Many of the people we have interviewed for the SOW project have stressed the enormous importance of water to ag production in Hawaii, and how it can sometimes be either difficult to obtain, expensive, or both.
In this episode we speak with the Reppun brothers Charlie and Paul, farmers from the windward side of Oahu, about the water struggles they have faced, but also about the realities of being involved in the local agriculture scene in Hawaiʻi since the early 1970s.
Brought to you by University of Hawaii College of Tropical Ag. and Human Resources, and the Seeds of Well-being (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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Many of the people we have interviewed for the SOW project have stressed the enormous importance of water to ag production in Hawaii, and how it can sometimes be either difficult to obtain, expensive, or both.
In this episode we speak with the Reppun brothers Charlie and Paul, farmers from the windward side of Oahu, about the water struggles they have faced, but also about the realities of being involved in the local agriculture scene in Hawaiʻi since the early 1970s.
Brought to you by University of Hawaii College of Tropical Ag. and Human Resources, and the Seeds of Well-being (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 in this episode are solely those of individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, our funders or any of the organizations affiliated with this project. Welcome to a Seeds of Wellbeing"Voices from the Field" podcast, featuring voices of Hawaii agricultural producers for Hawaii agriculture producers. These podcasts are made possible by a grant from the University of Hawaii's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, also known as CTAHR and the Seeds of Wellbeing or SOW project and supported by a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture.
Camren:Water for us is a really big stressor because our house is a very small footprint, and our catchment is only about 4000 gallons. So with a small footprint house and a 4000 gallon catchment, that's not enough water for a family of three with a farm. And so like this year, our catchment was either bone dry, or just had a few inches of water in it. From July to the end of November.
Daniel Anthony:When you look at what the word of the future is gonna be about, it's gonna be about water. It's gonna be about water.
Lawaia:You know, a lot of the water had been diverted. Our reservoirs had been, had been decommissioned. So we have a lack of water.
Glenn:But the land needs to also come with access to water.
Jim:As you have just heard, many of the people we've interviewed for the SOW project have stressed the enormous importance of water to ag production in Hawaii, and how it can sometimes be either difficult to obtain, expensive, or both. In this episode, we speak with the Reppun brothers, farmers from the windward side of Oahu, about the water struggles they have faced, but also about the realities of being involved in the local agriculture scene in Hawaii since the early 1970s. Now let's hear from brothers Paul and Charlie. Seems like you've been in and around farming for many, many years on Oahu. A number of folks suggested we reach out to you and talk to you both about what you've been doing. And if you gentlemen wouldn't mind just kind of introducing yourselves and
Paul:Yeah, I'll go first, Charlie, because I gotta run up and shut the taro. My name is Paul Reppun. started farming in 1974. Came back from college and doing some traveling and working in other places. And despite my chance, my father, father being a doctor, he had a patient who had a piece of land and our father seeing us as more or less useless hippies living at home. Not doing too much with our lives. He said, Why don't you guys go try this try this piece of land. So we thought we'd give it a try. And, you know, try it for a few months. Well, you simply can't farm for a few months, because the first thing we planted was papayas because the landlord had a bunch of them in pots so we planted ʻem. Well, that's, you know, one year before you can harvest the crop. So we got stuck in it. The second thing I think we planted was a dryland field of Chinese taro, again, another one year crop. And we just been doing it ever since.
Jim:You think that was part of your dad's plan is to get you started on crops that take a year?
Paul:I don't think he was that prescient, but I think something like that happened. It wasnʻt long after that he kicked us out of the house so maybe that was planned, Yeah, I'm gonna run up and shut my taro. I'll be right back.
Jim:And Charlie, same story for you?
Charlie:Same story, except part of it was we, we did this. I can't remember who we're working for. But we did some work, interviewing farmers in our community, you know, we were supposed to collect information about farmers and what they were dealing with and issues and stuff like that. So when we did that, we got to that's what helped us learn a lot about farming too. And we talked to all these these people and found out what was going on. And then, like Paul was saying, one of my dad's patients had this land in Kaalae. And he said we could, you know, we could, we could try it. So we started doing that. And then when we first started, we wanted to make a taro patch. So this woman in Waihee, she came and checked out what we're doing and saw that we were serious about it. So she said we could use a part of her land in Waihee Valley, which is like one valley over from Kaalae. And so we're still, we're still farming that piece of land there in Waihee.
Jim:Still today? At 22, 20? no, 74. Let's you have 40 years.
Charlie:Yeah. And, and one of the things that happened, there is very, very early on, we were getting ready to, you know, plant taro and stuff and there wasn't that much water in the stream. And so we, you know, we checked it out because the woman who was who is growing taro there, who is our landlord, she was, she was actually carrying buckets of water from the stream up to her taro patch, in order to rinse it when she was pulling. So we went and checked it out, and found out that the Board of Water Supply had drilled wells up way up in the back and they were diverting water. And so, because Paul and I were low income, you know, we, and we didn't, you know, own land or anything like that, we qualified for legal aid. And so Legal Aid Society, took our, took on our case. And so that was the first, you know, that was the first big water fight case.
Jim:Well, and I remember when we talked to Daniel Anthony he was talking about the big water, water battles for kalo farmers. Is that the same thing? Yeah.
