“Value Added Products for Small Farms” Talk and Book Signing with Craig Elevitch, author of the newly released book Specialty Crops for Pacific Islands and Director of the Hawai’i Homegrown Food Network.

Wednesday, September 7th, 6 – 8 pm, free
Kohala Intergenerational Center

Sharing valuable information from his new book, Craig will highlight opportunities to create profitable value added products from small farms and abundant backyards.

About the book:

From Bamboo to Black Pepper, Cacao to Coconut, Tea to Taro—Specialty Crops for Pacific Islands provides detailed cultivation, value- added, and marketing information for over two dozen of the most im- portant specialty crops for Pacific Islands and other tropical locations.
Specialty crops provide a rapidly growing economic opportunity for innovative farmers and gardeners who are interested in diversifying their products.

The book provides insights into sustainable cultivation and processing techniques for local and export markets with an emphasis on innovating production methods, postharvest processing, and marketing.
Specialty Crops for Pacific Islands is a reference book for gardeners and small farmers throughout the tropics who are interested in new economic opportunities from specialty crops.

This new resource book by 40 contributing authors covers value-added processing, enterprise development, accessing unique markets, sustainable local food production, economic and ecological viability, multi-crop agroforestry systems and local systems with export potential.
The producers of Specialty Crops for Pacific Islands have previously published two books on related topics—Traditional Trees for Pacific Islands (2006) and Agroforestry Guides for Pacific Islands (2000). This new book promotes high-quality food, fiber, and health care crops grown in diverse agroforestry systems with an emphasis on providing small farms with opportunities for local consumption and commercial sale.

The book is illustrated with over 940 color images and each chapter covers a different crop. Specialty Crops for Pacific Islands also high- lights producers from throughout the Pacific and shares their experiences—both their challenges and successes.

Friday, September 16, 9 am to 3 pm
Palili Cho Han kyu Natural Farming Learning Farm
55-370 Hoea Road Hawi, Hawaii

Class will include time in the apiary and cover the following subjects:
1. Bee stocks with resistance.
2. Beetle and mite control (soft chemicals, mechanical and biological).
3. Pests and pathogens recognition and management.
4. Increase colony production and management.
5. Queen management.
6. General hive management.

Register online at www.wicwas.com. Click on “Online Store”.
Registration fee (per person) is $50 includes a copy of Connor’s “Increase Essentials” (a $20 value).

Palili Cho Han kyu Natural Farming Learning Farm
“Promoting sustainable agriculture through Natural Farming.”
Contact: David Fuertes or Erika, (808) 884-5838, dfuertes@pidfoundation.org.
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Well…I will find out. In September 2011, my Eat Local Challenge is to eat primarily locally grown foods on a SNAP budget–the average amount that a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP- formerly called Food Stamps)) recipient receives in Hawai‘i. Preliminary research shows that to be somewhere between $215 and $316 a month–I will learn more!

My Local Foods SNAP Challenge will examine issues such as: access, cost, preference, EBT acceptance at Farmers Markets and for CSA’s, Fresh Fruits and Vegetables program, availability of native foods, role of food banks, and strategies to supplement purchasing food (community food processing, community and school gardens, crop swaps).

What is your 2011 Eat Local Challenge?

1. Define “local” for yourself

The first time I did a 90 day eat local challenge, I was very stringent- Hawaii Island only and no cheating on condiments or anything (not even salt!) Last year I did a 60 day challenge and expanded my geographic area to the State of Hawaii and allowed minor cheats on oil, soy sauce, dressing in restaurants, etc.. Create an “Eat Local Challenge” for yourself that is challenging and joyful. Design your parameters so that you eat new foods, find new food sources and meet new people. Set yourself up to win and make long-term changes. Don’t make things so hard on yourself that you don’t enjoy the process.

2. Clean your Refrigerator
Starting with a good, clean fridge will help you be organized. Get rid of all that moldy stuff in the containers, eat what is edible, wipe the shelves.

3. Reconnaissance
Start in advance by scoping out the places you usually shop. When you put your eye to it, you will find locally grown food in your usual food store that you have never seen before. Taro in Foodland? Yes! Sweet Potatoes in Costco? Yes! Start to buy these things and put them in your nice clean fridge.

Plan and map out some cool field trips that you want to take. An outing to the Farmers Market? A visit to a farm? A trip down a country road to a farm stand? A foray to the fish market? How can you incorporate these outings into other things you need to do? This may seem like extra work, but it will be worth it- you will meet some very cool people, eat some excellent food, and your life will be enriched.

4. Staples
They don’t call them staples for nothing! Begin to gather your basic staples, think starch: Taro, squash, sweet potato, breadfruit, corn, cassava. Then gather the next level: Milk, eggs and cheese. (We have Mountain Apple Brand milk at KTA on Hawaii Island.) I use goat cheese, I have not found a local cow’s milk cheese yet. Next are your oils and condiments: Locally produced macadamia nut and/or coconut oil and butter if you can find them. Local salt! Lemons, limes, tomatoes and herbs are your new best friends! They will be the basis for your dressings, salsas and sauces. In my experience, local veggies and fruits are pretty easy to find and can be grabbed as you go. You will also need to think about your proteins: not all fish is local- if you are shopping in the food store you will need to check if the fish is local. If you eat beef and chicken it will be a little research project to find local sources- which are definitely out there. Pork? Well – your cousin/uncle/friend the pig hunter is your source there.

