About

Q. When is the North Kohala Eat Locally Grown Campaign?

The online campaign to get at least 100 people from North Kohala to commit to an “eat local” action has already begun at www.KanuHawaii.org/northkohala

The actual “on the ground” campaign runs from Saturday, September 25 – Saturday, October 2, 2010

Q. Where did the North Kohala Eat Locally Campaign come from?

This project builds on the North Kohala Food Forum held in August, 2009, and specifically one of the strong initiatives that emerged- North Kohala Eat Locally Grown Day. A strong steering committee formed for this initiative (Joan Channon- Bamboo, Karen Rosen- Kohala Coffee Mill, Peter Pomerance- Sushi Rock, and Tom Baldwin- Uluwehi Farms) and the first North Kohala Eat Locally Grown Day was held on January 16, 2010. A Farmer/Buyer market was held on January 8, 2010 which brought together Buyers (restaurants and markets) and Farmers to increase communication and facilitate sales.
The week long campaign expands upon the North Kohala Eat Locally Grown “Day” concept by adding more classes, events and asking people to make online commitments to action.

Q. What is the purpose of an Eat Locally Grown Campaign for North Kohala?

This campaign is just one small step to help move towards our community goal (from the North Kohala Community Development Plan) of “promoting diversified agriculture” and “producing 50% of the food we consume.”
The broad goals are to:

Increase the Market for Local Food in our Community: By educating consumers and buyers about the value, benefits and availability of locally grown food we will, over time, increase the market demand for locally grown food which will support local agriculture. We will also actually increase the sales and consumption of locally grown foods during the campaign.

Reduce Dependence Upon Imported Food: By facilitating relationships that lead to import substitution we will reduce dependence upon imported food.

Build Community Capacity: By training community leaders in the local food movement how to effectively recruit people and manage a grassroots campaign, we will be increasing our chances of long term success.

In the North Kohala Food Forum Survey, farmers and commercial buyers identified the two top barriers to having more North Kohala grown food in the local marketplace was: 1) Lack of demand in the local market for local food, and 2) poor communication between buyers and farmers.

Q. Who is sponsoring the North Kohala Eat Locally Grown Campaign?

The campaign is a project of the North Kohala Community Resource Center and is funded by the County of Hawaii- Office of Research and Development and the USDA- Farm Services Agency. Additional funding is pending.

Q. What is Kanu Hawaii and why did the North Kohala Eat Locally Grown Campaign partner with them?

Kanu Hawaii is a statewide non-profit organization based on Oahu, but they work statewide. Kanu Hawaii was founded by a group of 40 young people who shared a deep love for the islands, were moved by Hawaii’s unique culture and way of life, and feared this way of life was under threat. In an attempt to generate a movement, each person committed to make at least one change in their own lives to address their concerns.

They discovered that small steps, taken together, had significant impact. For instance, their personal commitments to recycle diverted nearly 16 tons of waste from Hawaii’s overflowing landfills every year. This was the basis of the movement that has now grown to over 12,000 on-line island members who have committed (at kanuhawaii.org) to protect and promote island living – a connection to the ‘aina, a culture of aloha, and local economic self reliance. Kanu’s three core values are: Island Values, Kuleana and Island-Style Activism.

We partnered with Kanu Hawaii for two reasons:

James Koshiba and Mailelaulii Neff from Kanu Hawaii came to North Kohala and conducted a workshop for 32 people in how to be more effective community leaders; using “servant-activism” to recruit participation and engage people in advocacy, using story to motivate others and inspire action, and using web-based tools for grassroots recruiting, organizing, and mobilization.

They are running a statewide Eat Local Challenge from Sept 26 – Oct 1st, so we are taking advantage of the additional PR opportunity and their on-line web tools to engage people to make individual commitments.