Charlie:Yeah, that was, that's the same thing that was kind of the beginning of it. And that led to the formation of a water code. And, you know, so basically, farming has been a political issue from the get go. Because you even, in Waiahole, you know in Waiahole. But we, we got it, we got ended up with a piece of land there, this guy didn't want to farm it and so he turned it over to us. And that was a at the beginning of the big, you know, the big land use fight in Waiahole. And so that was, you know, so that land use that land use fight. And then later on, though, Waiahole water fight. So that's kind of been the nature of farming is it's, it's been a political thing from the get go.
Jim:And interesting that it's all about water then. right? So this is back in the 70s. Was it?
Charlie:Yeah. And in the 90s Was the Waiahole water case and stuff. But the good thing was, is that there was, there was all this help, you know, this legal help. Like, you know, like Earth Justice Now, those those lawyers, they were really, you know, some of them. They just honored one of the lawyers, recently, they had a big celebration of him. And, without those people without those those lawyers, like, the legal aid lawyer, and then and then all the other lawyers, it would have been really hard to do.
Jim:Well, and what's the situation now with with water, since you're on the same piece of land?
Charlie:Well, in Waiahole, they restored a lot of water to the stream as a result of that water fight. And that has made a big difference to taro farmers. Not only us but you know, legal precedent for other taro farmers too. But, like now, you know, now there's a little bit of concern about I mean, water is, is a huge issue everywhere, right, especially with climate change issues and things like that water availability is is for farming for growing food is, and even for people's drinking water, is becoming a bigger and bigger issue, you know, all over the place. And that's Hawaii, well Hawaii you have that, you know, all the pollution on the on the other side of the island. You know, the aquifer, the Navy and all that stuff, Red Hill. Well, that is going to have a big effect on farming and water. Because that's, that's, you know, that water aquifer is really important. And there's there's still a lot of farmers over there.
Jim:And I think we've, we've heard a number of people say some of the next big wars are probably going to be over water.
Charlie:Yeah, yeah.
Jim:But do you feel like because of the work that you've done all these years to fight for the water for what you need and what the island, what ag needs on the island? Do you think that you're ahead of the game maybe?
Charlie:We're, well we're a little bit ahead of the game. As far as I mean, Waiahole has we have, Waiahole has water issues too. Because most of the Ag users like you know, those who are like us we're farming taro off of the stream, getting water to your farm is an issue. So there are still those issues. And then, you know, pumping water out of the aquifer in Waiahole there's, there's a lot of issues that are involved there too, because a lot of farmers, you know, they're not, they're just growing regular crops and they're, they're getting water off of the valley water system and the valley water system has, has got lots of problems, they've got, you know, numerous pump problems, that's been ongoing for a long time. Well, now we're kind of beginning of sort of a new phase, we're looking again at, you know, the ditch tunnel system that's up in up in the mountain that originally took all the water from this side of the island to the other side of the island. We're looking at, you know, trying to figure out how we can tap into that. And, you know, have that become the valley water system.
Jim:And it's, it certainly doesn't sound simple, unfortunately.
Charlie:Yeah, well, it's not simple, but then we think that that's, that's something that's really doable. Waiahole Communities is pretty well, they've been organized since they had to fight to keep the land way back when. They've been pretty well organized, they have, you know, good community and steering committee and regular meetings. And so there's, there's pretty good communication in the valley about all these different land and water issues. And, and that's, that's kind of, I mean Waiahole is a little bit unique, in that what kind of helped its land use issues is that there's only one road in and, you know, you turn up, turn at Waiahole Valley Road, and you're in the community, and so that whole community is right there, you know. So that made it a little easier for them to become organized, and, and fight to keep the land and everything. But yeah, so that's probably true. I mean, I think that's true everywhere, you know. Fighting for land fighting for water. Those are agricultural issues all over the world, and even more and more now.
Jim:And in ag producers we've been talking to, part of it is this crazy land prices on Hawaii too right? And even more so since COVID. It's putting a lot of people out of the market unless they already had a foothold.
Charlie:Yep. And that was one of the big advantages of being in Waiahole Valley is that when we, when the state ended up stepping in and buying the valley way back when, there was a long negotiation period over the terms of the lease and how much you had to pay and everything like that. So shall we have long term leases, everybody in Waiahole has a long term lease. They're both residential lots, and also, you know, all the Ag lots, but our lease rents are, you know, really, really, really, really low. And that's, that's really, really good. And that's, that's one of the big issues for I mean, big issue for farming in Hawaii. And we were involved in some of these fights, too, is, you know, the way you make money in Hawaii is you is you sell land. So it's been hard for farmers in a lot of places in Hawaii to even get a long term lease. Because the landowner wants to sell the land, you know, make more money, build houses,
Paul:You asked, Jim, if we thought we were ahead of the game. In a lot of ways, I think we are because the community was a mixed residential and agricultural community, and the land owner wanted to sell the whole thing put in like 6000 homes. And so with with the big fight, that went over land, and then the big fight over water, we are in a position now where the state owns the valley, or most of it, and the state is the landlord. So the state is not in the business of making the most money it can possibly make for its shareholders. It's in the business of making the land flourish, to benefit the whole economy. So all the trickle down effects and the multiplier effects of successful farming will benefit the whole state. And so the fact that we have got water restored to a stream for the first time ever in Hawaii, and we are now the biggest stream on Oahu. And the fact that we have a state lease on land, 55 year lease renewable, puts us way ahead of the game. So when you talk about stresses that pertain to farmers, one of the biggest stresses is acquiring land and land with water. And we've kind of have solved those two problems. There's we're far far away from maximizing the potential of this valley, we have a long ways to go, partly because all the land ownership, land lessees in this valley are grandfathered in. So a lot of them are the children of farmers, but are not necessarily farmers themselves. But it has the potential to become a really flourishing farming community. So in that sense, we're way ahead of the game. And so we say Waiahole is a model for every farming community. The state owns an awful lot of land that can be used for agriculture, and they could be creating ag parks that were where farmers could live on your land. Because if you can live on your land, that's another huge stress reducer for a farmer.
