Ep 54. Ag Succession Success: Green Point Nurseries

By all accounts, Green Point Nurseries on the Big Island of Hawaii is a success story, so we decided to pay them a visit. In this episode, we talk about how this family, now in its third generation of cut flower production, has gotten through the hurdles of family succession, shifting markets, and growing pains that any agriculture producer will experience over many decades of growing and selling in, and from Hawaii.

Brought to you by University of Hawaii College of Tropical Ag. and Human Resilience (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.

Resources:

• Green Point Nurseries 
• UH Tadashi Higaki’s publication with Donald Watson “Anthurium Culture in Hawaii” 
• Hawaii Floriculture Nursery Association (HEFNA)
• Podcast with CTAHR Dean Greywall 
• Dr. Tessie Amore 
• Lava eruption in Kapoho

Find out more about us:

• Seeds Of Wellbeing website
• Seeds of Wellbeing Resource Hub
• All the SOW links

Transcript

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The views, information or opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the individuals involved, and do not necessarily represent those of the University of Hawaii, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience, our funders or any of the organizations affiliated with this project. Welcome to a Seeds of Wellbeing,"Experts in the Field" podcast featuring Hawaii agriculture producers and affiliates working in their field of expertise to support agriculture in Hawaii, in the United States and in some cases around the world. These podcasts are made possible by a grant from the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience, also known as CTAHR and the Seeds of Wellbeing or SOW project, and is supported by a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture. The market is just saying "More. Do more. Do more." Yeah. So for those young growers out there, I would say, yeah, if you guys are interested, white dendrols, man, small, you don't need a lot of land. One acre can can support a family. Nice, yeah, it's a nice. Small, small, small volume crop. Footprint's small, but yield is pretty good for one small family farm. Definitely. Here's another new cultivar that we've been growing for five years maybe. Very popular. Color, the color they just they love this for wedding work, party work. Is that? What would you say the majority of your customers are? Is it weddings? Is it events? I would say most of our customers now are high end designers that are doing weddings and special events. We're also supplying what we refer to as the non traditional market, which is the non profit The Ikebana clubs, the Garden Clubs of America, or Garden Club of Honolulu for that matter, all the special event type of special lifestyle event type of uses for flowers. That's who we're supplying now. And then has that market fluctuated with the economy? Is that it's steady. The irony is that this high end market is not like the everyday market. In the census for agriculture, 2017 to 2022, so 2022 is very relevant to us, the age group of our farmers from 65 to 75, 45% of our farmers are in that age group. So in the next five to 10 years, they will slow down, or they they're going to disappear, and maybe not of their choice, right? So what do we do? By all accounts, Green Point Nursery on the Big Island of Hawaii is a success story, so we decided to pay them a visit. In this episode, we talk about how this family, now in its third generation of cut flower production, has gotten through the hurdles of family succession, shifting markets and growing paints that any agriculture producer will experience over many decades of growing and selling in and from Hawaii. This is a working farm, so please excuse the occasional background noise. We're here with Eric and his sons, and it's a family business, for sure, as you can tell, if you check the website. I'll, of course have links in the show notes for everybody that wants to check the website. And we were just saying, before I hit record, that there's a bunch of updates coming to the website too. I imagine that's been an evolution, but let's, let's start off by introducing everyone, and so just give us a sense of who you are, your title, and your role in the company. Maybe we'll start with Eric. Well, first of all, thanks Jim for doing this. It's kind of an exciting thing whenever we can get together as a family, and although it is sometimes difficult for us to talk about each other, but we'll try our best here today. So I'm Eric Tanouye, and I'm serving right now as President of Green Point Nurseries. We're just about entering our third generation in the family business. We're in Panaewa, primarily Hilo, east Hawaii area, and we grow basically cut flowers, yeah. Anthurium, orchids, tropical flowers and foliage. And which one of your sons wants to go first? Who's the older? Thanks, Jim. I'm I'm Jon Tanouye, third generation farmer. I'm in the middle son of my mom and dad. And I currently oversee the production side of the family operation. So which would include anything outdoors in the sun. Harvesting, cultivation, pesticide management and IPM management and whatnot, Integrated pest management? all that, all that jazz, yeah....for the acronyms, yeah. A lot of us are used to, there we go. And how long have you been here? I have been, I went to school at the University of Hawaii Hilo. Graduated in 2012. Right after graduating, I jumped in, helped, helped my parents in the business. So that's making it about, oh man, my math. That that college education, perfect. 13 years. Yeah, 13 years. You didn't know there was a test! And you sir... I'm Mark Tanouye. I am the youngest brother, the third son of Eric and Lolita. My daily tasks are usually assisting with the daily operations, and I also work on a lot of the interior Great. And how long have you been here? and propagation here for the nursery. I started actually in January 2023, so I just made two years. Actually, Great. Congratulations. So I know there's some history on your website, and as we said, the website's under construction, but I imagine that piece will still stay about your history. But can you just give us a quick sense? I mean, to paraphrase, right? It seems like graduating college and working here, not only is your sons, but was you and also your father. Does that sound right? Yeah, yeah. Why don't you give us a little sense of the... So, a little short history. My father, Harold Tanouye, he's our founder. He started, entrepreneur. He started this. This operation started in the mid 70s. We