March 18, 2020 • 26 mins
Hawaii State Senator Donovan Dela Cruz built a significant part of his platform on helping Oahu’s agriculture adjust to its citizens’ changing needs. We chat with Senator Dela Cruz about his personal history with and sustainable hopes for Oahu’s farms.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome Saber production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Any and I'm Lauren Vogebaum, and today we have a
interview for you from our trip to Oahu. Yes the
seconds in our series of releases of these interviews, and
this one was a big one for us because we've
never interviewed a politician at that point, not not a
(00:27):
not a state senator certainly. Yes, So this is an
interview with Senator Donovan M. Dela Cruz, who is a
Democratic member of the Hawaii State Senate um District twenty two.
Is what you represents. And I know we told the
story and one of the episodes in our Welcome to
ohah Who mini series, But he was first off, wonderful
(00:52):
to talk to. Oh yeah, just just an absolute delight
um and and so knowledgeable and friendly. And secondly he
met us a grocery store on a weekend to do this. Yeah,
we've been trying and trying to find a time to
get together with him. We really wanted to get his
perspective on on the food scene out there and the
(01:13):
and the agriculture of Oahu, and it hadn't been working out.
And we just finished up our interview with Denise and
roy Yamaguchi over in the complete madness of this poke
a battle in a grocery store on Saturday afternoon, and
Denise called him and was just like, look, these people
(01:35):
are awesome and you're awesome, and you need to be
awesome together. And lo and behold he showed up in
the supermarket like in khaki shorts and yeah, it's very comfortable, Yeah,
casual where um and yeah, it was really great talking
to him and hearing some of the issues that he
(01:57):
works on because he he is pretty involved in food
and because in Hawaii tourism is such a big thing
there and having kind of that perspective of well, how
can we leverage food and tourism but also be sustainable? Right? Absolutely, yeah,
(02:21):
how can we? How can we work harder to support
our own community and to feed our own community ourselves? Right?
And um, as we record this right now, there's all
this concern about COVID nineteen and coronavirus. And one of
the first things that came up when I was looking
at what has he been up to lately, um, is
that Hawaii is anticipated to take million dollar loss with
(02:45):
loss of tourism, and Senator de la Cruz was asked
about it, and he said our issues that we haven't
really diversified our economy and we're too reliant on tourism.
So yeah, this is definitely something he is working on
and um, really relevant right now. Absolutely. Um, so yeah,
(03:08):
we will let former Annie and Lauren and the senator
take it away. So I'm Donovan Dela Cruz Aloha. I'm
in the State Senate. I've been in the State Senate
since two thousand ten, and I represent Central Oahu which
is Wahi wah min Lanti Malka and it it's we're
(03:30):
all We're doll first starting. So when I grew up
there were seven thousand acres of pineapple land and Central Oahu.
What was it like growing up with with that weird culture?
So it was it was a norm for us. I
mean we saw pine My grandparents came from the Philippines
to pick pineapple. My dad worked in the field during
(03:52):
the summer when he was growing up. So it's, um,
it's difficult to see that Hawaii hasn't really trying position
into a a much larger diversified agricultural society from pineapple
and sugar, and so, I mean, I think that's potential
there's some land that has been lost because of development.
(04:14):
But it's not that easy just taking pineapple land and
turning into the diversified egg because pineapple requires a different
kind of infrastructure. What are some of the projects and
initiatives that you do a lot of work in environmental
and agricultural policy. What are some of the projects you're
working on right now? So ever since I got to
the Senate, and before I was in the Senate, I
(04:35):
was on the Homele City Council. So when I was
on the council, the city dedicated funds to purchase some
egg land in partnership with the state and the army.
So we've bought about acres of egg land that was
once del Monty Land, the Monty Pineapple which is right
next to the dough land. And we actually finalized that
(04:59):
purchase into the in twelve even though we budgeted for
it in two thousand eight, so it took four years.
And since then I've added more and more money to
the budget and so now we're at about acres of
pineapple land now in the state's ownership. So what that
does for us is now we can provide long term
leases to farmers because any private landowner. They won't normally
(05:22):
hold up land for the long term lease. It will
probably be ten fifteen years maths. Usually you're usually five
years or one year and the farmer can't go to
the banquet that kind of lease. So with the state
purchasing that land providing long term leases, now they can
actually have a business plan, they can go to a bank,
they can get some investment, and the state also offers
(05:44):
rent credits so and invest whatever you invest into the
land for agriculture can actually be credited against your NAST rank.