Jim:Yep. Something we've been hearing. Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot. I mean, theft and things, all sorts of reasons. Right? You can, you can get up early.
Paul:Yeah, you can get up in the morning you can one step outside and your working
Jim:And work late like you are to turn off the gas or cook taro.
Charlie:Yeah, weʻve heard, yeah, we've heard from other farmers too. A lot of farmers who don't live on their land, they live a fair ways away, you know. So, if you live on your land, and you go and do something, and then you walk up to your house, later, you go,"Oh, I forgot to do this." So you can go down and do it. But if you don't live on your land, that's, you live a long ways away, and you got a long drive, you can't do that. And so that's, that's, you know, that's a problem, too.
Paul:You got to be really good at making lists.
Jim:And checking them and not and that's not to mention gas prices, right? And traffic
Paul:and rent, rent,
Charlie:You do improvise too you know, you like, you're doing something and then you think maybe "I should do it a little bit differently." so you can walk back over and and do it different. Or you notice something, you go "Oh, that needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later." So yeah, being there's there's all kinds of reasons for being able to for how important it is to live on your land. And I think I think that's an issue for farming everywhere all over the mainland too.
Paul:Are you familiar with Wendell Berry?
Jim:Yes.
Paul:Yeah. Well, he has this saying that the best manure is the farmer's footsteps. Yes, exactly. You wake up in the morning and walk outside and check the water coming into the taro patches, walk around, and all the little things that need to get done today are popping into your head, and maybe you do a half dozen things on your list at a time you get from here to there. And so, you know, in that sense, that's I think that's a really profound saying, you know. The fact that you're on your farm all the time. Nighttime, when it's flooding, when it's raining hard. Where's the water running? Where's the water, water running off? What field, part of the field floods and you got to be there to see all that. And if you're not there at night, you're missing half the time.
Jim:Yeah, not to mention catching all the slugs, right?
Paul:Yeah, yeah. Or chasing away the pigs are putting up traps for the rats.
Charlie:And there's another there's another issue too, as far as being able to live on your farm. One of the big farming issues in Hawaii, thatʻs probably everywhere too, is theft. So if you if you're not living on your farm, and you leave, I forget how many millions of dollars but that's a big loss for farmers. Not only theft of, theft of crops, but theft of equipment, you know, all kinds of stuff. So that's the big issue.
Jim:So let me ask you. Yeah. Let me ask you, is there land available in Waiahole?
Paul:No, no.
Jim:Okay. I knew it. It sounds so good.
Paul:It does sound ood. There's another another aspect of this this kind of interesting is that we see this landlord tenant kind of relationship as being this is the way the old Hawaiians farmed. The maka'ainana, no the commoners, had tenancy on the land. And they were familiar with it, intimate with it. And so if there was a war came along, the aliʻi might go, they might be all wiped out, or your whole family killed or whatever. But the maka'ainana stayed with the land. And that's because they were endemic to the land. They knew where the rocks were, they knew, you know, where the water ran off. They knew where's the fertile soil. They knew where all the resources were, that was really important. So, in Waiahole the state is like aliʻi and HHFDC our landlord the housing agency, is the konohiki that manages it. Unfortunately, there not too interested in agriculture, their a housing agency, and the Department of Agriculture doesn't want us because they're not interested in residents. And the Department of Land Natural Resources doesn't want us because they're not in there to manage agriculture and residents, either. So we're we're in a housing agency, and the potential for this valley is huge. But it needs to be worked on, you know, so the fact that the state as the konohiki, or as the aliʻi manages this land for the benefit of the people, I think that's a good model. So for example, the Galbraith lands, up in central Oahu, ADC the Ag Development Corporation, could have acquired all of those lands and turned it into a model agricultural community without all the baggage that Waiahole has, because every everybody here is grandfathered in. So whatever, you know, relationships and problems that we have with land not being farmed, or are trash being accumulated on properties and things, could all be addressed by starting from scratch, and creating a model agricultural community with residences on it.
Jim:Do you know where that didn't happen?