are on state lease land. So we're, we're on a Hawaii Department of Agriculture Farm law lease, which is great for us because it's spirit of the farm lots is for multi generational farming, so long term farming, yeah, and in this case, we're in the nursery business. He started here because he wanted to produce red anthurium for the US market. Believe it or not. When he started, there was a shortage of red anthurium on the on the US market. And a lot of the people that he started meeting told him, "Harold, you got to grow more red anthurium, or more red flowers." And so that's what that was, that was part of his business plan. Come here, get a long term lease, put up 20 acres of shade and produce red anthurium for the US market. Since then, I've joined him in the early 80s, and at first I I helped him put in production, which was a great opportunity for me. I probably never, never have that opportunity if I didn't take advantage of it, which was so the timing was great for me. And once I put that the production in, my dad said, Okay, now you gotta learn how to sell the flowers that you grow. So he put me into the building in the mid 80s, and I've been in the somewhat sales and marketing from the '85 to at least 20 years. And then I slowly started moving into general management. Obviously, my dad told me, "Now, now you gotta start learning how to run the overall company." So as we acquired more good people and talent, I could, I could move myself around, and now we have three sons that have joined us. Chris, my oldest, he's into more admin side, the long term, more or less marketing. He helps with social media. He works in more back office. And then when he's here, usually beginning of the week is he lives on Oahu. He helps with operations, with Mark as well. And then Jon, of course, joined us. He's totally in control of production. And Mark, who is kind of learning the ropes, he started first in production, and then he came into the building, learning a little bit more sales and marketing, a little bit more procurement and people, the people skills, and then whenever we can get him out of the building, then he spends more time in his lab in propogation. Now, it seems like there's this track from university to working in the family business. Is that? Was that intentional on your part? And I guess we'll ask Jon and Mark the same. Yeah. Well, my wife and I always felt we wanted the boys to pick whatever they wanted to do. And honestly, in the beginning, we were kind of telling the boys, pick what you want to do, and you don't really have to come into the family business, but pick what you want to do. And then as the boys got older, we started telling ourselves, hey, you know, if we, if we send these guys away to college, and we tell them they can do whatever they want, we they may never come back into the family business. So, you know, sometimes you get what you wish for, yeah. So then we, we in a kind of intentional effort, you know, we started wanting to show them how to grow, how to work in the family business. And it, it's, it's kind of evolved where, fortunately, we'll be, we're able to convince them to come in. I think, when they were growing up we didn't do a lot of family travel when we were, when we were in our younger years. But as they got older, they got to travel a little bit. And I think what they like, I think about traveling, is when they get on the road. Because, fortunately, our business allows you to travel. You get to see production, producers around the world. You get to see customers, yeah, whoever you're selling to some of them around the world. And the interest it piqued them that you get to travel, you get to see what other people are doing, compare it to what you're doing. I think that that was a good perk in the younger years. The other the other part was we, from my dad's time, we've always tried to have a business plan, you know. And it doesn't have to be sophisticated, you know, I'm not, I'm not saying that you have to have a business plan that is, you know, really complicated, yeah, but you have to have a vision of, you know, where you want to go. And in the beginning, when, when we started, my dad's vision was more supply driven. So he said, we don't have enough red anthurium, we don't have enough tropical flowers. We've got to produce more. So with producing what we do and buying from small family operations, I think that was at that time it worked. So did you ever feel? Did you ever feel like you had a choice? When for you, I know you gave your sons a choice, but yeah, feel like there was no choice for you as the oldest. You know, I my dad's not here to defend himself, but I think he raised me as a grower from a very young age. A short story. You know, when I was probably six, seven years old, I used to jump in the car and on Saturday mornings go with my dad. He had a his first nursery was in Mountain View, so in about 15-18, miles out of Hilo. And so he would leave early on Saturday morning. So I jump in the car with him if I got up early enough. And so when we would go to the nursery, he plop me down in an area that was weeded, and I mean, full of weeds, and give me a five gallon bucket and tell me pull weeds. So I didn't know, but that was inducting me into growing, yeah. And so if I, if I fill up my bucket on the way back from Mountain View, coming back to Hilo sometimes I'd get treated, not every time, but if time permitted, and he was in a good mood, maybe he'd treat me too, like a popsicle or some kind of ice cream down up at that Mountain View store. But from that point, he did many things as I grew up to include me in the family business. And so I think that that kind of made me feel like I'm part of the family business from a young age. It was very natural, yeah. My when my dad started, actually, in the 60s, you know, our family business, we started from family we all were committed to the business, yeah? So, and then he took me on traveling trips too. Just like what I did with the Boys. High School, I had to work on the farm. So four years of high school, I couldn't get, we were not allowed to get outside jobs. We had to go and work on the family farm too. That was his way of teaching us the value of work, and, you know, saving the money that we earn in the summer for school. And we did the same thing, fortunately or unfortunately to the boys. Yeah, they had to work on the farm during their high school years. So what do you say, Jon? What's your what's your version? Yeah, it's really just echoing from, I don't know if you can hear me? Yeah, a little louder, okay, yeah. So