But we can the States by locking up to sixty
five years long term lease, so that helps. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Is that a normal amount of time or is that
because Hawaii is so uh or a wah who in
(06:05):
particular is so small and so expensive. Well, land in
Hawaii is really expensive. What sixty or five years actually
allows a couple of generations to farm a piece of property. So,
you know, we don't see too many young people wanting
to stay in egg and I'm you know, with a
with a long lease, hopefully that you can inspire some
(06:25):
people to stay within the family business of agriculture. These
are really big and complex issues. How do you how
do you work with the community to figure out what
will Hell, everybody wants something um that they can see immediately.
That's difficult. It's you know, because it takes a while
(06:46):
to get money into the budget to buy land, and
it takes a while to to actually go through the
process of releasing the money spending it by purchasing it.
But we also have to put in money for water infrastructure.
So once we just we have the land, that doesn't
mean they in farment right away. So we got because
Pineapple didn't need water, it was a familiad rain handled it.
(07:07):
And so now when you do diversified egg you have
to put money in for water infrastructure. So we're looking
at a variety of solutions. One solution is actually recycling
water that is in a nearby lake. And we also
bought commercial property so that farmers can process pack where
(07:27):
there's already electricity, water sewer, and hopefully we can create
a critical mass and a clustering of Eggs companies there.
And then the other thing we're producing is a value
added manufacturing training facility, you know, so hopefully we can
get people interested in becoming entrepreneurs to make more juices,
cosmetic products, spirits, candies, cookies, and that can help create
(07:51):
a demand for growing certain products as well. Is it
difficult getting your fellow lawmakers on board with these kind
of policies? So everybody has a different um focus. You know,
some people will focus on human services on homeless, some
people focus on education. Um, I think generally people support eggs,
but with limited funds, it's competing with all these other
(08:11):
pressing needs. So all this land that we've been trying
to purchase is in my district, so I've been trying
to build that inventory up. Hopefully we can get up
to six thousand acres. The other thing we've been trying
to do is do a land swap. But we proposed
a land swap where the state would take private land
for in agriculture and trade that for land that the
(08:32):
state owns along the rail line. So let the private
guys develop around the rail line. They can have that
land and we take we take all the agriculture and
conservation land. That was an idea that we've been drawing
around the legislature. How did how did you decide to
make this your focus? Well, my I mean I think
I tell people pineapple juicing my blood because I grew
(08:53):
up around all the pineapple fields. My grandparents, my parents,
and then my great grandparents came from Puerto Rico and
work in the sugar fields. So agriculture has been in
my family for the five generations. I mean, my great
grandparents came in nineteen one to Hawaii. Can I ask
what kind of foods great? Growing up? Oh? I did
(09:13):
eat pineapple. I mean to the point where I didn't.
I stopped eating another because it was so acidic. Yeah,
now it's not. Now I can drink it and eat it.
I mean, you know, Frankie's pineapple here is really sweet.
So pineapple has evolved a little bit. Um. I mean,
we would eat a lot more avocado than I didn't.
You know, people would trade, would see light and we
would see oranges mountain apple here different in Hawaii, but
(09:36):
people would trade a lot. People would have a lot
of fruit trees in their yards. I guess now because
you have certain kinds of development, people don't have room
for fruit trees. And I don't know if people want
to take care of them either. Yeah, it's it's a
lot of work, and so hopefully that culture changes. Is
there a dish that tastes like home to you? My well.
(09:58):
I ate a lot of Puerto Rican food when I
was growing up because my grandmother would make Puerto Rican food,
so I would always like patels and fanduty rice. And
last last night I eat a loud, loud plate at Zippies,
you know, And I think every local person, if your local,
you love Max Sally and Hawaii fried rice. I think
it's very different than any other areas fried rice because
(10:21):
we just throw a lot of different things in there.
So I'd rather have I'd rather eat fried rice and
white rice. It's a lot more interesting and taste cood.
We have some more of our interview, but first we
have a quick break for word from our sponsor, and
(10:46):
we're back. Thank you sponsor. Let's get back into the interview.
But about twenty years ago, when I was, right before
I got in the city council actually wrote these guide
books to hold in the Wall restaurants, and so it
talked about on these unique delicate testings that were could
only be found in Hawaii, and those slowly disappeared so
you only have a few left. It was called because
(11:09):
you're hungary. This is twenty years ago, but um so
the delicate testing would be a buffet line of different
types of noodles, different types of meats, different types of
fish and prepared differently. And what was unique about it
is it would be all different based on different ethnic groups.