5. Get Out Your Lunch Box
Still have that superman lunch box somewhere? Well, time to bust it out! If you can’t find it, a small cooler will work fine. Running out of the house to work without bringing ample food for the day is a big mistake when you are on an all local diet. However, if it is in your flow and your budget, you can eat out at a restaurant that is serving local food during Eat Local Challenge week. I usually pack a main course (squash, fish, greens), a major staple (like poi), and some snacks (fresh or dried bananas, mango.) A hard boiled egg is also a great thing to throw in the lunch box. Lack of preparation is the only reason for starving when you are eating 100% locally grown. If you are hungry it is probably because you didn’t shop, cook and pack food.

6. Fun Foods and Beverages
It’s not all about fruits and vegetables- find fun stuff! Honey, macadamia nut butter, cocoa, tropical fruits (all taken together, at times!) Since we have local milk on Hawaii Island, I make yogurt and custard, which I consider fun when mixed with any or all of the above.

There is also the interesting world of the local beverage. There is coffee, green and oolong tea, coffee cherry tea, mamaki tea, kokoolau tea, and honey mead. Depending on how “local” you want to be, you might drink a locally produced beer or wine.

7. Think about your long-term impact

Extreme experiments (100% locally grown for a week or month) prove a point and help jump-start your awareness, but are difficult to maintain over time. The point is to make sustained changes. Think about changes that you can make and sustain. Increase your quantity of local starches—taro, sweet potato, ‘ulu instead of bread—for example. Or buy all of your veggies from local, sustainable sources.
]]> http://eatlocalhi.org/2011/08/25/andrea-eat-local-challenge-tips/feed/ 0 andreadean andrea-food-revulution-sm http://eatlocalhi.org/2011/08/19/september-is-eat-local-challenge-month/ http://eatlocalhi.org/2011/08/19/september-is-eat-local-challenge-month/#comments Sat, 20 Aug 2011 04:43:32 +0000 andreadean http://eatlocalhi.org/?p=336 Continue reading →]]>

Eat Local!  Get involved:

1) Join the Eat Local Challenge with Kanu Hawaii: Return to Local Abundance

2) Organize an “Eat Local” Pot Luck at your school, home or  business

Activities in North Kohala:

September 7th: “Value Added Products for Small Farms” Talk and Book Signing with Craig Elevitch, author of Specialty Crops for Pacific Islands. Location TBD 6-8 pm

Friday, Sept. 9th and Saturday, Sept. 10th:

COMMUNITY HARVEST HAWAII
2nd Friday and Saturday of Every Month
Kohala Intergenerational Center
10 am – 3 pm

Saturday October 1: Plant and Seed Exchange at the Kohala Country Fair

North Kohala Local Food and Farmer Directory -coming soon!

There are a lot of logistics to get organized before launch and we hope to have our first Community Harvest day in North Kohala in June, 2011. If you would like to get involved by donating fruit, coming to help process, teaching a skill that you have, harvesting, identifying kupuna who would like harvesting help, etc.. please fill out this form and we will get back in touch with you soon. You can also call Andrea Dean at 960-3727.

View our prezi presentation, you will have to click on the play buttons in the presentation to watch the embedded videos.

Following is a description of the project:

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 going to waste. Our Hawaiian name is Hā’umeke a Hānai which means “everyone growing or bearing fruits, presenting it in a bowl, and sharing, while caring for each other.’

Community Harvest Hawaii will begin as a monthly event, held on a Saturday, at the certified kitchen at the Kohala Intergenerational Center. Each month will have a different food focus depending upon what is abundant in the community- citrus, avocado, guava, mango, star fruit, macademia nuts, pig, beef, and more. People are encouraged to bring a variety of food- whatever they have in abundance and want to process and share. The price of admission to the event is to bring food, expertise, equipment or music. Harvest teams will also be deployed in the community to harvest food from community members who want harvesting services (with a focus on kupuna and absentee landholders). Different food processing stations will be set up and experts will facilitate the processing of the food. Participants are encouraged to share recipes and knowledge with each other. There will also be an emphasis on testing and creating products that have potential market value and testing the local market. At the end of the day, participants share a community feast made from some of the food that was processed. The rest of the food will have been processed and packaged and will be distributed among participants, to the kupuna from which food was harvested, and to the local food bank. As products are identified as potentially marketable they will be test marketed in the local community.

If successful, the community harvesting, processing and distribution model can be replicated in other communities across the state. It is also possible to scale up to cooperatively brand and market value-added products that are processed in multiple communities.

Community Harvest Hawaii will positively impact Hawaii in the following ways:

- Strengthen communities through cooperative food preparation in a fun, learning environment.

- Increase the health of communities by distributing more fresh and local food (processed, ready to use) to those that need and want it.

- Increase the skill level in communities with regards to food preparation and food preservation techniques (smoke, pickle, can, freeze, ferment).

- Examine the potential for community economic development through the utilization of food that is currently going to waste.