just to hear your version, just growing up, and some of that probably sounds like... Very similar. Yeah. We were always here from an infant age. We were always here to the working midnights on holidays, we were here, and I think that's what groom groomed us. We we were never forced. Respectfully, we were never forced. You know, that's what I and I hope to pass this on to my kids. We were never forced. They all supported us in whatever we wanted to do, and I'm thankful for those experiences. But like you said, we've always been on the farm. We worked every summer legally we could. So at 14 years old, we were getting a worker's permit, and we every summer, we did something different. And I still remember those moments, and that's what made me know how to run the farm properly. But we again. We were never forced going to school. Typical Asian family, We are actually fifth generation, Gosei, yeah, school is very important, so we did our schooling. And for me, I it was the right time. I never had the brains of the brothers. So. I just jumped in with the family business. Yeah, Did you ever consider other options when you were looking? Not, you know, like I said, I was, I was never the brains. I, I did the same thing as my dad, but I'm very appreciative for those experience. I used to come six, seven years old. Come every Saturday we go drive 45 minutes down to a farm, check out a new project, and just spend every weekends here we I had had. I don't know it felt, it felt natural to continue the legacy. We went through, the hardships we witnessed it, and it was natural feeling to want to continue it down. Mark? Yeah, I think it just echoing off the both of them. I definitely agree. We were never forced, but we were always on the nursery on the farm all the time throughout being children. You know, after school we're here, even if we're here in the afternoons, we're exploring the farm, running around when you're of legal age, we were working here during the summers, basically, and it taught us really good work ethics and just understanding how important this business is for our family. But it ultimately came down to like, you know, we had the freedom to choose what we wanted to pursue, if we wanted to pursue other things. I was actually very close to pursuing a medical degree, whether it was radiology or nursing, but I still always had, like, a passion to see things grow and see things develop. That was something that, like, I really had a passion for in just in general. And I think that's when I kind of started developing, you know, when I first started going to University of Hawaii Hilo, I found tissue culture, and I found that as it's like a perfect balance between growing something and science. And I thought, well, it just felt so natural to apply it to something much bigger than me. But, you know, just for the nursery and our family as well. It just felt right. And there's a hard science background there, for sure. Do I understand that you folks work with the University of Hawaii, College of Tropical Ag as well, and have regularly? yes, Many I might want to hear that again. Just once the truck finishes. years? Well, it started with my dad, when he got into agriculture he was a Liberal Arts major at Grinnell College, and he was not really a science major. So when he decided to come back home and go into agriculture and let alone going to anthurium, which was kind of a lesser known crop for Hawaii, or exporting out of You're running a business here. Yeah, some of that, some of Hawaii, I don't know who recommended, but somehow his fortunate part was to get introduced to Dr Tadashi Higaki. And at that time he was an up and coming Extension Agent for College of Tropical Agriculture. And now it's called Human Resilience. At that time it was called Human Resources. And so that's good. But I guess, I guess the thing I wanted to ask Dr. Higaki, you know, he was a horticulturalist by training, a PhD in that. And so he, he started teaching my dad everything he needed to know about media, watering, irrigation, nutrition, pesticide control, pest control, whether it was nematodes or above ground, you know, tryps or mites. He taught my dad a little bit of in got him into post specifically, too, is, I feel like you folks have been harvest handling, so all the different facets of being a grower. Then, you know, each, each problem that came up, my dad always went back to University. So from production, he went to University to learn from the research and extension pioneers in the industry and have started practices that arm. And then when it came to packing, there was some post office help from the University. He also worked with Mr. Ron Koi, who was the owner of Pak Line, Hawai'i at that time. And Ron was kind of a packaging expert. So they they got to three of them, got together and started learning how to package others have adopted. So packaging, you're talking and anthurium and other tropical flowers, which are our standards today on what we do. production, right? Yeah, and Cinder. And I think... Irrigating, shade cloth and Yeah, do you owe that to, you think, the collaboration with the CTAHR or... Yeah, did they learn? Did they learn all that I think we, we both learned together. Yeah, yeah. Because, from you? you know, pain and suffering is the mother of invention, they say. So, you know, my dad just coming into interims, there was nothing published, almost. Very little, very little published. So working with Dr. Higaki, what was really good was he was doing Why? Why athureum? work with my dad, establishing what is known today, you know, standards of the industry, and he published. So a lot of that was what was good was it helped other growers. Of course, it helps other countries too, but it helped other growers get the publication and read up on a lot of the testing that they did, everything from production to packaging, even going into marketing. That was really, I think, revolutionary to for a grower to actually use CTAHR Research and Extension, because there's a lot of growers in those days that didn't allow the agents to come on their farms, because they didn't want the agent to learn from them. And they go, go down the road and teach all their the other growers, which they, they seem, though they, they thought they were competitors, yeah, and maybe in the initial stage, yeah. But what, how far along we've come is, you know. The local growers, we're all collaborating now, yeah, our competitors are overseas. Other other commodities, other products is, is, who are competitors of ours now Yeah, you know the the story was, my dad