So you would see Filipino style cooking, Chinese style cooking,
(11:30):
Japanese style cooking, and those are all the different ethnic
groups that came to White to work in the sugar
pineapple and you would just pick and choose. Oh, I
want that must to be I want that cornpy fash,
I want this sausage, I want that that there would
be our bento box, and so growing up, we would
always want to go to the okazuya to go get
a bento box for our field trips. I mean that
was like a special treat that sounds so good. How
(11:54):
else have you seen the food community develop and evolved?
M I mean since you were growing up, but also
since you have been involved in the government. Well, there's
been a lot of changes, I mean with food safety,
with financing, with water infrastructure, and now you see a
lot more greenhouse production. You see production within buildings, not
(12:15):
even greenhouse within buildings, and so AG is changing too,
So you really have to focus a lot and for
for curriculum wise. Wherefore students they got to understand how
to work the greenhouse, how to program the greenhouse, how
to manage it, and they got to figure out a
business plan of what what crops they're going to specialize in.
So it's not I think it's evolved so much. Especially
(12:36):
now Hawaii brand you can explort quite a bit. Yeah,
I mean is that cool? Is it? Is it a
good influx of money into the system. Well, if you look,
if you have a good value added product that is
good quality, good brand, you can you can make a
niche for yourself. I mean we've seen ice cream sandwich
shops that's locally made on the North Shore, or this
(12:58):
one shop called uber Factory that we these little little
bit cookies and they sell out. I mean they sell
out and they they're they're very interesting. They don't want
to grow too big because they don't want to make
the product too generic. They want to keep it unique.
And yet they make enough money where they can buy
a house, they can travel. You know, they're not a
(13:18):
struggling farmer. So we gotta figure out how to get
farmers to become more revenue generating, and that can be
assistant with more value added products. Are you involved with
the Food and Wine festival? Yeah, I mean the state
supports it. And you know, one of the things that
I really like about what Denise has been doing is
she tries to take an emerging crop so that we can,
(13:39):
like I'll give you an example of bread fruit for
Columbun guy, and they'll give it to all the participating
chefts to come up with recipes so that the local
palide because more familiar with it, so we can start
to scale up these crops. I mean, I know oftentimes
Alan Wong will use vote and any all these different
festivals to people interested and change their perception. Talakia was used,
(14:04):
you know, sunfish, so that we can figure out, really
how can we grow more locally, have that kalep for
it so that we don't have to import. I have
two questions related to that. The first is Denise was
telling me that you're trying to grow mama mamakei mamake
t Yeah. Yeah, and she said that I should ask
(14:25):
you about this experience. So we have we have about
fifty trees in my yard now and so we've been
processing MAMAKEI. We've been growing it, cutting it, processing it
and we've actually started wholesaling it. So it's a lot
of work. I mean, it took a long time to
figure out a system so that you can be efficient.
We're probably not making money yet, but we got to
(14:47):
figure it out so that we can actually have a
sustainable business. But it's it's it's local, it's unique to Hawaii.
It's very healthy for you, and it's the demand is growing.
And the other thing I'm trying to grows. But they
luck that it finally started to flower after a couple
of years, and so the flower only lasts a couple
(15:08):
of hours, so you need to self pollinate that. And
at first I think I was doing it wrong because
it's not that easy to figure out, but then a
neighbor who also has vanilla, taught me how to do
it and it's been working. So now that flowers have
been dying on the vine, because if the flower, if
it dies and it falls off, that means it didn't pollinate.
(15:29):
But if it dies on the vine, that means it pollinated.
So you'll see the dead flower start to turn into
a bead, you know, turn black. Could you tell us
more and more about the tea, what's all like flavor
and profile. It's healthy. It does taste a little I
mean to some people a little earthy, but it's very
(15:50):
much I mean for a lot of local people. I
mean they find medicinal dies and it helps your blood
freshure for some people helps clean you out. But it's relaxing.
It doesn't have caffee, so for people who have like
pipe blood pressure, they don't need any more caffeine. They
don't want to get excited. It's a good tea. It's relaxing,
and you can mix it with other things. Sometimes I
(16:10):
mix it with lab and then when I make it.
But it's hard to process because it's such a fine leaf.
Once it's dry, it can turn into powder if you
if you process it too fast, and then the powder
is not good for tea bags. It'll it'll end up
clogging the tea bag. So we have to we found
that's part of our process and so we had Now
I have to go buy a sifting machine. So we're
(16:33):
processing the tea. We have the tea down, We're going
putting the tea in a sifting machine so we can
take out the powder. And now I'm trying to figure
out another product that we can make with the powder.
