North Kohala Community Plans For Food-Self Sufficiency

Projected consumption in North Kohala at 50% food self sufficiency.Native Hawaiians in pre-contact days produced enough food in North Kohala to feed a population of 30,000. Today, we have a population of about 6,000 and we import some 85% of our food. North Kohala is a community with an ambitious goal and we are creating a community-based strategic plan to achieve that goal.

The North Kohala Community Development Plan (CDP) states a strong desire to “Keep Kohala, Kohala.” As a historically agricultural community, part of “Keeping Kohala, Kohala,” is the strong community that results from the sharing and bartering of food and animals from individual homesteads, and the gathering from the mountains, gulches, and ocean.

"Hawaiian" chili pepper.Chili peppers are consumed fresh or in a variety of processed products in many cuisines worldwide. They are used as condiments or spices to add flavor or pungency to dishes. Use in processed products has increased dramatically in recent years. In the U.S., salsa sales now surpass ketchup sales, reflecting on the popularity of Mexican dishes. Chili peppers are used medicinally in Latin America and Africa. In many countries, chilies are part of the daily diet. Some cultivars are also used as ornamentals.

In many regions where chili peppers are widely consumed, they represent one of the few, if not the only, vegetable added to the diet to provide flavor, spice, and variety to grain- or root-crop-based diets. Their consumption represents a major source of vitamins and minerals in certain regions. Processed chili peppers are found in a variety of products including main dishes, meats, salad dressings, dairy products, beverages, candies, baked products, snack foods, salsas, hot sauces, and even in ice cream. Extracts are also used in pharmaceuticals, as medicinals, and in cosmetic products.

Fox Farm chicks being moved to chicken tractor cage.The Fox Forest Farm, located on Kapehu Road in the Papa’aloa Homesteads area near Laupahoehoe in North Hilo, is run by Shane Fox with the help of wife Christie, three year old daughter Anna, and Honey Girl, the family dog. The 17 acre farm is a breeding home for organically raised broiler chickens, and in addition manages 7 cows, 1 ram, 19 ewes and a couple of hens for eggs for the family’s consumption.

Shane, whose day job is as a ranger on Mauna Kea, has been farming for about 10 years, but didn’t start the broiler chicken operation until about 7 years ago after reading the book Pastured Poultry Profit$ by Joel Salatin. Salatin's farm and methods have been featured in Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma and the documentary movies Fresh and Food, Inc.

Start small-scale and close to the house to increase your chances for success.If you are not already growing food, then starting small and close by the house is the best strategy for success. Many people get excited about gardening and they put lots of effort into a relatively large area, only to be overwhelmed with maintenance such as weeding, watering, replanting, etc., eventually becoming frustrated and abandoning the project. Starting small allows you to learn what works for you in terms of crops, methods, and your ability to keep up with the work. As you get some experience under your belt, you can expand on the area with a better sense of your limitations. It also allows you to experiment, without risking large losses of time, space, or money.

Bernard Matatumua-Vermeulen prepares to harvest the first large bunch of bananas from the food forest he tends at Kona Seventh Day Adventist Church.

By day, Bernard Matatumua-Vermeulen is a Soil Conservationist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA NRCS) in Kealakekua—and in his spare time he is one of the green thumbs behind a food forest project at the Kona Seventh Day Adventist Church.

The church is adjacent to the Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden in Captain Cook and is located in the kaluulu—a 18 mile-long breadfruit grove that was for centuries an abundant food producing region in Kona.