spent four years in in Iowa and never came home, because in those days, couldn't The family couldn't afford to fly you back and forth for between holidays and school time. So during during his winter and spring breaks, he stayed up on the mainland. During his summer break, he stayed on the mainland, so he had to, he made friends, and his friends either found him work during the summers or he stayed at their homes during the winters or spring breaks. And so my grandmother would send boxes of anthurium to the hostess. If it was Christmas, yeah, that was appropriate. Would send red anturium for, you know, maybe the Christmas table, you know, the holiday table. And what the hostess would always be amazed with the families that he stayed with was that they, it's the first time they saw anthuriums. They look plastic. They thought, they thought, they thought they were fake. They didn't know that there was these kind of flowers growing in Hawaii. So they really impressed on my dad that, hey, this, this flower is, there's the potential to be an expert crop and product out of Hawaii. So when he came back to Hawaii, he looked at macadamia coffee, papaya, tropical fruit. He looked at different things. Yeah, in agriculture, what could he do? And what he always remembered was he could export this, this flower, to the mainland, and it was a very exotic type of item. So he he picked anthurium as the first export crop for him. Although what he found out was, was very difficult, because there was, there was nothing on anthurium. We had no publications, very minimum research on it to him. So they what what? He was very innovative, I think, and he always wanted to do what other people didn't do. He would always one of the lessons he taught me was when, when the crowd is going one way, don't follow them. You. You go your own way. You, of course, study, study the map, make sure you know where you're going, but go your own way. Don't, don't just follow the path. So Have a business plan, have a business Yeah, but have it be kind of on the cutting edge. He was, he was very innovative, so I think that just stimulated him. Yeah, he liked to do new things. Well it sounds like all three of you are that way as well. It's my sense of it. Otherwise you wouldn't be here if that's true. You still, you still work with CTAHR. Your sons, your sons do everything better than CTAHR can? No? Well, we, you know, see, we've all come on after 50 years or so, we've all come a long way together. Yeah. So CTAHR is developing to a full, comprehensive service provider. Yeah. So for me, I'm also president of Hawaii Floraculture Nursery Association, which is a an association, umbrella Association statewide. So we have all the different commodities under our umbrella. And so the agents, they help us with marketing. So on the marketing promotion, the agents are involved. And we're fortunate, because we have four agents on the four main islands, the four counties in Hawaii. All of them are helping our members on each island. And when we do statewide events, whether we go on Kauai, Oahu, Maui, or Hawaii Island or we go to the mainland, the agents are involved. And also, you know, when it comes to production problems or packaging problems, so that we're encouraging the College to be full service, to be comprehensive, and at least, fortunately for us, because we have four very good agents statewide, we're getting a lot of support with our with our commodity associations, and, of course, outside of the commodity Association, HEFNA, the agents can work with all the growers, one on one, right? You know, confidentially, if you if you don't want to participate within the group, you can always work with the agent one on one. After you learn what the industry is doing, you can go on your own with the agent and this confidentiality there. So it's an it's a nice dual role the In a recent podcast, we spoke to the new Dean of CTAHR right agents play. after he had renamed CTAHR Great way to start, right? Change the name! So, yeah, we have a sense of his vision for CTAHR's roll over the next few years. It sounds like it's in sync with what you folks need now. We're very excited with Dean Grewal. He is, he's a good thinker. He's, he's, he's probably very innovative, and will, as he stays and develops his tenure with CTAHR, I think he's going to be contribute a lot to the College and help industry, yeah, so we can thrive yeah? And you'll be partners together, yeah, and maybe another 50 years,. There you go. I think we're going to take a take some time and walk through some of your greenhouses and see what you've done here, and then we can come back and kind of wrap sure and talk about, you know, what holds, what does the future hold for Green Point Nurseries? And I don't know if you have succession plan already mapped out as part of your business plan. And also just maybe offer some tips and for our Hawaii producers, We got about 20 acres of shade here. So we built like five acres at a time. Wow! Look at this. This is incredible. So when was this? Wow, this how many? How many plants is this? I don't know we put, we put about 40,000 plants per acre in here, at least, yeah, and then there's 20 acres here. So at minimum is about 800,000 plants right now at any given time. Okay, what are we looking at here Eric? Hey, Jim, this is a space we give to the College, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience, so CTAHR. So Dr Amore gives us plants, and we're in a like what we refer to as advanced testing site. So we give this square feet to CTAHR, and we test advanced testing of early early, early release cultivars. And all of these cultivars are all new, so we'll, we'll grow it anywhere from two years to five years here. It all depends how, how, how excited we are with the variety. How, how, how how excited the industry is with the variety, and that kind of stimulates Dr Amore to early release. So here you, you, you're going to see different color, different shapes, different textures, and it's all based on, I would say, right now, more more more so than before, a market, market driven, yeah, rather than supply driven. And so what Dr Amore has done is created a PAT team, so professional advisory team, a P-A-T and this PAT team is made up of designers you know, internationally renowned designers, and they, they give feedback to Dr Amore on what they feel are trend designs, what kind of interiums are going to meet the demands for trend for designers, you know, florists, wedding wedding companies, special events. And then what Dr Amore does is filter that information. And then she's