Paul:I don't know if bureaucracy, I don't know. There are the right people. The not. The right people aren't having the right conversations. There are lots and lots of people out there with lots of great ideas about agriculture, how things can be done, but they're not part of the conversation if. Early on when the state started giving out those lands in central Oahu, they invited us to a meeting, Farm Bureau, Department of Agriculture held a meeting, and they invited us to come to it. They never invited us again, because they didn't like what we were saying. And this was this was quite a long time ago, but they weren't interested in giving it out to small farmers. To them, a 40 acre farm is a small farm and to us, you know, that that is not small farm. That's a big farm. You don't farm that by yourself. You got to get workers to farm it. But we're talking about community-based family-based farms. The farms in Waiahole probably, I don't know, maybe average, 7, 8, 10 acres, something like that. That's not too huge of a farm. And so we're looking at something more along those lines. And not, you know, 1500 acres, that goes to the big farmers in central Oahu who brag about their family farms, but you don't farm 1500 acres with your family. You bring in migrant labor. So they're you know, there are people from Mexico and Guatemala and other places, and theyʻre factory workers in the field is basically what they are. They're not farmers. And if you took that 1500 acres, and divided it up into 10 Acre farms, now you'd have 150 farms, family farms, with way more people working on it way, way less input of fossil fuel type inputs, because you would be doing a lot of handwork. You would have a community built around that, and that's the problem with it, the big landowners do not want communities of farmers because they can't get them off. And Waiahole is a good example of how they could not get the farmers out of the valley, when they wanted to develop it. So the same applies to Central Oahu. When they want to develop as it's happening with Aloun Farms lands in Hoopili, you know. They kick the kick the farmer off and put in houses. And that's the reality of it. That's why it's not happening. Small family farms are not happening in Hawaii.
Jim:So do you think that it's a mind shift that has to happen, that it's not all about big ag, it's about lots of little ag? Is that, does it have to start there? What do you think is is gonna make a big difference?
Charlie:But part of it is part of why being able to live on your land, especially here, Waiaho, Waiahole is such an advantage and so important is that any way you look at it, farming is not a lucrative business. You don't make you know, even if you if we're doing all the work and everything, you know, our income is not is not huge, you're not make, you don't make a huge amount of money. So how do you get people involved, you know, so it's got to be, you know, maybe there's some new ideas that gotta be thought of, you know, like farming coops or, you know, something like that.
Paul:Again, Waiahole is a good example, because we have low rent, we get to live on our farm, we pay a small portion of our lease goes towards the housing part of it. And some people would look at that and say, "Whoa, you guys are getting a huge subsidy." So wait a minute. The subsidy goes to the consumer who is buying our food cheap. Itʻs not going to the farmer because if farmers made a living wage, we wwould be selling bananas at $5 a pound. Instead, we're selling ʻem at, you know, $1.25 which is what we were selling them for 10 years ago. So you know that the subsidy is to the consumer. So if you create farming communities where people can live on their land, and subsist on it, that would be, you know, a practical solution. And it's not, not that what we think everybody should be a farmer, but you could create part time farmers, and part time farming, may be the solution to growing all food. So if everybody has the right, say, say that a constitutional right to, let's say, a 5000 square foot plot of land, you could grow a lot of food on and you didn't have to necessarily sell it, but you had to use it. And if you didn't want to do that, you don't have to do that. But if you wanted to do that, and you were successful with it, and you wanted more than you could get more of that. So you kind
Charlie:Itʻs kind of what KKV is doing, Kokua Kelihi Valley up in the back. You know they have, they have their community workdays, they have community plots. So people can go up there and they can use the land and they, you know, they get the food from it. So that's kind of that idea. There's also something that just barely started in a way but called Climate Victory Gardens. gardens that happened way back when, World War One, World War Two when when people needed to grow more food. And so now there's a movement to get that going again. So everybody has access to a piece of land, but you have to get that mindset out there to people that this is something that they want to do. So there are, you know, Hawaii, Honolulu does have a bunch of community gardens. And I think they could do a lot more of, that could be done a lot more, because I think there's a pretty long waitlist to be able to even get a plot in a community garden. So that just shows that maybe, you know, the demand to do it is there. But that's, you know, that's another another political political issue for the state.
Jim:And zoning issues probably too in some cases. Yeah. Like if what I'm hearing you say is it might make sense to look, to go back essentially to more of a homesteading model, which is where we all started at some point, and people were growing their own food regularly in their own yards, their own backyards, that could make an impact too. But
Charlie:I forget the exact figure but there are millions and millions of acres of yards in the United States. So a huge amount of energy and time is going into mowing the grass. You know, what if you got a what if you got a big tax break if you turn your whole yard into a garden?
Paul:Wait a minute, Charlie, we spent a lot of time cutting grass. We are We consider ourselves to be master weed eaters.
Charlie:I remember when we were we were on the road one day and we saw somebody with a weed eater. And we went "We got to get one of those. Where'd that come from?"
Paul:I remember our first one was like a chainsaw and it ran out of gas in 15 minutes, and it must have must have weighed a ton. Luckily, we were young and strong back then.
Jim:I know. Were you guys. I just did the math because I think I wanted to get it right, but it sounds like you guys have been doing this for 48 years. Does that sound right? Almost 50.
Paul:Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah.
