Seeds Of Wellbeing - SOW

Ep 50. Voices from the Field: ʻUlu Co-op with Dana Shapiro

• Jim Crum / Dana Shapiro • Season 2 • Episode 10

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In this episode we speak with Dana Shapiro from Hawaiʻi Ulu Coop who shares her journey from working with local chef Peter Merrimen to facilitate an AgVentures program, to helping found and now manage The Co-op as itʻs Chief Executive Officer on Hawaii island where it all started, We discuss expansion of The Co-op to now include the islands of Oahu, Maui, and Kauai and crops that now include taro, sweet potato and squash crops too.

Brought to you by University of Hawaii College of Tropical Ag. and Human Resources (CTAHR), 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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Jim:

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 our 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.

Dana Shapiro:

And I just fell in love with ulu from a culinary standpoint. That was my first real connection with breadfruit. It was, you know, it's a more versatile ingredient than any other ingredient I had ever played with, because it's a starch, but it's a fruit, and it grows on a tree, and it goes through the maturity stages. It's just very unique, um. And so I got really into it that first year. I think my cooking contest submission was an ulu white honey pound cake with ulu cardamom ice cream or something like that. So I was combining all the ingredients I was working with.

Jim:

In this episode, we speak with Donna Shapiro from Hawaii ʻUlu Co-op, who shares her journey from working with local Chef Peter Merriman to facilitate an AgVentures Program to helping found and now manage the ʻUlu Co-op as its Chief Executive Officer on Hawaii Island, where it all started. We also discuss expansion of the co-op over the years to now include the islands of Oahu, Maui and Kauai, and crops that now include taro, sweet potato and squash as well as ʻulu.

Dana Shapiro:

We like ʻUlu Co-op. It's shorter, right? Better. Eat breadfruit, right? Keep it simple. So, so welcome. Aloha and welcome to another Seeds of Wellbeing podcast Dana. Appreciate you coming on the podcast with us to talk a"Voices from the Field." Today we have with us Dana Shapiro, who is CEO and general manager for ʻulu Hawaii ʻUlu Co-op. Is little bit about the Hawaii ʻUlu Co-op. it "Ulu Co-op or ʻUlu Cooperative. Which do you prefer? Happy to be here. Thanks for the invite.

Jim:

So just give us a little background. I usually like start with people's, I guess I'm calling them Hawaii stories, right? How did you? How did you get to Hawaii? From what I could glean online, it looks like it was a pretty quick shift from grad school to Big Island, with maybe a short stint of selling honey and and then, like a strong focus in rural development, co-op development. And then kind of quick for me, I guess it was kind of quick launch. In my mind, it was a quick launch, right, into the ʻUlu Co-op. But if you want to just kind of give us a little background on how you got here and how, how things started with the ʻUlu Co-op,

Dana Shapiro:

Sure. So let's see. I did, I came to Hawaii for the very first time in my life when I was an undergrad at Cornell, and I had the opportunity to spend a semester in the summer here kind of studying environmental science. And that led to a internship with Peter Merriman, the chef at his flagship restaurant in Waimea on the Big Island. And this was in 2005 and at the time, the restaurant had a partnership with the Hawaii Farm Bureau to do an agritourism project out of the restaurant called AgVentures. So this is about almost 20 years ago now, and basically I was hired to coordinate the agritourism program, which involved working with a bunch of farmers in the Waimea, Ahualoa area, and then coordinating tours where people would come to the restaurant. I would drive them in a van to see, like, three or four farms, and then we'd come back to the restaurant for a lunch made out of a lot of those ingredients that they saw. And it was the white honey from Volcano Island Honey Company now called Rare Hawaiian Honey. I believe. It was Honopua Farms spinach and beets. It was a Long Ears coffee. And it was Hawaii Island Goat Dairy, those four farms. And it was an amazing experience, and I built some great relationships with those farmers, and we stayed in touch. And so then when I finished grad school, which I did in Israel, which is where I'm originally from, I'm from a kibbutz, which is like a cooperative farming community. Um, so when I finished grad school, I. Um, came back and visited some of those farmer friends that I made, in particular Richard Spiegel from Volcano Island Honey Company. And I basically never left after that. Um, he ended up offering me a job. I never left the honey farm. From after I, I came back to Hawaii. I just stayed on the honey farm. Um, and then, uh, my my grad work in Israel, was really looking into co-op business strategies. And so I was interested in cooperatives, you know, from kind of from long ago, um, it's part of my personal history. My family's history is in the cooperative movement, um. And so I ended up branching out from the honey farm to do cooperative and rural business development work with the Kohala Center and as an independent contractor as well. Um, and I actually got introduced to breadfruit through one of my coworkers at the honey farm, Andrea Dean, who was one of the directors of Ho'oulu ka'Ulu breadfruit initiative. This is now, you know, 2010 2011 and there was a series of breadfruit festivals that they organized on Hawaii Island at the Amy Greenwell garden, and another one in Puna. And I got roped into being a super volunteer, and they had a cooking contest at the festival. And I love to cook. And I really was very unfamiliar with ulu, you know, I'd heard of it, but I hadn't tried cooking with it too much myself. So I was inspired, you know, by just the challenge and to try something new. And I just fell in love with ulu from a culinary standpoint. That was my first real connection with breadfruit. It was, you know, it's a more versatile ingredient than any other ingredient I had ever played with, because it's a starch, but it's a fruit, and it grows on a tree, and it goes through the maturity stages. It's just very unique. And so I got really into it, um, that first year, I think my cooking contest submission was an ulu white honey pound cake with ulu cardamom ice cream or something like that. So I was combining all the ingredients I was working with. And then the next year, I actually joined the planning board of the festival, and that's where I met my husband, Noah Lincoln, who works at UH as the professor of indigenous crops and cropping systems. But he he really opened my eyes to the the the traditional cropping systems, right, through which the Hawaiians grew ulu and a bunch of other crops. And I I didn't realize how abundant those food production systems were and sustainable. And it was just so inspiring to learn that not very long ago, you know, Hawaii was really a model for the world in terms of the productivity and sustainability of farming practices. And, you know, Hawaii's farming systems traditionally were very diverse. They weren't all agroforestry. They weren't all kalo loi. There was both sides of the spectrum and everything in between. But I think the the dry land agroforestry systems in particular, I just really fell in love with, you know, they're they're beautiful, they're they're so innovative we don't even understand all the different techniques that were used. And so Noah and I set off a few years after connecting with each other, to start our own farm, and we wanted it to be in the Kaluʻulu, that part of South Kona, which is where Noah's originally from. And so we ended up getting a farm site through Kamehameha Schools, where we started trying to restore a piece of the Kaluʻulu. And because of my co op background, I saw just the the challenge of kind of making that model work as an individual farm, because of the economy of scale challenge. And with breadfruit, you know, it has a short shelf life, and it can be intensely seasonal, where you get a ton of fruit in one month of the year, and then not a whole lot. And so just how do you build business viability that way? As an individual farm, it's very difficult. You'd need a lot of capital. And so we started exploring, well, is there enough interest from other farmers to maybe start a co-op and pursue this big vision together so that we can be more successful and faster, right, by by combining our crop and reach economies of scale faster and all that stuff, and pretty early on. So this is now maybe 2015 2016 we met two other farmers, Max Bowman in Hamakua and Lauren and Tom Dement, who were down in Puna at the time, and they were very similar sort of vision to us, and very similar stage of their farm enterprises where they had just started planting. So none of us could really be viable on our own, and you need three farms to start a farmer cooperative in Hawaii, that's the the minimum. You need three. And so we kind of knew we could do it, um, but because of my co-op development background, I was familiar with, like, best practices for starting a co-op and and generally, the way, you know, they recommend going about it is putting together a feasibility study, a business plan, right, getting the numbers together, having a community meeting, spreading the word, keeping it really open, getting feedback, all that stuff. So, you know, I kind of went through that process and we had a community meeting in Waimea in 2016 and there were maybe 15 or 20 farms there. And out of that first meeting, there were nine farms who were really interested, including our farm, Max, Tom and Lauren, and then six others. And so we had a follow up meeting a few months later in Hilo, and we incorporated then and there. And that was July of 2016 so it's been exactly eight years, and that's how the co-op came about.

Jim:

Yeah, eight years ago and nine farms, is that, am I right?