always gotten, uh, grower feedback, yeah, so we growers are giving her constantly feedback on all the cultivars, and then she puts that together and then that's she kind of helps her prioritize which ones she wants to push out first, Okay? And gets that word out to the community of growers. And the nice thing is that when the designers give feedback like, "Oh, this is good, this is the demand is good for this You have to know your customer, though. color or this shape or this texture," what that tells Tessie is, when she talks to the growers, she's sharing that, oh, the designers are saying this about these, these cultivars. And so we think that maybe we should be moving these out You really gotta know your customer. So what I was seeing first, and the growers are going to give feedback too. Yeah, growers always what they're going to want to know is, oh, if the designers like it and they're going to buy it, I want to grow it, yeah? Because I know when, once I grow it, produce it. I I got a buyer for it. Somebody wants it, versus if you only getting. So originally, from my dad's time to me originally, Dr Amore only got grower feedback, so it was always kind of a crap shoot. Yeah, earlier is your your product that you produce. You gotta know what you produce, because you got to pick the right customer, and then you can get the margin you need. Yeah, it's all. It's got to fall, fall into place, yeah. And so this is good feedback for Dr Amore for the breed. I'm grateful to have the opportunity. I did attend UH CTAHR. I'm alumni. I was a graduate student under Dr Tessie Amore, so I did have a, you know, awesome opportunity to work firsthand under her in understanding the process that goes into breeding and, of course, working with the cooperative growers. So for me, it's just it, at least, it's really cool to kind of link up each step together and kind of bring it all together and understand the whole process. And I think that's really exciting. And that's the stuff that's like, this is, you know, like, would be awesome, you know, to do. And you get to show your old professor all the cool stuff you're doing? Of course, yeah, and not get graded. Well, you probably, you're probably always graded. As we could tell, this is great. Let's just, let's take a walk through here. I appreciate it. Maybe look at the orchids. Okay, that's great. Thanks. You can walk up there. And is this the latest of the greenhouses that you've built? This is one of the most recent this, this one and that one down here, yeah, And that is to try to take things back and grow them yourself. Yeah, that was part of that initiative. So we have, we started growing on CDM in Kurtistown, our other location, so we have some production there. And then this one is because of Kapoho down here in Panaewa. We wanted to simulate, see if we could grow what we could grow in Kapoho, which is about 25 to 50 feet elevation. Here, it's about 250 to 300, yeah. So we tried to build the greenhouses to simulate Kapoho. So clear plastic. But I think this is what 30% or 40%? 30% see? to try and get it as much you know, 70% of the sun is going to come thru. Do you feel like you've been effective? Yeah, I think we simulating it pretty good. So in the morning, if Mark will come here, and if it's a sunny day, he'll irrigate for 20 minutes. He says, every other day he's irrigating for 20 minutes, and then turn off the water. And then when the sun starts pounding from mid morning, oh, you hear is like when steam box. The lava, the lava eruption in Kapoho was devastating because it took out a lot of our orchid growers. Yeah, our whole our industry is hurting, still, still hasn't recuperated. But these demonstrations that we're doing down here in Panaewa is to try and replace that supply that we lost. We had about five, six acres that we lost, which is quite devastating. When you, when you when you're going in, you're in a sales organization, all of a sudden you're going to tell your customers, I'm sorry we we lost our production to the inundation. Talk to me in five years, pretty much. So we slowly coming back now. So they're really happy, because hopefully, hopefully we can maintain the supply, you know, Because of that inundation too, I don't know if people really realize, like the dendrobium orchid lei industry, that was probably 90% of the State's supply we lost, you know, but just the initial planning is really critical in this flower business, yeah Having a good source of plant materials very crucial. Anything you'd do differently now that, now that you're at kind of the peak? Grow more. Yeah, we always could grow more. You know, we're always pushing our boundaries. But, you know, from the business standpoint, it's a lot of factors, right? Yeah. So we're back, and thanks again for the tour of the greenhouses. It's kind of staggering to me how beautiful it is and how I forget how beautiful it can be. It's a nice day when it suns in Panaewa. Sunny and hot, right? That's probably not most day. Yeah, We get maybe, uh, one day out of three is rainy, cloudy and then sunny. So, yeah, we get pretty good weather, um, at 300 feet, yeah, it's good for anthurium, I think, for the most part, But it's worked for the all these years, all these decades. So I think you have made some wise choices. As I've mentioned, you know, the Seeds of Wellbeing project is about trying to help Hawaii ag producers in general. And so I think you folks have been through a lot, continue to go through a lot are resourceful. I mean, we were talking before the podcast, Eric about some of the struggles with some of the changes going on politically, and what that might mean to your business, and how you're trying to brace for some changes or ways yet you have to deal with that. That's just today's reality. You've got decades of that as a family, but I thought maybe for our Hawaii ag producers, if you could just share what's, you know, it's onipaa is a word that's used a lot. I think I've heard it a lot from our ag producers as a way to just kind of make sure you get through it and, you know, perseverance and getting the job done despite the struggles. So maybe, if you could share, maybe each of you, if you could share, like the moments of onipaa, or moments of when you've had to face some really tough struggles, and how you've overcome them. Well, we with,for me, production. I'll start with production. Production has always been a limiting concern or issue for Hawaii ag. You know, besides having limited land or quality land, limited water supply, plant material is also very limited, has been limited. And then, of