Seed exchanges take place periodically island wide. One of Hawai'i Island's biggest and oldest seed exchanges takes place on June 13 (see details below).

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Contents

Events
New Publications
Web resources
Submissions

 

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Aloha mai e!

This is the June 2009 edition of a new periodic publication for Hawai'i Island: the Hawai'i Homegrown Food Network e-mail newsletter.

The newsletter features upcoming events, web resources, and other news for the Grow Local/Eat Local Food movement. Enjoy!

Your submissions for future newsletters are welcome using the form below.

Mahalo nui loa,

Craig Elevitch
Pedro Tama
http://agroforestry.net

Events

Saturday, May 30, 9 am - 4 pm
Event: Sustainable Saturday: Best Use of Your Backyard
Sponsor/Organizer: Kona Outdoor Circle (KOC)
Description: Morning: “Gardening Sustainably,” with Hector Valenzuela, specialist in organic vegetable growing, UH CTAHR; and "Container Gardening in a Small Space," with Janice Crowl, author of Container Gardening in Hawai'i. Catered lunch by Nasturtium Cafe chef Diane Tomac-Compagon, who will explain her menu and growing techniques for her ingredients. Afternoon: "Sustainable Garden Tour" at Una Greenaway and Leon Rosner's organic vegetables and fruit Kuaiwi Farm in Captain Cook. 
Place: KOC, Kuakini Highway at junction with Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway
Cost: members $60 non-members $75 (includes lunch).  Registration deadline May 28.
Contact: Kona Outdoor Circle, 329-7286; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  ; www.konaoutdoorcircle.org .

Saturday, May 30, 8:30 - 10:00 am
Event: Talk story -- Growing food at home
Sponsor/Organizer: Keauhou Farmers Market
Description: Craig Elevitch will talk story about “Growing food at home” and show photos of abundant Hawai'i gardens. He will be signing Pathways to Abundant Gardens, a book for those who are looking for inspiration and guidance in growing their own food using natural methods.
Place: Keauhou Farmers Market at Keauhou Shopping Center
Cost: Free
Contact: Nancy Miller, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Saturday, June 6, 8:30 am - 5:00 pm
Event: Hawai'i Island Homegrown Food Self-Reliance Workshop
Sponsor/Organizer: Permanent Agriculture Resources with support from the Hawai'i County Resource Center
Description: This workshop will empower participants to be in control of their own food sources, reduce food budgets, increase consumption of fresher, more nutritious food, decrease the impact of spiraling fuel costs, and help create an abundance of food for sharing or sale. The workshop includes presentations by local experts and field tours. Gardeners, farmers, homeowners, landscapers, teachers, extension professionals and anyone interested in expanding Hawai‘i community food self-reliance are welcome to attend.
Place: Ocean View Community Center
Cost: $50. Please register early. Due to space constraints on field tours, participant numbers are limited.
Contact: www.agroforestry.net/events or email Ngaire Gilmour at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Saturday, June 13, 8:30 am - 12:30 pm
Event: 7th Annual Hawai'i Island Seed Exchange -- theme "The Moon -- Mahina and Agriculture -- Rhythms and Connections"
Sponsor/Organizer: Know Your Farmer Alliance, the Hawai'i Peoples Fund, the Hawai'i Community Foundation, and Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden
Description: This annual agricultural festival develops community food self-reliance by bringing together our agricultural community to freely share cuttings, roots, hulis, saved seed and plants (no potted plants) of food crops that grow well on Hawai'i Island. Opening ceremony with Kumu Keala Ching and Na Wai Iwi Ola halau.  Organic lunch 10:30 am - 12:30 pm by Lotus Cafe.  Various educational presentations by Hawai'i Island sustainable growing experts.
Place: Amy B. H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Gardens, Captain Cook, Mile Marker 110
Cost: Free
Contact: call Nancy Redfeather 322-2801 or Lynn Bell at 325-0615

Saturday, June 13, 10 am - 11:30 am
Event: Free Garden Tour, during the 7th Annual Seed Exchange
Sponsor/Organizer: Amy B. H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden
Description: See the garden’s collection of native Hawaiian plants while hearing about their traditional cultural uses.
Place: Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden, located in Captain Cook, 12 miles south of Kailua-Kona, between the 110 and 11 mile markers on the mauka side of Mamalahoa Highway.
Cost: Free
Contact: Call if you have any questions. Tel: 323-3318; e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Saturday, September 19
Event: 19th Annual Hawaii International Tropical Fruit Growers Conference
Sponsor/Organizer: Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers (HTFG)
Description: Educational conference on growing and marketing tropical fruit
Place: Hilton Waikoloa
Cost: to be determined
Contact: Ken Love 323-2417

Ongoing & regular events

Coming events

New publications

Ken Love and www.Hawaiifruit.net have released Hawaii Grown video segments on tips for harvesting, post-harvest care, marketing and producing quality tropical fruit. Find out what the chefs, grocers and wholesalers are looking for. Hard copies will be available 
soon for Hawaii Tropical Fruit Grower members.  For more information contact: Ken Love, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXtsJrbKzVY  intro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQyIvvqsYFo  bananas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv7flUNn3IE  avocados
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6--QUsDd3o  figs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9cZzleYbII  small fruit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9K5J_eD55A  citrus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcYsTTSA2tI  Bob Paull
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s07i0OptXts  choice Mart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdvvY4HZAxA  Chef Trask
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8eCYYmta4k  Adaptations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVUPwn32djU  Virginia Easton Smith
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jv0PiBAgZI  outro

Book review

     Petrini starts with and presses on throughout the book about the need for people to relate to food in a more intelligent and considerate way than is being practiced now.  In fact, he relates all aspects of sustainable life to the new “gastronomy,” which he defines as the “reasoned knowledge of everything concerning man insofar as he eats.” Not just the study of food and cooking, but in a grand scale, he relates gastronomy to botany, physics, agriculture, ecology, anthropology, sociology, geopolitics, political economics, trade, technology, cooking, physiology, medicine and epistemology.