Trying to figure it out. Why why did you decide
to start to start growing it? Well, I wanted to
be an ext I've been telling people for nine years
and we need to start these things, and very few
(16:54):
people have made a go of it. A lot of
people have you talked about it? So I figured you
don't and I'm just gonna do it and we'll see
if it may get work. Lead by example. Yeah, So
it's called Kailani Brew because it's a little street. There's
a street on Inha where I live named Kilani Avenue.
So I just need the Kilani Brew and Kilani and
(17:15):
Hawaiians heavenly tea. So it's Killanni Bru Mamaki team. So
we need more. So we're planning on negotiating a larger
lease for about an acre so we can grow more tea.
So I'll give you something next time you come. Yeah,
I'll send it to you some of the things. I
(17:37):
feel like you've touched on some of this already. But
what do you find or some of the you need
challenges and benefits of being on an island when it
comes to food law and policy and what you do.
So we should be able to replace a lot more importance,
(17:57):
there's no doubt. But we just have to scale things
up and we have to match the demand for with production.
And so if we even just our own schools, hospitals,
look at that the state owns Brisons airports. If the
state made a commitment to say we're only gonna buy local,
then local farmers know that they'll have a consistent customer,
(18:18):
which will help them plan and which which will help
other people say well, I'm out going that business now
because it's more predictable. So we gotta figure out a
way to make agriculture more predictable with all these different systems.
And then that that base, once it's revenue generating, helps
us to go into other things and take more risks.
But Hawaii, besides that, Hawaii is such a strong brand
(18:38):
that we could do a lot more value added, you know,
and we we get in ten million visitors a year,
so a lot of it doesn't even have to be shipped.
Ten people coming through a year, we could sell a
lot of value added products. Yeahs, are you are you
working on any projects to that end? And he said,
(18:58):
you have a lot of things going on working with
the university that I mentioned to do a value added
manufactured processing facility. A couple of us went to New
Zealand we saw they had those food little pilot areas
where you could go in with a recipe and they'll
help you figure out your value added product with your
business plan. So we're trying to create a curriculum and
I know Denis is as well. They're working with the
(19:19):
high schools to come up with classes on that. How
do you come up with concepts of value added products
developing in and become an actually coming up with a
business plan. And we have good examples now, I mean
Big Island Candies and if you've been there, but they
exploit quite a bit and they're well known. They're here
in the mall, so if you have time, you can
go look at the Big Island Candies. But we could
(19:40):
do more. I mean, I think there's so many niches
that we could find. And it's a good it's a
great climate growth things. Yeah, there's so much here that
I knew there was a lot of products, things that
I wouldn't find necessarily ground where I am from South.
But there's like a lot more then I anticipated. There's
so much you can go see, like the lavender thing
(20:03):
blew my mind, Like I've never even considered where lavender
comes from. Yeah, well we can't do other things. We
can do vanilla, we could do cameo. You know, our
climate is such a we can grow a lot of
different things because we have so many different micro climates.
We just need more entrepreneurs to kind of take those
ideas and make a bowl of it. And then if
(20:25):
the state can figure out a way how we can
provide incentives so we can allow some predictability and allow
people to take risk. Its all of those investments, and
that's something that we should consider. How we can help
provides jobs, you know, increases our diversity of product, and
hopefully it enhances the visitor experience too. Yeah, as you said,
(20:46):
so there's ten million people come through tourists ten million
a year. Wow, it's so population about we're one point
four million people. And I would say, and from of
the people who've talked to you, it sounds like Hawaii
is becoming more of a food and drink destination where
it hadn't necessarily been that before. Would you say that's
(21:09):
actually yeah, I mean, especially with the rise of hawaii'sional
cuisine about twenty years ago. Um, and the visitor bureau. Really,
they used to do all kinds of promotions, sending strips
around the world. I think social media has changed that
a lot too, because then people can access it and
see it a lot more and there's a lot more competition.
I mean, now we have the the Culinary Institute kind
(21:31):
of creating pathways for for aspiring shifts, and you can
even a grocery you can see just this grocery store.
It's not the same kind of grocery store we grew
up in. I mean it's like part restaurant. You know,
this food contest in the restaurant. Who would have thought that, right, No, never,
So it really has evolved a lot. It's more participatory.
(21:52):
There is a little bit more of this interview left,
but first we've got one more quick break for we're
sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsor, and back to
the interviews. Is there anything in particular you're excited about
(22:13):
in the future and projects for yourself for Hawaii at large?
Your well, I mean, if we can create more entrepreneurs
so that we can get more local people to stay
and not move away, and more people to make a
living wage and they can stay in Hawaii and have
a good quality of life. But we it all it's
all part of systems that we've gotta build, coordinate and support.