Dana Shapiro:

Nine farms

Jim:

Nine farms, wow. And did you get, did you get assistance for any of the development from Kamehameha Schools early on for or maybe just farmland at that stage, but I feel like there's a pretty strong connection between you folks and Kamehameha Schools, because on one of our other podcasts that we have, which folks can check the show notes for the links, but, but I know they spoke about long term relationship with ʻUlu Co-op, and I was just kind of curious about that connection. Like, I know in Hilo, you folks are right next door to one another.

Dana Shapiro:

Yeah, the I mean, the relationship is multifaceted. On the farm level, we have a KS farm lease, and we were part of the Mahiʻai Match-up program is how we got our farm, that was in 2015 and then lots of other Co-op members are KS lessees. I mean, KS is a huge private landowner, right? And they have a lot of farmland is KS land. So it's, I think, natural for a lot of our farmers to be KS lessees, especially on Hawaii Island, where they have a really big presence. But on the Co-op level, we do rent a facility from them, so we have Absolutely. It sounds like you have a kind of an ongoing strong two Hawaii Island facilities, and the East facility in Hilo is a KS site. We've also partnered with KS in a bunch of other ways around education, both at their schools and for farmers. We've done several kind of farmer workshop seriesʻs that they've supported. We also were actually their first investee of their food fund that they launched in 2021 so they've invested in the Co-op, and there's probably more ways. We supply some of their cafeterias, which is awesome. Their cafeterias, I think are really leading the charge in Hawaii in terms of Farm to School and actually bringing local produce into the cafeterias. connection with chefs, right? I think, don't you have a cookbook that the Co-op, co branded with, with a pretty famous chef? Yep, Sam Choi. We do Yep.

Jim:

So that that early experience sounds like it probably comes in handy, nice. So let's say, eight years later, 150 plus members,

Dana Shapiro:

160. About 160 right now.

Jim:

Yeah. And staff, I imagine staff of one, probably when you started and yeah, and looks like you've been CEO and general manager since day one. Is that right?

Dana Shapiro:

Mm, hmm, yeah, we have a staff of about 30 now.

Jim:

Wow. And when did you make the leap from just the Big Island of Hawaii to starting to add Oahu and Maui? And where else are you? Kauai?

Dana Shapiro:

Our first neighbor island member was Hana ranch, and they joined the co op in 2018 I believe. They, I believe John Cadman, who was a mentor for us since early, early on, of Maui Breadfruit Company. I think he introduced us. Because Hana Ranch had more fruit than he could absorb through his business. So he suggested they look to the Co-op as a market outlet. And so they were our first neighbor island member. And then our first Oahu neighbor island member was Kahumana Organic Farms. And I believe they joined in 2020 so a few years later, and then a few years after that, our first Kauai neighbor island member joined the Ward Ohana in Kilauea. So it's been, it's been gradual. It's been, I would say, a very organic process. We haven't really pushed membership on neighbor islands or on Hawaii Island, you know, our membership growth has been really organic, I think just mostly through word of mouth. We do try to share information about membership whenever we can, but we haven't done any kind of like recruitment campaign when neighbor island farmers come to us, it's a little bit tricky because we don't have facilities on any other island, and so we've had to figure out how to support those members through partnerships, both to aggregate their fruit, to receive it, and then to process it. Our goal is to keep ulu produced on each island on that island all the way through the value chain, so it ends up being consumed on that island. We want to do that to save on shipping costs, you know, to be more sustainable from an environmental standpoint, but also from a food security standpoint, every island really needs its own, you know, foundation for for food, for staple food in particular. And so it just seems like the right way to go, that said it's not easy. And developing all those linkages from a logistical standpoint to, you know, commercial kitchen and and then building the market and connecting all the dots is really difficult, so we still do we do a little bit of inter-island fruit, fresh fruit transport now. We try to keep it to a minimum, and we really just use it as a safety net in the event that something happens and our partners, you know, can't handle as much fruit as is coming at peak season, or if something falls through the cracks, you know, with logistics on that island, then our Hawaii Island facilities can sort of absorb all the excess, and that's how it currently works.

Jim:

Wow, a lot of moving parts it sounds like, especially with a fairly perishable crop, right? Yeah, yeah. So, you mentioned organic growth of ʻUlu Co-op organic, I don't believe is a requirement to be a grower for ʻUlu Co-op, is it?