Jim:So let's let's talk for a minute about what you're growing. It sounds like you started with kalo papaya, why kahlo or taro? That sounds like that's, you've kept growing that for nearly 50 years.
Paul:We like playing with water. Itʻs fun, kind of. Yeah. Because where we first started farming, the land, the land on top of that. Yeah. Are you talking about that? Yeah, it was in the fork in the in between two rivers where they flow, flowed together, yeah? So we're in this little Y, water on two sides of us. So it was totally logical to bring water for taro patch. Plus the whole place was covered with rocks. And our father was a rock wall builder, and besides being a doctor, he loved to build rock walls and with you know, seven kids in the family, he had people to go get the rocks for him. So we'd roll them down the mountain and he built rock walls. So it was logical for us to pick up the rocks, pile them all up, and then start building rock walls and so it's logical to make terraces and all that so and I think wasn't much more than that. Yeah.
Charlie:And growing growing taro. Taro is a really interesting crop to grow because it takes so long and there's you know, your weather is so variable from one month to the next over the life of the crop. So it's yeah, it's, it's a pretty interesting crop to grow.
Paul:We still have, we still have way more questions than answers.
Jim:Even after almost 50 years, right? Have you changed up for different varieties, or you've been pretty much sticking with the same ones since you started?
Paul:We have quite a few different varieties, but our main taro has shifted from what used to be what we call moi. Or moi. Some people call it moi hula to a hybrid one, we believe it's a hybrid of Hawaiian varieties, moi kea, which is incredibly productive. It's almost like, it's a gift to us in our old age, because we can work less. It's big taro. It's really, really impressive. But yeah, but we grow a lot of stuff, a lot of different things. I think we counted one time on this farm, in Waianu, something like 77 different crops that we could sell or eat, you know. Anything you can eat you can possibly sell. But there's, there's a lot of different things, growing here. Taro is maybe half of our income, and the other half is everything else.
Charlie:And landscape is kind of what taught us what to do. Because no one had grown. You know, there were, there's a couple, the two areas where we grow taro on this land, way, way back, they'd been in taro, but nobody had grown for a long time. So that was pretty much a restoration effort. But the rest of the land is slopes. And so the slopes kind of tell you what to do you know what you're going to plant and, and so we just end up planting all kinds of different things.
Paul:In our ignorance, we didn't know that these were taro patches. Knowing what we know, today, we can glance at a piece of land say, oh, yeah, there was taro over there. But we didn't know that back then. Weʻd drive our old Fordson tractor over the top of this tall napier grass, and not even know that there were terraces underneath. It should have been obvious, but as we got down, as we gradually took all the vegetation down, we can see everything was already there, you know. The engineering work had already been done. The shape was there the awai was the kuauna were there, it was only logical, then we will put the water back in. So the main problem was lack of water. Because the stream weʻre on Waianu, which is a tributary of Waiahole, was one sixth the size of what it is today. And today has been restored. So six times bigger, and it's still only half of what it used to be. So you know, water is still a problem. But for on our farm, that that, you know, we have enough water.
Jim:How do you decide what to grow and when to sell them for the other crops? Is that seasonal? Is it, do you change that up? Or is it pretty, pretty been pretty consistent? Like it sounds like you were doing banana, papaya, oh, sweet potato, things like that.
Paul:Yeah. Most everything is year round, with the exception of say, you know, sweet corn or some other things. Fruit, of course, are very seasonal. And those seasons actually are changing a fair amount with climate change. The weather too, has changed, we're getting more, more severe flood events way more often than we used to. And then longer periods in between with no rain. We, two years ago, we had two summers in a row that are really, really wet. It's like wintertime, and then the last summer was really dry. And I'm not this this year, it looks like it probably be dry too. So I don't know things are changing a little bit. Having water in the stream is really important. Because cold water is good taro. And when you got when you got cold water your taro keeps longtime in the past. So we harvest our taro oftentimes, you know, 17, 18, 19 months, 20 months, 22 months even, whereas most of the taro farmers near us anyway are harvesting, you know, sometimes nine months. So the fact that we have good cold water is really important. The hard taro, Waiahole was famous for its hard Tarot. And it's because it had so much water, I believe,
Jim:And do you try to make it all into poi, is that is that your goal with the taro you are growing or do you sell it in other ways too?
Paul:I think about two thirds go to making poi, and the rest goes to a lot of other people, and for the most part, I think for the most part they're making poi too. Not all of them by any means but a lot of them you know pound the poi or or you have a machine or something. So yeah, maybe one third of it goes to outside individuals, families, organizations that pound poi. Like, you know, I don't know KKV and Keiki o Ka Aina. There are all kinds of organizations and people who buy taro.
Charlie:It's definitely a growing market.
Jim:You've seen that change a lot then, in the past 50 years?
Charlie:Yeah, there's, like, way more people interested in it now than before.
Paul:If we could have a taro ag park, I think you could find a lot of takers. A problem, of course, is that people will have a hard time commuting. So say you're in Waianae and you wanted to have a taro community garden and you can come to Waiahole, well, that's too far for drive. So restoring water to streams all over the place, means that you can have taro being grown in a lot more places, and that creates opportunities for people in other places, and it creates a lot of resiliency. Because the more places that grow taro the more secure the production is going to be. If right now if Hanalei has massive flooding, the supply of taro in the state drops precipitously but that's because taro is not grown in enough places.