(22:37):
But you know, it'll take one step at a time
because I always been home, Like did you always know
that you were going to I mean, if we had
this word in hole in Hawaii, it's a Hawaiian word
called kuliana. And if anybody, I mean, I'm sure a
lot of people talking about aloha maybe hold po kuno,
but I mean one of my favorite Hawaian words is
actually cooliana. And that's what's your obligation, what's your responsibility?
(22:59):
What's your commitment to either your family, to your community,
to your neighbors. And I feel like that's my my
kuliana intu turn my community into a better place for
the future, so that people can have a better quality
of life, not just young people, but people aging in
place too, you know, because food is evolving so much.
(23:19):
Where with a with a large geriatric population, I even
food has to kind of change a little bit to
match that. And Hawaii has a has a high percentage
of an aging population. So the Japan so to as
the US, so they were like a good gateway for
that kind of innovation. You know, we just have to
own that space. I mean, there's so many opportunities with energy, food, aging.
(23:44):
We just have to be a lot more aggressive in
in these ideas of how we're going to become globally
competitive or relevant. Well, hopefully you guys take some time
to go to a lot of hole in the wall restaurants.
So I mean, if you ever if you need some ideas.
But there's some restaurants that I know, I forgot the
name off the top of my head, but it's in
(24:05):
my second book, The Puka Guy. So what happened with
that was after we did The Casu Guy, we were
at All Dames, which no longer exists, and we were
at we know, we're book signing and people would say, well,
what's your next book, and so we're like, oh, what's
our next book? So we came up with The Buka Guy,
which means uka and Hawaiian means hoole. It's a hole
in the wall restaurants they didn't mean. And then the
(24:25):
last book was called The Omiaga Guy. So that's gifts,
like we're cookies, candies, mantafua. So it's all these little
things that make Hawaii unique. It's a small restaurants, a
small family restaurants around the corner. That's that you can't
find any place else. So if you that's the kind
of thing, I hope you guys can take a little
tour on and find find more on those. That brings
(24:48):
us to the end of this our second full interview
released from our trip to Hawaii. I love how at
the very end, that's when we found out he has
We knew he had a book like of Whole in
the walls. He was our people, our people, and we
kept running into that, and so many people we we
(25:08):
talked to while we were in Wahu of just this
eagerness to share all of the places that they love,
all the food and drinks that they love, and the
fact that he had a whole. It used to be
his thing and he's like, oh yeah, I'll give to you.
Gotta make sure. He was like, hold on, how much
longer are you here? Okay, hold on, we can do this,
we can make this happen. And as a busy senator,
(25:31):
I just appreciate so much he was like, no, I want,
I really want you to go check out and just yeah,
and all of the time that he took out of
his day to come and speak with us, UM, so
thank you so much to him again and and again
to the Yam and Co Cheese for forgetting in touch.
Yes yes, and the wonderful okable, so wonderful and so madness.
(25:55):
We loved it. Um. If you would like to email us,
we would love to hear um you. Our email is
Hello at savor pod dot com. We're also on social media.
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(26:18):
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome Saber production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Any and I'm Lauren Vogebaum, and today we have a
interview for you from our trip to Oahu. Yes the
seconds in our series of releases of these interviews, and
this one was a big one for us because we've
never interviewed a politician at that point, not not a
(00:27):
not a state senator certainly. Yes, So this is an
interview with Senator Donovan M. Dela Cruz, who is a
Democratic member of the Hawaii State Senate um District twenty two.
Is what you represents. And I know we told the
story and one of the episodes in our Welcome to
ohah Who mini series, But he was first off, wonderful
(00:52):
to talk to. Oh yeah, just just an absolute delight
um and and so knowledgeable and friendly. And secondly he
met us a grocery store on a weekend to do this. Yeah,
we've been trying and trying to find a time to
get together with him. We really wanted to get his
perspective on on the food scene out there and the
(01:13):
and the agriculture of Oahu, and it hadn't been working out.
And we just finished up our interview with Denise and
roy Yamaguchi over in the complete madness of this poke
a battle in a grocery store on Saturday afternoon, and
Denise called him and was just like, look, these people
(01:35):
are awesome and you're awesome, and you need to be
awesome together. And lo and behold he showed up in
the supermarket like in khaki shorts and yeah, it's very comfortable, Yeah,
casual where um and yeah, it was really great talking
to him and hearing some of the issues that he
(01:57):
works on because he he is pretty involved in food
and because in Hawaii tourism is such a big thing
there and having kind of that perspective of well, how
can we leverage food and tourism but also be sustainable? Right? Absolutely, yeah,
(02:21):
how can we? How can we work harder to support
our own community and to feed our own community ourselves? Right?