course, high cost to get our products off the island, although our state has grown, population wise, demand wise, you know, there are some of our HEFNA members actually making a living just selling within the State, which is great, but we all know that. I don't know about Hawaii Island, but our industry export has been vital yeah for our growth, and so we need to stay conscious of making sure that we have the quality, we have the customer service, and most important, picking the right customer to sell to. So if you're a if you're a grower, producer, and you're supply driven more so you have to have quality customer service, and you gotta pick the customer to sell to, because it makes it difficult, because, for example, if you have a if you're just a producer, and you don't market and promote, and you're just expecting, by word of mouth to come to you, most likely people are going to come to you. They're going to want to buy your product, but they're going to want cheaper prices. And so the problem with that is, if you're a high quality producer and you're selling to the wrong customer, and that customer you want to sell to pays low prices, it's not it's not right or wrong, it's just you might be hitting the wrong customer. So what we've learned a lot, I think, in the past 20 years, is that you you have to know the product you produce, the quality and service you provide, the price you need to show a profit, and then you need to pick the customer for that your product you got. You got to be very mindful about that. When you say, pick the customers that all targeted marketing? Yes, definitely, yeah, I would say, now more than ever, you you have to be very conscious of who you're selling to. The days of, And it sounds like you have a strong background in marketing. you know, when I was really young, just joining my father, you know, I came from an exclusive. So he had one wholesaler in every city in the US, or at least the top 70 cities in the US at that time, and you sold exclusive. So we couldn't sell to anybody else anyway. It was, was pretty simple. They give you a standing order, and you just ship. Only if they want to talk to you, they call you, and you don't have to call them. You just ship. And everything was on charge account. Was real simple, but price was low, yeah, but the cost, input cost was low. 50 years later, totally opposite, yeah? Our input cost is rising. We don't have control of some of our input costs rising. Transportation is higher today, packing supplies, input cost is higher. So if you're if you're growing quality product, you have to look for a customer that is matching your business plan, someone that is willing to co-brand market with you, not afraid of promoting Hawaii, getting the price for the product so they can return the price that you need to show a profit. Because today, the biggest problem with growers today is they're price takers, they're not price makers. And so you, as you know very well, Jim in agriculture, if you have a choice, you've got to be the price maker. But that means you got to come with some bells and whistles there with you. You got to have what the customer wants. The other real common lesson is, grow what the market wants. Don't grow only what you want to grow, because maybe the market might hurt your feelings, but the market doesn't want what you grow and then to sell it, you got to take less than what the The Green Point, hard knocks, yeah, school of hard knocks market will provide or give to you, because that's not really Yeah. And it sounds like when in the early days working with your not what the market wants. Maybe it has a lot of product that you're growing, so you're not going to get the high price. So definitely, I think you got to be real conscious today, because profitable operations will last. They can invest in R & D. You can invest in better better ways of producing more quality, better service. But also you can attract talent. Maybe, if you don't have children, you cannot, you can attract professional management with you, yeah, but if you have children today, probably not just my boys, but they're all that's probably the same. They want to join a company that has a strong business plan that they feel they're going to succeed in the in a career, staying with that business. And if they don't feel it, they're not going to they're not going to join. They're not going to stay. father, you kind of took some classes at UH, yeah. Try to focus on that. I'd say 75% of our ag, producers in Hawaii are very small, so maybe one person, one couple, that's doing everything. So if folks are listening or watching and they say, "Well, I don't have the marketing background that these guys have." Do you have any suggestions for ways folks can figure out how to do targeted marketing?? I think the generic way first is join an association like Hawaii Floraculture and Nursery Association. The benefit with paying the dues is you, you're joining an organization with like minded people. We're all, believe it or not, we're all in the same boat, and we will probably get there faster if we all paddling in the same direction. Collaboration, I've learned from the University is the way to go. The more collaboration our industry can do together. We have strength with numbers, yeah? So after you join the Association, participate, yeah? If you don't want to be on the board, participate in the activities. It'll hook you up to Pacific Basin Agriculture Research Center. It'll hook you up to College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience. You get experience working with Hawaii Department of Agriculture and the Counties, the different Counties throughout the State, there's so much networking, along with HFNA's dues that you pay, every member becomes, automatically a friend of farmer. With the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, automatically you become a friend of agriculture. You know, with the with the Farm Bureau, and through Farm Bureau, they have so much more access to different benefits. So from there, you make friends, network, and then you learn, Yeah, I mean, if I'm in a canoe and I'm looking at the other guys paddle as well, it's a better design than mine. Maybe I could, maybe Mind if I borrow that idea? Copy! Yeah, people are pretty good about about helping each other. Yeah, it's not so much the competition with your neighbor in the canoe. It's it's the folks on the mainland or internationally. Pain loves company. Jon, any any moments of stress, anxiety that you've had to overcome here. Well, you know, generation succession, I'm thankful that we