Jim:And have you ever tried dry land or is it only wetland taro?
Paul:Yeah, we've we've gotten a fair amount of dry land not a lot but
Charlie:It works too.
Paul:But the taste of the poi is different. It's a different it's a different crop. It's a very different crop. It doesn't taste the same. It's different. People who like, people who are used to dry land like the dry land. They think the the wetland taro tastes swampy and, and the other way around. You know, the swamp guys like the taste of their taro. There's like two different crops. They're really two different crops.
Jim:Got it. You guys - or maybe it was Charlie that said it - that you guys were you know, hippies in back in the day. But it sounds like sounds like you started using not traditional fertilizers but locally found amendments, is that right? Is that kind of part of that mindset? Or tell me tell me how you got to find like fish bone meal and, and the seaweed from Kaneohe Bay.
Paul:I think we're always were organic. We did use chemical fertilizers. We only use pesticides one time, and that was on our first crop of sweet potatoes, and the farmer that taught us how to grow em said"You gotta spray em. You gotta spray em with diazinon." And we did that once and we said "Woah, this is nasty stuff." and we never did it again and we have never used herbicides ever since. They just didn't make sense. Yeah. I don't know. It was a, it's a challenge to do things organically but it makes a lot of sense is much more logical for a lot of reasons.
Charlie:And that, and partly also we've we've not grown crops with large scale or anything like that don't require that, you know, that require that lot of spraying, you know. Or like a crop over and over, that required spraying and you have to spray because you're planting it over and over. So we've kind of avoided that. Tried to be more diverse with all the fruit trees and a fair number of ulu trees too.
Paul:Yeah, a good example would be sweet potato because sweet potatoes' worst pest is a sweet potato weevil. And so what you do is you if you plant a crop here, you don't plant another one a couple of months later right next to it, you plant it someplace else. You keep the bugs guessing. So you space things out in time and space, spatially and temporally you space them out. And that's true of a lot of different crops. If you want to grow cucumbers forget it. Or, you know, you might get away with cherry tomatoes, but nice big fat, heirloom tomatoes? I don't think you can do it outside. Not not more than once anyway. So we do right at this time we have two, what do you call em, high tunnels that are screened in with polyethylene roofing and so we've been growing very successfully cucumbers and tomatoes and long beans and you know peppers and other things like that inside those. But it's a limited space limited crop but you know it's wonderful to have you know, heirloom tomatoes, you know from hoop house like that. It's really nice to have but grow outside is really hard. But the principle of organic farming that we follow is don't put all your eggs in one basket and move things around in time and space, constantly. And like Charlie said we don't, we just don't grow crops that you know, you have to spray all the time that you canʻt. If you have to spray at all time we won't grow it. So that still leaves plenty of other crops especially the Hawaiian crops like sweet potato ulu, taro, yam, tapioca is not a Hawaiian crop but it's another crop that's easy to grow without any chemicals. There's there's a lot of different things. Fruit trees, of course, too, you know. And then we've you know, do quite a bit of gardening, lettuce and chard and kale and some carrots and you know, daikon, all kinds of things like that too. Fix em up, spread em out. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Jim:You have chickens to?
Paul:Chickens too, yep. We pasture our chickens in a fallow taro patch where the grass is growing, we put out netting, a fence, and you can move it around, which we don't need to do very often. And then you know all our kitchen scraps go to the chickens and whatever they don't eat is fertilizer ends up being fertilizer. We use fish meal to feed our chickens always in front of them. If anything gets filled, it's filled into the taro patch into the mud into the dirt and becomes fertilizer. We use a lot of tree trimmer mulch as mulch and as compost. You asked about fishmeal. I think one of the very first fertilizers we ever used was fishmeal from Hawaii Tuna Packers down Kewalo Basin. And it was some take this, gave, gave it away for free. It didn't. They had to get rid of it. And we would always fill up the truck and bring it home. It had these little shards of bone in it was a little bit scary, but now we get it from Island Commodities down Campbell Industrial Park, and it's relatively cheap, really good fertilizer, balanced with plenty of everything except potash. And that's where the limu comes in. The invasive limu was a really good source of potash. Fortunately, it's died back in Kaneohe Bay for Iʻm not sure what the reasons are partly partly the wana thatʻs eating it. Might be the something to do with the warming of the ocean, but it's inside the fish pond so occasionally we'll get it, but that limu is good fertilizer because of potash.
Jim:Yeah, so you kind of are able to complete all the other key nutrients, or the big three anyway, right? With a local.
Paul:Yeah, the limu complements the fish meal, which has plenty of potassium, I mean a phosphorus and nitrogen. But also tree trimmer mulch, you know any any wood that you burn produces ashes, which has a lot of potash in, so the wood has the potash in it, too. So compost made from tree trimmer mulch, chips, that kind of thing. You know that we put a lot of that into our fields. We might put loads and loads and loads of that in, and til it all in, and then use the fish meal to help provide the nitrogen to break that down. And then we'll go back to the taro again.