And um, as we record this right now, there's all
this concern about COVID nineteen and coronavirus. And one of
the first things that came up when I was looking
at what has he been up to lately, um, is
that Hawaii is anticipated to take million dollar loss with
(02:45):
loss of tourism, and Senator de la Cruz was asked
about it, and he said our issues that we haven't
really diversified our economy and we're too reliant on tourism.
So yeah, this is definitely something he is working on
and um, really relevant right now. Absolutely. Um, so yeah,
(03:08):
we will let former Annie and Lauren and the senator
take it away. So I'm Donovan Dela Cruz Aloha. I'm
in the State Senate. I've been in the State Senate
since two thousand ten, and I represent Central Oahu which
is Wahi wah min Lanti Malka and it it's we're
(03:30):
all We're doll first starting. So when I grew up
there were seven thousand acres of pineapple land and Central Oahu.
What was it like growing up with with that weird culture?
So it was it was a norm for us. I
mean we saw pine My grandparents came from the Philippines
to pick pineapple. My dad worked in the field during
(03:52):
the summer when he was growing up. So it's, um,
it's difficult to see that Hawaii hasn't really trying position
into a a much larger diversified agricultural society from pineapple
and sugar, and so, I mean, I think that's potential
there's some land that has been lost because of development.
(04:14):
But it's not that easy just taking pineapple land and
turning into the diversified egg because pineapple requires a different
kind of infrastructure. What are some of the projects and
initiatives that you do a lot of work in environmental
and agricultural policy. What are some of the projects you're
working on right now? So ever since I got to
the Senate, and before I was in the Senate, I
(04:35):
was on the Homele City Council. So when I was
on the council, the city dedicated funds to purchase some
egg land in partnership with the state and the army.
So we've bought about acres of egg land that was
once del Monty Land, the Monty Pineapple which is right
next to the dough land. And we actually finalized that
(04:59):
purchase into the in twelve even though we budgeted for
it in two thousand eight, so it took four years.
And since then I've added more and more money to
the budget and so now we're at about acres of
pineapple land now in the state's ownership. So what that
does for us is now we can provide long term
leases to farmers because any private landowner. They won't normally
(05:22):
hold up land for the long term lease. It will
probably be ten fifteen years maths. Usually you're usually five
years or one year and the farmer can't go to
the banquet that kind of lease. So with the state
purchasing that land providing long term leases, now they can
actually have a business plan, they can go to a bank,
they can get some investment, and the state also offers
(05:44):
rent credits so and invest whatever you invest into the
land for agriculture can actually be credited against your NAST rank.
But we can the States by locking up to sixty
five years long term lease, so that helps. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Is that a normal amount of time or is that
because Hawaii is so uh or a wah who in
(06:05):
particular is so small and so expensive. Well, land in
Hawaii is really expensive. What sixty or five years actually
allows a couple of generations to farm a piece of property. So,
you know, we don't see too many young people wanting
to stay in egg and I'm you know, with a
with a long lease, hopefully that you can inspire some
(06:25):
people to stay within the family business of agriculture. These
are really big and complex issues. How do you how
do you work with the community to figure out what
will Hell, everybody wants something um that they can see immediately.
That's difficult. It's you know, because it takes a while
(06:46):
to get money into the budget to buy land, and
it takes a while to to actually go through the
process of releasing the money spending it by purchasing it.
But we also have to put in money for water infrastructure.
So once we just we have the land, that doesn't
mean they in farment right away. So we got because
Pineapple didn't need water, it was a familiad rain handled it.
(07:07):
And so now when you do diversified egg you have
to put money in for water infrastructure. So we're looking
at a variety of solutions. One solution is actually recycling
water that is in a nearby lake. And we also
bought commercial property so that farmers can process pack where
(07:27):
there's already electricity, water sewer, and hopefully we can create
a critical mass and a clustering of Eggs companies there.