     Thank goodness the author doesn’t stop with pointing out all the problems with the industrial food world we live in, but goes on to present solutions, to the "worrying picture.” He talks about creating a network that in itself will bring about the cultural change and the new system of values that will promote the good, clean, fair way.  Petrini shares personal experiences that exemplify the points he’s making with each chapter. These diaries are what give this book its heart. Each example brings home to the material plane what sometimes seems like lofty intellectualism.

     Finishing off with an excerpt from of the “Manifesto on the Future of Food” and “10 Things Every American Can Do To Strengthen Our Food Communities” Carlo Petrini leaves the reader realizing that making the right decisions about food can and will change the world.

         

Web resources

Hawai'i organizations

Agroforestry Net  http://www.agroforestry.net

Hawai'i Agriculture Notes http://www.ahualoa.net/ag/notes_farming.html

Hawai'i Farmers Union http://www.hawaiifarmersunion.org

Hawai'i Fruit http://www.Hawaiifruit.net

Hawai'i Island School Garden Network http://www.kohalacenter.org/HISGN/about.html

Hawai'i Organic Farmers Association http://www.hawaiiorganicfarmers.org

Hawai'i SEED http://www.hawaiiseed.org

Hawai'i Tropical Fruit Growers http://www.hawaiitropicalfruitgrowers.org

Know Your Farmer Alliance http://www.knowyourfarmeralliance.com

Kona Coffee Council  http://www.kona-coffee-council.com

Kona Coffee Farmers Association http://www.konacoffeefarmers.org

Kona Outdoor Circle http://www.konaoutdoorcircle.org

Slow Food Hawai'i http://www.slowfoodhawaii.org

Waimea Outdoor Circle http://www.waimeaoutdoorcircle.org

Other Island websites

Andrea Dean Eat Local http://www.andreadean.com

Big Island Farmers Markets http://www.hcrs.info/sustainability/agriculture-and-food

Green Hawaii http://www.greenhawaii.com

Hawaii Physical Activity and Nutrition Newsletter http://http://www.healthyhawaii.com

How to Feed Chickens in Hawaii http://www.ahualoa.net/chickens/

La'akea Permaculture Community http://www.permaculture-hawaii.com

Plants Hawaii http://www.plantshawaii.com

South Kona Green Market http://www.skgm.org

University of Hawai’i College of Tropical Agriculture (CTAHR)

Organic - CTAHR http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/organic/

Buy Fresh - Buy Local http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/sustainag/BFBL.asp

Government agencies

Hawaii County Resource Center http://www.hcrc.info/sustainability/agriculture-and-food

National websites

Community Alliance with Family Farmers http://caff.org

Community Food Security Coalition http://www.foodsecurity.org

Food Declaration http://fooddeclaration.org

Food Share http://www.foodshare.net

National Homegrown Site http://www.homegrown.org

Natural Farming http://janonglove.com/janongusa/intro01.html

Videos

Permaculture -- Farms for the Future http://www.viddler.com/explore/PermaScience/videos/4/

Submissions

We invite you to submit information about educational events, resources, workshops, festivals, presentations, etc., related to growing, exchanging, selling, preparing, and eating locally grown food that is sustainable or organic. Please send us your submissions using the e-mail forms below. We will compile your submissions and send them to hundreds of Hawai'i Island sustainable food practitioners and supporters.

===== Hawai'i Homegrown Food Network Submission Forms

The newsletter features upcoming events, new publications and web sites, resources and other vital news for the Grow Local/Eat Local Food movement. Our goal is to support and strengthen our Hawai'i Island sustainable and organic local food system: growers (farmers and gardeners), processors, wholesalers and marketers, retailers (stores and restaurants), and you and I -- eaters.

It's easy to submit the information you want to reach our Grow Local/Eat Local community:

1. First, click Reply to this e-mail.

2. Second, fill out the appropriate form(s): “EVENT,” “RESOURCE” and/or "REPORT" below.

3. Third, click Send.

We'll do the rest. Please note: Submissions will be published at the discretion of the editorial staff.

EVENT

Date & Time of Event:

Title of Event:

Sponsor/Organizer:

Brief Description:

Place (be specific):

Cost:

Contact (name, e-mail, website, phone):

RESOURCE

Web site:

Book:

Video:

Article:

Course:

Other:

Contact (name, e-mail, website, phone):

Are you a Grower__? Educator__? Processor__? Wholesaler__? Marketer__? Retailer__? Other___?

REPORT

If you have sponsored a recent event, would you like to write a brief news report about it for our newsletter? Yes ______ No _______.

If you would prefer us to write the report, may we contact you for a brief interview? Yes ______ No ______ Name, phone, e-mail:

Date and name of event:

Thank you for your contribution to the Hawai'i Homegrown Food Network. We envision an economically thriving, sustainable food system for Hawai'i Island that each year reduces our dependence on imported food.

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This newsletter is a free service of Agroforestry Net, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. 

Agroforestry Net, Inc.
PO Box 428 
Holualoa, HI  96725  USA
Tel: 808-324-4427
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
http://www.agroforestry.org 

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