Dana Shapiro:

It's not. It's not. In fact, we're not certified organic ourselves, like our products and our facilities are not certified organic. It's something that we've been kind of open to and looking at since we started, but the fact of the matter is that most of our farmers aren't certified, and really aren't interested in being certified. That's not to say they don't practice organic methods, they just don't have an interest in going through the certification process. And I think it makes a lot of sense, because the premium for certified organic, I don't think can go that much higher. You know, local produce in Hawaii is already really expensive to grow, and it's already basically a premium product on the market by virtue of being small scale, local, you know, and almost all of our farmers are, you know, highly diversified and use environmentally responsible methods. We do have our own kind of standards within the cooperative, our Board has actually been working on updating our production policy for the last few months. It's almost done, but we really try to support our farmers where they're at, and our farmers are so are so diverse, one from the other. You know, the mix of crops that they grow on their farm, where they're located, what kind of issues they might be dealing with, like invasive species, for example, pest pressures, pigs and other ungulates, and then just their socio demographic situation, right? What's their cultural background? What are they familiar with? There's so much diversity. It's, it's amazing. I think it's a beautiful thing, but it doesn't lend itself to a one, you know, one size fits all approach. So that's why we've maintained this, like, pretty flexible standard where we just try to support our farmers wherever they are, wherever they are at, to get to a place of regenerative agroforestry.

Jim:

Yeah, it sounds like we hear that quite a bit. I think with folks we talk to through Seeds of Wellbeing. I mean, you have to be flexible. You have to appeal to the 7000 farmers that there are on the islands, I think 75% or more are very small scale. But most of the folks I talk to, I have to say, are using organic methods. They're just not sure if it's worth the overhead to ramp up to certified organic. But there are a few options out there, and I think everyone is kind of in a similar place to where I hear you are, which is just, you know, meeting people where they are, and let's get food out there. And yeah, and educate, right, educate about some of the organic methods that are valuable. One more organic question, Organic Valley. Tell me about your connection with Organic Valley.

Dana Shapiro:

So we were really fortunate that we we had a USDA grant called the socially disadvantaged growers grant, or SDGG, a few years ago that provided us with some funding to bring a co-op mentor to our annual member meeting. And I think the way we wrote it into the grant was super general. We just said we will find an experienced co-op representative to come and share with us about their, you know, more developed co-op experience. And Organic Valley was just, I don't know a poster child for me personally, after we started researching, well, what co-ops might, you know, want to mentor us, adopt us as a little sister, um, and so I just cold emailed them several times, and finally, somehow my email got pushed up to the Senior VP of Membership, and he responded, and his name is Travis Ford's. Um, he actually just recently retired from Organic Valley to focus on his own dairy farm with his wife, but that was just just recently, but he just was so generous with his time, and really took us under his wing, and he came out, and he did deliver the keynote at our annual member meeting in 2022 or 2021, I forget, it was around those years. But he went so far beyond that he ended up inviting us to his annual member meeting about six, six months later, maybe it was a year later, and just hosted us in Wisconsin for a week so that we could really understand how Organic Valley does things. We got to meet the founding CEO and CFO of Organic Valley, both of whom have now retired from the business. So we learned so much from them, and we do stay in touch. Organic Valley is really interesting, because they're one of the biggest co ops in the US. I believe they have over 2000 members, and they're actually International. They have a presence in Australia and the UK with membership. They also have some advantage of being in the middle of the continent, literally in the Midwest, that is one of the challenges that we deal with here, which is they actually work with a lot of co-packers. So they really focus on supporting their farmers with organic dairy practices and then getting the milk. They have a massive kind of logistics program where they pick up the milk from their farmers, but then to process the milk into they have probably hundreds of SKUs they work with co-packers all over the continental US and here in Hawaii, we really lack an ag manufacturing sector. So a huge part of what the Co-op has had to do over the last eight years is build a manufacturing capacity, which is, like, that's not what we set out to do. But we don't have co packers here that we can drop off, you know, aggregate our farmers ulu and say, Okay, make it into chips or make it into whatever we want. So we've had to build that, and that's been just a huge, really investment requirement. You know, it takes a lot of capital to build the infrastructure and buy the equipment and so forth. Um, but yeah, so that's our connection to Organic Valley, and they've just been, um, super supportive and helpful for us in our journey.

