I'm losing it. You run over next door to the pig farmer and the pig farmer goes,"Hey, Daniel, I'll feed you but you got to feed the pigs." And so the woman that instilled the most amount of worth ethic into me was a woman by the Marge Pereira. Okay, and she was a five foot Portuguese woman, yeah, that could literally scoop two five-gallon buckets of grain, of slop, just one hand and one hand, boom, pull it out of the trough just straight. I mean, like, I have I struggle doing today as a grown man, what Auntie Margie. And see, Auntie Margie, I didn't meet her until she was 48 years old, and when I was at her funeral, and I did the math, and I realized that the most influential farmer in my life I met when she was 48, made me realize that I have yet to start giving back. Yeah, that my time forgiving back in the community is just about to begin. That all the work that I've done has just brought me to this place of actually having the experience and the ability to inspire people, yeah, and now we need to really dream bigger, we need to include other parts of the community that have been ultimately fearful of the type of change necessary. It's necessary. Yeah, one day you will go to Costco and it will be 85% locally grown fruits and vegetables and meat. And it won't be because they want to. It will be because we have ensured that that is how it is. And you know, a lot of it is the the government the regulations and the politics. The other part of it is, finally today, you can grow tarot and actually make a decent wage. Yeah, one of the first things that I worked on was we reverse engineered how much we would need per pound to survive as a taro farmer, and we started paying the farmers in the community that price. And we single handedly raised the farmgate price of taro from $1 to $2 a pound. One group, us. Yeah. And what happened with the traditional poi making community is they became educated consumers of taro. Today high quality organic taro farmgate is between $3 and $4 a pound. If you're growing high quality, organic taro, you can survive on just growing taro. Now, if you're supplying poi and paiai, there are blooming markets like cancer patients and babies with allergies. Yeah, that can only be sustained on super hypoallergenic foods. So, you know, I have a business that I pretty much only ship worldwide. I don't supply anybody locally. I trained them how to make their own. Yeah, if you're my neighbor, I don't actually want to make poi for you. I want to inspire you to eventually grow your own taro and make your own, but until then, we'll supply you taro and give you the space to learn how to make it, which is the equipment the boards the stones, I've actually been on every single Island making boards and stones. I cut in Anaholo, Anahola, Hanapepe and Huleia on Kauai as well as Makaveli. We've cut boards and all of those places and then boarded stone workshops. I've been to multiple places on Maui, Molokai, I even did one on Kahoolawe, Big Island. You know, we are embracing traditional poi making across cultural lines. I've taught as many non Hawaiians as I have Hawaiians, and what I've seen is that the children that are growing up eating and making their own poi are healthy, are happy are learning and participating in the food system. And I believe that is also a part of the solution. Yeah, is everybody participating even if it's only you only very one taro. Yeah, that one taro gives you skin in the game to understand what it takes to be a taro farmer. Because you probably be struggle with that one taro. You can't imagine the guy growing 10 acres. And so when the political cry comes to help support the guy with the 10 acres, the guy with the one tariff shows up
Thao:because they understand how it is
Daniel Anthony:Right? And then when that guy is the neighbor of the politician, yeah, then he's telling the politician now we're creating the environment for agriculture on the subsistence level to begin to flourish.
Thao:Got it. Yeah. All right, Daniel, I have taken way more than an hour of your time, so I'm gonna end that. Thank you so much. And we want to thank Daniel for sharing his thoughts and passions about Hawaii ag production, lifestyle, some barriers to success he has encountered and some possible solutions. We also thank all of our kalo farmers and other ag producers throughout the islands for their hard work and dedication to feed and nourish us. We want to thank our guests for their generosity and manaʻo. We also want to thank all our ag producers throughout the islands, and especially those we have heard on the podcast for discussing ways they address the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of Hawaii ag production. Each story each voice contributes to a broader understanding of what it takes to survive and thrive as we feed our communities. Wherever you may find yourself within our island agricultural economies, if you would like to share your story in our podcast, please contact us. Thank you for listening to the Seeds of Wellbeing "Voices From the Field" podcast featuring their perspectives of ag producers throughout the Hubei islands. If you have found it helpful, please follow like and share this episode with others. And if you have any ideas about how we can make it better, please let us know in the comments or use the link on our website. Mahalo for tuning in. The views information or opinions expressed during this seeds of well being series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of the University of AI, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and any Affiliated Organization involved in this project.