Jim:So would you say that your soil is in better shape now than it's ever been? Or just because of those practices?
Charlie:Yeah, it's definitely helped a lot. Yeah, you can I mean, you could, if you only had compost, you could grow everything. Just with compost. But and we've gone, and we've gotten compost in the past from, you know, various different facilities and stuff, one in particular, but one of the big problems with the compost that you buy is that they're getting, they're getting all this waste from houses and stuff like that. And it's got a lot of plastic in it. Plastic in, plastic in compost is a big problem. Plastic in food waste is a big problem. So that's where a tree trimmer mulch, we can do that. Yeah. Tree trimmers mulch, if it's, if it's a compost only from tree trimmers mulch that would be, that would be perfect.
Jim:Is it through a connection with tree trimmers? Is that how you're getting it? Or?
Charlie:Yeah, the guy right close to us heʻs, he's a tree trimmer commercial guy and he, that's where we were we've been getting a lot of mulch from
Paul:and if we can get it from him, we get it from Mennehuni Magic, or what is it? Hawaiian Earth Products.
Charlie:But now it's all, that one all has plastic in it.
Jim:So do you have to like put it through a strainer or how do you deal with the plastic.
Charlie:Couldn't do it?
Paul:Don't.
Jim:You can't just can't get it.
Charlie:Plastic is a I mean that's a huge issue in the world. Right? They say if you eat fish, you're eating plastic.
Paul:But it's not the only source of of organic matter. Our farm is you know, at the back of the valley, and we're surrounded by forest. And the river has a riparian zone thatʻs grown up with napier grass and hau tree and other things. So now there's quite a bit of organic matter that can be harvested. And it might be that in ultimately, farms need to be fertilized with all organic matter from the near vicinity, and that there might need to be some kind of a ratio between farmland and forest land or uncultivated land, in order to keep that farm sustainable. So there might be, you know, 10 acres of forest will supply three acres of farm indefinitely, because the tree roots and the vegetation that grows on the uncropped land, go down deep, and bring up nutrients from way deep in the soil. And they do it slowly, but they'll do it over time, and there might be some kind of a sustainable ratio there. That's one way to look at it. So the Hawaiians would, they would gather all kinds of organic matter, particularly hau tree and kukui because those break down really fast, and theyʻre really fast growing, and they can easily be grown along borders, and they could use that as organic matter. So you either got to feed your soil by putting stuff into it, or you fallow it and let the weeds grow, and let those roots go down deep, and bring up nutrients that have leached way down deep into the soil. And that that takes time. So the fallowing method takes time, the feeding method takes less time, but you got to go with the labor to pick all the stuff and haul it to your fields.
Jim:And with with what you said about having like a forest area as a ratio of the farmland, it's I mean, not only do you get some of the mulch materials, but you could also get, you know, some of the key nutrients from the microbes in the soil on the forest floor I imagine, right? Some of those things that people are adding as amendments.
Paul:All those things, yeah. Soil is so incredibly complicated, that we can, you know, scientists can study it all they want but what we need to know as farmers is incredibly complicated. So put everything you know, thoʻ organic matter is the solution to pretty much everything. Too much, too sandy soil? Put organic matter. Too much clay in your soil? Put organic matter. You know, always the answer to it is put organic matter.
Jim:Here's a question I have. I mean, again, you've been doing it for 50 years. Do you have children that? Do you each have or do you both have children that are interested in in taking over and continuing to farm?
Charlie:Well, I told you my son, Nick. He's, he's at. He worked at Koko at the farm there. But yeah, he's, he's interested. He's doing more up here.
Paul:And you got another son who's knows a lot about agriculture as well.
Charlie:Yeah. So they're both, they're both interested. Paulʻs daughter, Ke'alohi, I mean, she's, she's interested too. She's into it.
Paul:She's an educator, but she's often said, "If you want me to take over, I'll take over. And I kind of laugh because I think she's too valuable to be just a farmer. But she actually could do it. She knows how to do it. She loves to pull taro. She's competent to do all the work. I think there's a whole'nother model of farming is going to follow us. You know, we kind of have a nice, beautiful farm here but I think the intensification of planting, and farm to table, integrated management of stuff, vertical integration, more food processing, more ways to make money off of smaller areas, more, you know, use of the greenhouse, things like that. All these things the next generation can take and do all kinds of things with. There's there's a lot of people out there with real creative ideas for how to make money off of farming, The GoFarm problem, the GoFarm program is a good good example of that. There's, I went to one open market recently, where I saw a number of graduates of GoFarm, and they were doing all kinds of things, you know. Sprouts and mini vegetables and, you know, kombuchas or whatever, you know. There's all kinds of things that can be done in farming, it makes it a farmer interesting world.
Jim:How do you feel about your children taking over as farmers?
Paul:I mean, like, would we be disappointed?
Jim:Well, I mean, I kinda heard you say, "Too good to be a farmer" but so that makes me think.
Paul:I'm joking.
Jim:But seriously, though, I mean, how does that feel? Is that something you'd really want them to do? Or is it? Is it a struggle for them to want to do?