And then the other thing we're producing is a value
added manufacturing training facility, you know, so hopefully we can
get people interested in becoming entrepreneurs to make more juices,
cosmetic products, spirits, candies, cookies, and that can help create
(07:51):
a demand for growing certain products as well. Is it
difficult getting your fellow lawmakers on board with these kind
of policies? So everybody has a different um focus. You know,
some people will focus on human services on homeless, some
people focus on education. Um, I think generally people support eggs,
but with limited funds, it's competing with all these other
(08:11):
pressing needs. So all this land that we've been trying
to purchase is in my district, so I've been trying
to build that inventory up. Hopefully we can get up
to six thousand acres. The other thing we've been trying
to do is do a land swap. But we proposed
a land swap where the state would take private land
for in agriculture and trade that for land that the
(08:32):
state owns along the rail line. So let the private
guys develop around the rail line. They can have that
land and we take we take all the agriculture and
conservation land. That was an idea that we've been drawing
around the legislature. How did how did you decide to
make this your focus? Well, my I mean I think
I tell people pineapple juicing my blood because I grew
(08:53):
up around all the pineapple fields. My grandparents, my parents,
and then my great grandparents came from Puerto Rico and
work in the sugar fields. So agriculture has been in
my family for the five generations. I mean, my great
grandparents came in nineteen one to Hawaii. Can I ask
what kind of foods great? Growing up? Oh? I did
(09:13):
eat pineapple. I mean to the point where I didn't.
I stopped eating another because it was so acidic. Yeah,
now it's not. Now I can drink it and eat it.
I mean, you know, Frankie's pineapple here is really sweet.
So pineapple has evolved a little bit. Um. I mean,
we would eat a lot more avocado than I didn't.
You know, people would trade, would see light and we
would see oranges mountain apple here different in Hawaii, but
(09:36):
people would trade a lot. People would have a lot
of fruit trees in their yards. I guess now because
you have certain kinds of development, people don't have room
for fruit trees. And I don't know if people want
to take care of them either. Yeah, it's it's a
lot of work, and so hopefully that culture changes. Is
there a dish that tastes like home to you? My well.
(09:58):
I ate a lot of Puerto Rican food when I
was growing up because my grandmother would make Puerto Rican food,
so I would always like patels and fanduty rice. And
last last night I eat a loud, loud plate at Zippies,
you know, And I think every local person, if your local,
you love Max Sally and Hawaii fried rice. I think
it's very different than any other areas fried rice because
(10:21):
we just throw a lot of different things in there.
So I'd rather have I'd rather eat fried rice and
white rice. It's a lot more interesting and taste cood.
We have some more of our interview, but first we
have a quick break for word from our sponsor, and
(10:46):
we're back. Thank you sponsor. Let's get back into the interview.
But about twenty years ago, when I was, right before
I got in the city council actually wrote these guide
books to hold in the Wall restaurants, and so it
talked about on these unique delicate testings that were could
only be found in Hawaii, and those slowly disappeared so
you only have a few left. It was called because
(11:09):
you're hungary. This is twenty years ago, but um so
the delicate testing would be a buffet line of different
types of noodles, different types of meats, different types of
fish and prepared differently. And what was unique about it
is it would be all different based on different ethnic groups.
So you would see Filipino style cooking, Chinese style cooking,
(11:30):
Japanese style cooking, and those are all the different ethnic
groups that came to White to work in the sugar
pineapple and you would just pick and choose. Oh, I
want that must to be I want that cornpy fash,
I want this sausage, I want that that there would
be our bento box, and so growing up, we would
always want to go to the okazuya to go get
a bento box for our field trips. I mean that
was like a special treat that sounds so good. How
(11:54):
else have you seen the food community develop and evolved?
M I mean since you were growing up, but also
since you have been involved in the government. Well, there's
been a lot of changes, I mean with food safety,
with financing, with water infrastructure, and now you see a
lot more greenhouse production. You see production within buildings, not
(12:15):
even greenhouse within buildings, and so AG is changing too,
So you really have to focus a lot and for
for curriculum wise. Wherefore students they got to understand how
to work the greenhouse, how to program the greenhouse, how
to manage it, and they got to figure out a
business plan of what what crops they're going to specialize in.
So it's not I think it's evolved so much. Especially
(12:36):
now Hawaii brand you can explort quite a bit. Yeah,
I mean is that cool? Is it? Is it a
good influx of money into the system. Well, if you look,
if you have a good value added product that is
good quality, good brand, you can you can make a
niche for yourself. I mean we've seen ice cream sandwich
shops that's locally made on the North Shore, or this
(12:58):
one shop called uber Factory that we these little little
bit cookies and they sell out. I mean they sell
out and they they're they're very interesting. They don't want
to grow too big because they don't want to make
the product too generic. They want to keep it unique.
