Sylvia Partridge moved to Kaua`i eight years ago, and is best known for her musical talents with two CDs out–Heaven is Waiting and Walking Home. She joined the Kilauea Community Garden to learn the answer to her question, “Where does my food come from?” Sylvia, like many of us, has easily navigated through the food pyramid, creating hundreds of meals, while maintaining a distance from the origins of the food on her plate. Today she has set about changing that. By immersing herself in the soil of Kauai’s north shore she is learning to distinguish between the weeds and the small papaya plants that she hopes will soon be lining her breakfast table with their fruit. One of Sylvia’s greatest pleasures is spending time with the other gardeners. “They are inspirational. They come here with a deep seated passion for the garden, the plants, and the land.”

A talk given by Tane Datta on March 26, 2011, at the first Localvore Dinner at the Keauhou Beach Resort, sponsored by the Kona County Farm Bureau.

Freedom

There just may be a connection between the thousands of people in almost every Middle Eastern country willing to die for freedom and self-determination, and the localvore movement in Hawai’i and other parts of the country.

The obvious connection is that our demand for oil has greatly contributed to the strength of oil tyrants of all political ideologies. The production and transportation of food create a significant portion of our oil demand. Our food system accounts for over 15% of our total energy use. To put this in perspective, on the mainland each person uses the energy equivalent of 400 gal of gasoline a year for the food they eat. It has got to be much more to get food to Hawai’i.

The Mid-Week Market at Anna Ranch opened in mid January of this year and it has already become a destination as well as a landmark. Located on the grounds of Anna Ranch in Waimea, in just a couple of months the market has almost filled to capacity. Vendors are selling locally-grown fresh produce, coffee, fresh baked bread, refreshing fruitsicles; Peruvian tamales and made-on-the-spot French style crepes from Le Magic Crepe Pan with fillings of your choice; Nancy Botticelli is offering beautiful handmade cards, another vendor has colorful homemade aprons in several styles as well as locally produced honey; and ‘The Orchid People’, Jennifer Snyder & Bob Harris, have a beautiful display of their blooming plants. 

Community Harvest Hawaii takes an idea intrinsic in Hawaiian culture - that of preparing and sharing food together - and creates a process that makes use of food that is currently going to waste in our community.

During a monthly “Community Harvest” day, community members are invited to bring their abundance from home - lemons, limes, tangerines, avocados, mangos, banana, etc.- to the Kohala Intergenerational Center to be processed. Local experts will be on hand to help facilitate the processing and preserving of the food, including freezing, canning, pickling, smoking, fermenting and dehydrating. The community will then enjoy a feast, everyone gets to take food home, and raw and processed food will be distributed to the community through the Food Basket and the Senior Nutrition Program. Local harvest teams will also be available to harvest fruit for Kupuna or other community members who would like assistance with harvesting and are willing to share their excess with the community.