Paul:Or in the case of my daughter, Ke'alohi, and I'm sure Charlie's son too, and we've talked about this a lot with them, there, there's so many exciting things that they can do beyond what we do, you know, in terms of tying education into it. You know, so the whole idea of you know, farm to table dinner for people come out, tour the farm, get educated about farming issues, and crops and things and maybe inspired to go home and start a garden and then have a meal from everything grown on the farm, or you know, maybe even help do some of the work or that kind of thing. I think there's there's so many possibilities for people to expand on this idea of you know intensive farming, there's a lot of them.
Charlie:We do have a lot of different school groups, a lot of different groups come up to the farm. Over the years, many, many different groups that come up, you know, spend a half a day or whatever. Tour. Work. So there's a, there's a definitely an increasing interest in the general public about, you know, connecting up to the land. And that's why people like to come.
Paul:Yeah, we, sometimes it's a burden. But then the educational value of it is important. And we always end up afterwards saying,"Oh, that was a really good thing to happen" you know? Because, because at heart we're really evangelical farmers.
Jim:Like, what would you tell the people that are you younger people that are interested in getting farmers or what do you say to your your children, if they're interested in being farmers, you know, what? What's your advice to someone that's thinking of agriculture as a career in Hawaii?
Paul:Well, people people ask us all the time, lots of young people ask us, where can I find some land? You know, and then we don't really have an answer for that, no, other than pushing the idea that Waiahole could be a model for the state to follow. It would be nice if the state would listen to that as well. But I always tell people, if if you have no land, and all you have is a balcony on your, on the 24th floor of your apartment building, and I come look at your balcony, and you don't have a single pot of basil on it, or some green onions or something, I'm not going to give you a piece of land to farm. You have to take every opportunity you have to grow something. So if your neighbor says, "Oh, you're gonna plow up my front yard and plant something?" do it. You know, if you want to, if you all you got is a planter box, you better have that planter box maxed out planted because every opportunity is a chance to grow food, and it's your chance to learn about it. So, I mean, that's the starting place. But the reality is, there's so little land available, and so many, so few landowners who want to give up control of their land by letting somebody you know, put roots into it.
Charlie:Yeah, so it's back to the, I mean, we're in a unique situation to have a piece of land like this, but, you know, for the overall the bigger picture. Yeah, you know, that's access to a place to grow food. That's, once again, we're back to the politics again, you know. And we need even a big, big landowners, you know, who do lease out land, those, the people that they leased the land to, they don't they don't they still don't give them really long term leases. And don't allow them to live on their land. So it's definitely an issue that this that the state the country the world needs to deal with, you know, is how do you how do you get more people involved in growing? So like that, that GoFarm project that Paul was talking about earlier, that GoFarm. So these these different people, and it's it's a random group of people, there's not all young people, can be older people, they sign up to join this GoFarm. They take classes, they learn about farming, they get a test plot, and they try it out. And then the hard part is if they really want to, are serious about it, is where did they find a piece of land? How do they start? So there's a lot of educational opportunities out there for people wanting to learn how to farm but yeah, that that. Again, you know, it's a political issue, the state needs to take this you know, especially with climate change, they need to take seriously the idea that we need to start growing more of our own food, because what is it? We import 94% of all of our food, something like that?
Jim:So I guess what I'm hearing both at the beginning and at the end of our talking tonight is get to know your politicians get political maybe is where they need to start.
Charlie:Yeah, but then, but then you know, find a place, like Paul was saying, you know, even if you're way up on the whatever floor, grow something. Anywhere, anything. And there's lots of good urban farming models out there. One place in Hawaii Kai, where everybody you know, in their backyard, they grow food, and they'll grow different things, and then they they trade with each other. One person is growing tomatoes, other person bring something else, and then then they they trade with each other. So basically, you know, an urban area has become a farm.
Jim:Sounds like, get to know your politician and start doing some form of farming so you know what it's really about and start learning. Because it takes time.
Paul:It's gonna take some, we need a famine maybe, that would be nice.
Jim:I know where I'm, I know what valley I'm coming to if it starts.
Paul:You might, you might have to wait in line.
Jim:Alright, well, thank you, gentlemen, so much for your time. Appreciate it. We learned a lot about what you've been doing the past 48 years. And it's, it's pretty interesting. Thank you. We thank the Rappun brothers for their time and sharing of information about their many years of work in Hawaii agriculture, and for shedding more light on issues related to water and what is needed for successful ag production in Hawaii to be possible. Now let's close with some more voices from the field in Hawaii, about water.
Daniel Anthony: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.
Bob:You know, the other thing is, even if you wanted to get in or get and grow a little with the Board of Water Supply is doing over here, is they're charging an arm and a leg for a meter. You want to get a city county water, you got to have a meter and every time you meter goes up a little bit in size, the amount of installation fee on that, even though it's a one time expense, is 10s of 1000s of dollars. So it's prohibitive in my view, unless you're really well funded, or someone who's just getting started that has to front that kind of money.
Sean:I think you know some of it of course is about water issues are always the problem. There's always that problem depends on where you're at
Jim:The intention of this 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 our listeners have experiences with Hawaii agricultural ecosystems from small holder farms to large even including multinational agricultural industrial companies, or anywhere in between, and you would like to share your story, please contact us. We welcome your voices and perspectives