Jim:

And my sense is, you folks have, have and do travel the globe trying to find best, best resources to tap for knowledge and help. So that's kind of great to see. Yeah, I think you know, speaking of building, it feels like a key piece you decided needed to happen early on was, was educating folks about the value and the palette of canoe crops, the ono, as Kamehameha Schools would call it. And so I think you know, was that something you knew right off the bat you had to do is to get people to understand the breadfruit and and canoe crops in general, is that something you took on specificly, or did it just become obvious when you started that people just didn't get it?

Dana Shapiro:

Yeah, it became obvious once we started. That's exactly what happened. So like my first you know task, so to speak, once the Co-op was formed and I became the General Manager, was to sell the fruit, because we formed in the summer, and the season is usually late summer, throughout fall. And so our nine founding members, I think, in that first season, harvested like almost 20,000 pounds of fruit. And we, one of our founding members, were Jack, Jackie and John from Sweet Cane Cafe. And so that first season, we operated out of their Cafe the back of the kitchen, and they've been just absolutely tremendous supporters and shepherds of this whole Co-op. But I had to sell ulu fast. It was essentially what I'm trying to say. And early on, I didn't know what our target market would be or who would be most receptive, so I literally just sort of peddled ulu up and down the street, and, you know, tried to meet with chefs and restaurants and whoever would be willing to listen to us. And it became clear very quickly that there was a massive education problem. That people, A) don't eat ulu or other canoe crops in general. Now there's certainly groups of people in Hawaii that do, especially Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Island populations for whom ulu is still a staple crop, but unfortunately, that's a minority, and most people today simply don't eat don't eat ulu, they don't eat ulu, they don't eat kalo, they don't eat local starches, period. I think their consumption of local crops is probably limited to cucumbers and fish, which is great, but we need staple foods as well. And so, yes, it became clear very quickly that we needed an educational campaign to sort of bring awareness to people, you know, just of these crops, to people's consciousness, education on how to use them and why, you know, all the benefits. I think that the benefits do resonate with people, but they don't know for the most part.

Jim:

Well, they won't know until they try. And I think you're helping a lot of folks try that may not have otherwise, but yeah, I think and you expanded now canoe crops being the ones brought in the first canoes, right? Our breadfruit or ulu is, kalo or taro is another, uala sweet potato, and then you added one more recently, pumpkin?

Dana Shapiro:

Yeah, and pumpkin is not a canoe crop, although it is an indigenous crop to North America, um, but yeah, we added on pumpkin because our farmers grow it, and they grow it in conjunction with breadfruit, and it's a really great compliment to the other suite of canoe crops, kind of for its role in the ecosystem, and it is also it can be eaten as a staple starch. So,

Jim:

It's kind of fun to grow, too, I think.

Dana Shapiro:

Find these little prizes throughout.

Jim:

I like it? Yeah, so I think you've expanded that over the years. Is that because you found a market for it, it looks like you're doing some wholesales as well as connecting with schools like you have a number of channels now, not just consumers and grocery stores. But is it because of demand that you heard from folks out there, or is it because your farmers were growing it and what needed a channel? Or how did, how did those that expansion into this other crops come about?

Dana Shapiro:

Oh, yeah, that's a great question. So actually, it originally started through a partnership with the Department of Education. In 2018 we started working with the DOE. This is, you know, more than six years ago, now, probably six and a half years ago, and at the time, DOE had their Aina Pono Farm to School Program, which they they ended. They don't do it anymore, but it was a very effective program from our standpoint. And they started buying ulu from us for school meals. And then a really wonderful thing happened, which is that both of us got a USDA Farm to School grant at the same time for kind of separate but related work. And that grant forced all the grantees to go to Detroit for a conference. And so it's funny, you know, sometimes you have to leave Hawaii to, like, have real conversations with people from Hawaii, because everyone is just so busy here and in their little silo, but me and Dex Kishida, who's now the deputy chair of DOA. At the time, he was the Farm to School coordinator for DOE. We had, like, three days, forced to be together. No, he's fantastic. But I mean, the USDA did kind of force us to come together in Detroit. And we were able to literally sit down and map out, like, what crops, what local crops does DOE want? What local crops do our farmers grow? Where do those two lists overlap? And we came up with uala sweet potato, papaya, banana, and at the time, we did find a way to supply those three crops, in addition to ulu, to the schools. And that partnership continued until the pandemic hit in March of 2020, and kind of the whole farm to school program for DOE unraveled at that time, and they're putting the pieces back together now, which is great, but that was our first start into what we now call co-crops. And we use the term co-crops because we're very ulu centric, and so everything that's not ulu is a co-crop to ulu because it can be grown in a diversified agroforestry setting, and that's what we try to encourage our farmers to do. So not just to plant a field of sweet potato, but to inter crop and do an alley of sweet potato when the breadfruit trees are young, for example. And the same can be done with kalo and pumpkin, although pumpkin, I think, seems to be maybe more appropriate for, like, a slightly more mature breadfruit orchard where the young pumpkin starts can get some shade. So there's all these really interesting and beautiful ways that you can combine these crops with ulu and so after the DOE Farm to School program, kind of, you know, went on a big pause due to covid, we had to find other markets for our co-crops, because they were the primary buyer for the co-crops up until that time. And we learned that the outside world, outside of DOE, had some different requests for co-crops than DOE had, and that's when we really started developing kalo and pumpkin was after, actually, after the pandemic started. And we are continuing to diversify our offerings, we have to strike a balance between, you know, not having, like, not working with too many different crops or too many different products, but also trying to support the diversity of our farmers. And it's it's great for our farmers, but it's also great for the Co-op, because ulu is a seasonal crop. It's a relatively unpredictable crop from year to year. As you know, Jim, it's really hard to predict, like, what are your trees going to do? When are they going to fruit? How much fruit is coming? It's just the nature of the crop in Hawaii, I think. And so it's a, you know, it's a resilience strategy. It's a risk mitigation strategy for the Co-op, as much as it is for our farmers to not only focus on one crop, but some of the considerations that we think about are, you know, can the crop be sold fresh? If it can be sold fresh, if there's demand for that. Like avocados is a great example. We've been starting to do a lot more avocados, then we don't need to process it and that's a lot simpler. And the farmer can get a higher, you know, portion of the end product when it doesn't have to be processed. If it if it can't be sold fresh, or if there's not enough demand for fresh, does it fit into our existing processing operation? Can it go through the same kind of machinery and be a similar enough end product? And if neither of those things are true, for example, with mac nuts, there's a big need for Mac nut marketing right now in the macnet industry, but mac nuts, you know, really can't be sold raw because of salmonella, and it doesn't fit into our minimal processing operation at all. So in that case, we see if the farmers can actually, um, do the processing on their end, and then the Co-op can step in to help market. So we kind of have a three tier program when we assess additional crops. We also try to limit any crops we work with to those that our members are growing collectively. So if it's just one member growing a crop, probably doesn't make sense for the Co-op to get involved. If it's, you know, a group of farmers who aren't Co-op members, not our core beneficiary group, so we have to sort of really focus on our member needs. And that's a critical part of being a co-op. It's something that we try to really focus on and not, you know, have mission drift by getting distracted by things that aren't benefiting our membership. That's what being a co-op is about.

Jim:

I know it seems like it's getting so much more and more complex, right? Because the more crops you add, they all have their unique needs and and are you actually opening it up for those other crops on the other islands, or is that just the Big Island where you're where you're doing sweet potato and kalo and pumpkin?

Dana Shapiro:

So far, it's only been on the Big Island.

Jim:

Yeah, that's... I'm exhausted just thinking about the logistics trying to do that on all the other islands. So yeah, okay. And speaking of all the things you're doing that you're also helping facilitate some grants, is that, is that correct?

Dana Shapiro:

Yeah, the Co-op is currently involved with two USDA partnership for climate smart commodity grants, which was one of the Biden administration's like new initiatives. I think it was under the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act. So this is a program that launched, it must have been in 2022 and the Co-op is a partner on two different projects that got funded. One of them is called the Hawaii Climate Smart Commodity Project, or HICSC, and the lead organization is Linker. They're working really closely with the University of Hawaii and a whole bunch of other partners locally. That project covers a whole suite of climate smart farming practices, from composting and mulching to agroforestry. And farmers all over Hawaii are able to apply, I believe the next application cycle is going to open in November or December, somewhere around there. The second project that we're involved in, the lead organization, is the Nature Conservancy. That project is all about agroforestry, and it's called the Expanding Agroforestry Project, or EAP. For that project, it actually covers 38 states, and we are the Hawaii State Lead. So anybody in Hawaii, again, is eligible to apply, and we would be the point organization for you. There's a bunch of information about it on our farmer website, which is ulu.coop. If you just go to that website, ulu.coop, the EAP is the first thing you'll see on the homepage, and that one funds three types of agroforestry. So the USDA recognizes five agroforestry techniques, and this grant will only support three of them that silvopasture, the integration of trees and livestock, alley cropping, which is basically combining, you know, trees with at least one other crop in kind of a linear fashion. And the third one is wind breaks. And wind breaks are self explanatory, basically using trees, you know, as wind protection for other crops or livestock or other trees,