are, you know, part of that word that that's, that's a huge word right now, yeah, you know, being in this short time I've been in the industry, I've seen, I got to meet and see Hawaii producers, growers, we have some of the best growers in the world. They they all started families, mom and pop businesses. Farms. Raised their families, raised their kids, send them to school, but they discourage their kids to come into the business. You know what I I guess could say, what hurts me is that the blood, sweat and tears of the small mom and pop businesses can put their kids to school, and it should be continued as well. It shouldn't be discouraged. So I don't know, the generation succession problem, I think, is the one thing that I guess, through our experience. If we can try to share and help people through our experiences, maybe that could help some one of the issues in agriculture. So have more kids and put them into agriculture. I guess. So, yeah, That's what's the old model, right? Yeah, yeah, For generations, exactly. 1000s of years before, and it's only the past 100 years that's that shifted. One thing, one thing is that if you encourage them to go to the mainland, chances are they're not gonna come back. So if you want your kids to stay in the family business, if they're gifted, they will come back. But you know, if you want to load the dice on in your favor, send them to University of Hawaii, college of ag, CTAHR, have them stay in Hawaii. Nice plug. Mark is also a alumni of CTAHR too, which we're super proud of. Yeah. Nice. Okay, Mark, what? How about, uh, you've only been the two year anniversary, two years, but I imagine, from what I I'm sensing that you've been involved in the family business for many more years than that, in some capacity. In some capacity, I think I not too much. I mean, I'm in terms of industry. I'm an infant just coming in, I know, but I'm just, I just want to learn as much as I can, and whatever I can bring to the table to improve things or build upon, that's, that's what I want to look at, is, how can we, you know, not even just for the business, but how do we just become better in general? I imagine there's some anxiety and pressure on you being the last one in so far, right? That's the youngest, yeah, to then come in is there, are there ways that you've gotten, gotten through that, and it's helped you become more resilient? Yeah. I mean, I, I definitely feel the pressure coming in. I mean, they wanted me to hit the ground sprinting. And I, you know, I respect that. I love it, and having the support from my family, you know, helping show me the ropes, teach me the way, it definitely has helped so much. But for me, it's just, just keep showing up and just keep coming in with an open mind, learning. That's, that's the biggest thing for me. Yeah, that's how I just combat that extra pressure. Just keep just keep rolling. Just keep doing it. Do you want to ask Eric to leave and you can talk, the two of you can talk more about him? Seriously, though, what I hear, what I feel like, is consistent, is the ability for Eric, you to talk to your dad and for, for you both to be able to talk to your dad honestly and and using family really as a support, not just as an employer, right? Yeah, it's as first as a support system. Speaking of succession, do you have what's what are the plans for your future? Do you have any sense of when you might want to phase out and have your sons take over and, well, sounds like your sons are having children that they're thinking might take over. Are we at that That's what we hope. Yeah. I mean, I've already talked to the stage? Any interested, or any or any that you're bringing to the farm boys and told them that, you know, if you want your children to come into the business, then it's got to be a concerted effort. You got to be conscious about it. Yeah, get we have to give opportunity for the grandkids to not only learn the business, but you gotta tell them stories. They gotta the grandkids gotta learn and hear of the hardships of all the failures that we've made, but how we came out of those failures and what made us stronger as we, as we, as we had as each as each challenge hit our company or our or our family, how we overcame that, and that's what makes us stronger. And so the grandkids gotta learn that, and once they learn that, they they know a bit of their past. They know their past. They know their present. And then then we help them see the vision of their future. So hopefully, we are successful, and we'll have a few of them, you know, able to come into the family business. already? They want to come as much as they can, which is, I love to see. It sounds like Saturday morning, weeding, anf five gallon buckets. Maybe some shave ice. Oh, yeah. So any, any vision on the future of Green Point and kind of what you see? I know it's hard, hard to predict, and you have to be flexible, and especially now with the changes happening so often. Well, I think, I think right now is, you know, immediately, right now, going into the future is first, whatever is in front of us, right immediately in front of us, we have to, we have to run this nursery, very efficient, very productive right now, because we don't know what's going to happen in the immediate future. What we see what's happening is, if anything, the guarantee is uncertainty. The one thing is guaranteed, what we see right now is, we don't know what's going to happen. The uncertainty is there, yeah. So we have to plan when you have an uncertain future, the only thing we can control is ourselves. Run efficient, run productive, do whatever we can. So in regards to sales, pick the right customers and prospect, prospect, prospect. When it comes to production, run a clean field. Don't let pests, don't let disease get away from us. So keep the replant on schedule. Keep your field in prime condition. Do your repair and maintenance. Make sure that the field of the nursery, the greenhouse, the shade house, everything is being taken care of. Yeah, don't fall behind, yeah. Propagation, what Mark is into, as well as operations, yeah. What? What he and Chris are doing the buy and sell. Be fair to our vendors, because they they are going through the same problem, but in being fair, we have to be honest with the with the vendor. Yeah, if we cannot do what the vendor wants, we have to explain to them, under these conditions right now, this is a win win situation, and so everything we do is gotta be win, win win. We all and then we maintain ourselves as a as a family, as a company and as an extended organization with because we we have