Jim:

So and again just to be clear, you don't need to be a member of the Co-op in order to access these funds.

Dana Shapiro:

Yeah, you don't.

Jim:

But and just as an example, I, as a farmer, really need some windbreaks, which is true actually, not just making it up, but if I, I could get grant money to help me plant my wind breaks? Itʻs that easy?

Dana Shapiro:

Yes, well, it's not easy, unfortunately. I don't know that any grant money is easy, but yeah, but I would say the main criteria that both programs are looking for is commercial production. So as the name suggests, climate smart commodity, they're really looking, the purpose of this funding from the USDA is to help incentivize, like a transition of US agriculture to be more climate friendly and but they're really looking at commercial producers. So if you're a backyard grower or a community nonprofit that wants to give away all the produce at the end of the day, that's great, but this wouldn't be the right grant opportunity for you. This is really targeting commercial or aspiring commercial farmers.

Jim:

Great. And I can put links in the show notes to some of those places that you're mentioning, and I think make it easier for folks to find. Wow. So eight years. You've come a long way. Oh, my goodness. What do you see in the future? What's, you know, what's, what do you see Hawai'i 'Ulu Co-op in five years let's say?

Dana Shapiro:

Gosh, that is a hard question, Jim.

Jim:

Make it two years if that's easy. I mean, farming, right? So you can't plan more than two years anyway, really, but,

Dana Shapiro:

Well, I mean, in in five years, I'm really hopeful, and this is my big thrust right now, is that the Co-op will be in a place of economic viability without grant support. We are basically subsidized by grants still to do, you know, all the many things that we do, including all the farmer technical assistance, like to administer those grants, which I think makes sense, but we're trying to get to a place where our core business is supported by the sale of our farmers crop, and we're not there yet. I think it's an economy of scale issue, and our combined kind of intake volumes over the last two years has been between four and 500,000 pounds, and I think we need to get to more like a million pounds before we're going to be able to break even. I also hope, and and this goes hand in hand, is that a lot more of our farmers fruit will be coming in. So the Co-op currently has about 160 members, and collectively, about 6500 trees planted. But most of those trees are actually not bearing fruit yet. They're young. We expect trees to start fruiting around five years of age. Some trees fruit sooner, especially if they're in lower elevations, like right on ocean level, and if there's, you know, great management practices, lots of regular fertilization and stuff like that. But some trees can take longer. Some trees are actually not, haven't been planted in the best habitat for ulu, even on our farm, which is in the heart of the Kalu Ulu, we didn't realize that it was kind of like this kipuka of a really super young lava flow, and our trees are not doing as well as a bunch of our neighbors, trees. So some things you don't find out until you try and with a tree crop, you might not find out for seven years, which is, you know, a huge challenge, or just adding another challenge to farming. But I do hope that in five years, we're going to see just a lot more production from our farmers, you know, and our farmers having an easier time managing. Now, do I, do I think that will, will happen? I think it's going to take a lot of work, not just for us and our farmers, but the whole community of Ag in Hawaii. You know, the onslaught of invasive species that our farmers have to adapt to year after year is, you know, un, un, what's the word? It is untenable. It can't continue. And so that's a systemic problem that is beyond the control of the Co-op or our farmers. We need the State, Department of Ag, the legislature, Tourism Authority, we need everyone to get way more serious about solving these systemic challenges that that really plague our ag industry. Um, you know, and that's one of the reasons why it's really hard for me to predict, you know, what, what the the next five or 10 years will bring, because there's a lot of factors that are outside of our control, and we, you know, we clearly work very hard to do as much as we can, but there's a lot of things that we have no control over, and so we really need the whole community to come together around this vision and this goal, to make it to make it viable for the Co-op, the farmers and everybody else.