a lot, we have 50 or more vendors feeding us at any given time, yeah, during the day or week. They are depending on our decisions, yeah? Because if we, if we do good in our decision making, if we're successful in how we market and sell, we're, we're, we're able to pay them a fair price for their product, where they can, they can improve too, but they need to know that they they're they have to improve. They gotta keep up. Unfortunately, a lot of the small industries they they've because of maybe pandemic and even going back to Great Recession, they didn't keep up. They didn't replant, but they didn't do R & D, you know, they didn't maintain their greenhouse shade houses or do what they needed to do. So the market we're in right now, they're way behind right now. When we should they, when they should have replanted, they didn't replant. And now we're five years from from the beginning of the pandemic, and they're still growing the same crop because they didn't propagate plants. They didn't replant, and it's not replanting everything all at once. Yeah, they didn't do, if it's a five year crop, they didn't do the 20% each year. They had to maintain. But a lot of the small farms didn't do that, so they fallen way behind. And that's, and that's, that's one of our main concerns. So we one of the, one of the plans we have is we have to diversify. And one of the promises we made for my dad's time to mine was we wouldn't grow orchids, tropical flowers, protea, foliage. We stayed in our lane, and we grew anthurium. Fortunately, our anthurium program business plan is mature, and it has its own life of its own already, but we since we've gone into orchids and also tropical flowers and foliage, because, because, over the last 15 years, we see a shrinking and really it was, is very apparent in this pandemic time, a lot of the farmers dropped out. And so even if we wanted to buy there's there's not that supply out there. So we have to produce our own. That means we gotta go put in our own R & D, we got to build greenhouses, shade houses, acquire more land, increase our footprints, where we have our nurseries and hire more people and produce more because our responsibility is to our customer, to the market, yeah? We promise the market, the customer, that we will have the product they need when they need it, and that in order to do that, we got to expand, and it doesn't come across too nice. Some of our vendors that they're not, they're not happy because we're we're diversified, but we feel, in 10 years from now, being the demographics we see on the on the horizon, closing in on us fast. We don't see our vendors doing that. So we've decided we got to do it already, and that's how we will be. We'll be strong enough to help the vendors that want to stay in this business, this industry, and and partner with us. We'll be strong enough to continue to keep helping them. So it's a little it's a little bit of sweet and sour right now. Thank you for joining us on our visit with Green Point Nurseries. We thank Eric, Mark, and Jon for sharing details about how Green Point Nurseries has dealt with the ups and downs of Hawaii floriculture, and have seen it through as a family by networking, focusing on a plan, watching the changing markets, finding and collaborating with key vendors, and most of all, listening and responding to what their customers need. They are truly a succession success story for these islands and for growers everywhere. Mahalo. Now let's listen to their final thoughts transition. We're definately in transition right now, yeah. Yeah, and it's, I mean, being on a remote island in one of the most remote places in the world, it's you got to figure out how to do yourself, if you can't get it from others. Yeah, And, and, and, you know, the interesting thing is that when we become growers of orchids, tropical flowers, foliage, even protea, all of these products, maybe lei flowers one day, because not there's no limit. Yes, we can learn. One thing we we are comfortable or confident is that we can learn how to grow anything, if we put our minds to it. The one thing is that we become empathetic to the grower. Because when you're not growing a crop and you're just buying and selling, that's all you, that's all you're responsible to do. But when you become the grower of that product, when when you're when your vendor, when your partner, is telling you, "I'm going to raise price, the cost is going up." We know because our costs are going up too. So it makes us more empathetic to our growers. Which is, which is kind of an interesting phenomenon that's happening to us, yeah? We're helping our growers, even if they're not asking, because we know, we know what they're going through. Jon, what do you think? Any any closing words of wisdom for the Hawaii ad community from your perspective? Oh, man, it's hard to follow that. Keep persevering and support local agriculture. We hear that word all the time, but it really, it really makes a difference. Yeah, Mark? Keep supporting the universities. Keep sending students to College of Ag, both in Hilo and, of course, at CTAHR too. They're going to be the future. That's without that, that's, you know, that's the, that's where it all begins for a lot of people, Amen University, yeah, it's, it's kind of the story that I'm hearing, that each of you has been through. Your father as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wanted to add to what Mark just brought up, which we need, the breeding program. Critically, CTAHR breeding program. CTAHR breeding program is what keeps our industry alive and vibrant and we can compete. We know for the last 15 years, we've been competing with these large exporters into the US, because we're doing what they cannot do. But it's boutique, it's niche, so you got to pick your niche where you can compete, but the breeding program is that's going to keep us, keep moving forward. So so critically essential for our industry. Well my sens is that was your dad's vision, is that what you do here and can't, what we can do here in Hawaii is very unique, and the world wants it and is interested in we're the only ones that can do it with with the help of our friends, let's keep paddling forward. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. Thanks Jim The intention of these podcast series is to create a safe space for 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 agricultural system. If you our listeners have experiences with Hawaii agriculture ecosystem, from indigenous methods, permaculture, smallholder 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.