Jim:

and sustainable, right? It's, the word keeps coming up. Were you one of the first co-ops to form in Hawaii?

Dana Shapiro:

No, there's actually. Hawaii has a long history of co-ops. And there's the last time I saw the stat, and I'm not sure where we're exactly at now, but the last time I saw stat on co-op numbers in Hawaii, there were about 40. So we're one of of many. Now, the co-ops that do exist in Hawaii are, they vary in what they do. So they're not all marketing cooperatives like us. That's the type of co-op we are as a marketing co-op. You know, some co-ops are supply co-ops like Hikiola on Molokai. Others are utility co-ops, like the utility on Kauai and the new solar utility on Molokai. Others are worker co-ops with Spring Winds Bamboo is a great example of that in Kipa Hulu, Maui. So the co-ops themselves really differ in terms of what they do and what types of co-ops they are. But we're, yeah, we're one of whole family.

Jim:

And quite a few in ag, it sounds like or ag related, yeah. Um, it eight years later are you happy with the co-op model?

Dana Shapiro:

We could not have done this without the co-op model. I think the co-op model is intrinsic to who we are and the success we've had.

Jim:

We thank Dana for sharing her mana'o and the story of Hawai'i 'Ulu Co-ops, origins, growth and the ways Hawaii agricultural producers can become more involved. If you want to know more about some of the topics we discussed, look for those links in the show notes. Mahalo. As I mentioned earlier, Seeds of Wellbeing is about ag producers in Hawaii, about helping them with issues that they may be having, just also you just mentioned some of them in our talk today, some of the issues that are ongoing. And so the Seeds of Wellbeing project is here to help to talk about some of those issues and also any potential solutions that folks have. And so just putting it out there to you, anything you'd want to share with our Hawaii ag producer community, about how to help get through the day, how to how to carry on, how to have that tenacity it takes to be an ag producer in Hawaii?

Dana Shapiro:

I guess I would just say that, you know, you have a lot of support structures available to you and to reach out if you do need the support. Obviously, it's an extremely challenging endeavor to farm in Hawaii, but you don't need to do it alone. You know, from food hubs like ourselves that are trying to create markets to, you know, sort of other community based support organizations like the Kohala Center and CYAHR and, you know, goFarm and stuff. I think there's a lot of people that want to help farmers, but we can't unless you communicate your needs. And so just to reach out if you need help,

Jim:

and maybe eat breadfruit.

Dana Shapiro:

Well, that's for sure. Well, and plant breadfruit, yes. If you are, you know, below 1000 foot elevation, and you don't grow breadfruit, let's get you some trees.

Jim:

Yeah. And I think there's a number of varieties that you sell through the Co-op. Is that on all the islands, or are that you have?

Dana Shapiro:

We only sell on Big Island, that's right. There's a moratorium on transporting soil off big island due to ROD. So we don't get into that. But Noah, who I mentioned, my husband, he actually has set up a tissue culture lab in Komohana, and he is able to ship soil less trees inter-island. So wherever you are in the in the state, you can definitely access trees. Feel free to reach out to us. If you have questions. We do have a tree order form on our website, and we, we do liaison, kind of, with Noah's lab, so if we get requests that we can't fulfill, we'll direct you to him.

Jim:

That's great. Yeah. The only tip I have to share, I think, on all that, is if, when you plant your your ulu tree, make sure your chicken coop is right underneath it. The ulu loves it just my, my happiest ulu tree is the one under the under the chicken coop. The chicken coop is right under Yes.

Dana Shapiro:

And make sure you have some sort of pig protection, either a really good fence or like, individual tree cages.

Jim:

Yes, we could have a whole nother episode on pigs, I'm sure, and probably should. But yes, well, thanks so much for coming on and talking about the'Ulu Co-op. It's, it's really an interesting info. I think it's far reaching what you're doing, and it seems like there's lots of opportunities for folks that might be interested. So thanks again for your time.

Dana Shapiro:

Thanks so much, Jim. It was fun.

Thao:

The intention of these podcast series is to create a safe space for a respectful and inclusive dialog 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 agriculture system. If you our listeners have experiences with Hawaii agriculture ecosystem, from indigenous 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.