And yet they make enough money where they can buy
a house, they can travel. You know, they're not a
(13:18):
struggling farmer. So we gotta figure out how to get
farmers to become more revenue generating, and that can be
assistant with more value added products. Are you involved with
the Food and Wine festival? Yeah, I mean the state
supports it. And you know, one of the things that
I really like about what Denise has been doing is
she tries to take an emerging crop so that we can,
(13:39):
like I'll give you an example of bread fruit for
Columbun guy, and they'll give it to all the participating
chefts to come up with recipes so that the local
palide because more familiar with it, so we can start
to scale up these crops. I mean, I know oftentimes
Alan Wong will use vote and any all these different
festivals to people interested and change their perception. Talakia was used,
(14:04):
you know, sunfish, so that we can figure out, really
how can we grow more locally, have that kalep for
it so that we don't have to import. I have
two questions related to that. The first is Denise was
telling me that you're trying to grow mama mamakei mamake
t Yeah. Yeah, and she said that I should ask
(14:25):
you about this experience. So we have we have about
fifty trees in my yard now and so we've been
processing MAMAKEI. We've been growing it, cutting it, processing it
and we've actually started wholesaling it. So it's a lot
of work. I mean, it took a long time to
figure out a system so that you can be efficient.
We're probably not making money yet, but we got to
(14:47):
figure it out so that we can actually have a
sustainable business. But it's it's it's local, it's unique to Hawaii.
It's very healthy for you, and it's the demand is growing.
And the other thing I'm trying to grows. But they
luck that it finally started to flower after a couple
of years, and so the flower only lasts a couple
(15:08):
of hours, so you need to self pollinate that. And
at first I think I was doing it wrong because
it's not that easy to figure out, but then a
neighbor who also has vanilla, taught me how to do
it and it's been working. So now that flowers have
been dying on the vine, because if the flower, if
it dies and it falls off, that means it didn't pollinate.
(15:29):
But if it dies on the vine, that means it pollinated.
So you'll see the dead flower start to turn into
a bead, you know, turn black. Could you tell us
more and more about the tea, what's all like flavor
and profile. It's healthy. It does taste a little I
mean to some people a little earthy, but it's very
(15:50):
much I mean for a lot of local people. I
mean they find medicinal dies and it helps your blood
freshure for some people helps clean you out. But it's relaxing.
It doesn't have caffee, so for people who have like
pipe blood pressure, they don't need any more caffeine. They
don't want to get excited. It's a good tea. It's relaxing,
and you can mix it with other things. Sometimes I
(16:10):
mix it with lab and then when I make it.
But it's hard to process because it's such a fine leaf.
Once it's dry, it can turn into powder if you
if you process it too fast, and then the powder
is not good for tea bags. It'll it'll end up
clogging the tea bag. So we have to we found
that's part of our process and so we had Now
I have to go buy a sifting machine. So we're
(16:33):
processing the tea. We have the tea down, We're going
putting the tea in a sifting machine so we can
take out the powder. And now I'm trying to figure
out another product that we can make with the powder.
Trying to figure it out. Why why did you decide
to start to start growing it? Well, I wanted to
be an ext I've been telling people for nine years
and we need to start these things, and very few
(16:54):
people have made a go of it. A lot of
people have you talked about it? So I figured you
don't and I'm just gonna do it and we'll see
if it may get work. Lead by example. Yeah, So
it's called Kailani Brew because it's a little street. There's
a street on Inha where I live named Kilani Avenue.
So I just need the Kilani Brew and Kilani and
(17:15):
Hawaiians heavenly tea. So it's Killanni Bru Mamaki team. So
we need more. So we're planning on negotiating a larger
lease for about an acre so we can grow more tea.
So I'll give you something next time you come. Yeah,
I'll send it to you some of the things. I
(17:37):
feel like you've touched on some of this already. But
what do you find or some of the you need
challenges and benefits of being on an island when it
comes to food law and policy and what you do.
So we should be able to replace a lot more importance,
(17:57):
there's no doubt. But we just have to scale things
up and we have to match the demand for with production.
And so if we even just our own schools, hospitals,
look at that the state owns Brisons airports. If the
state made a commitment to say we're only gonna buy local,
then local farmers know that they'll have a consistent customer,
(18:18):
which will help them plan and which which will help
other people say well, I'm out going that business now
because it's more predictable. So we gotta figure out a
way to make agriculture more predictable with all these different systems.
And then that that base, once it's revenue generating, helps
us to go into other things and take more risks.
But Hawaii, besides that, Hawaii is such a strong brand
(18:38):
that we could do a lot more value added, you know,
and we we get in ten million visitors a year,
so a lot of it doesn't even have to be shipped.
Ten people coming through a year, we could sell a
lot of value added products. Yeahs, are you are you
working on any projects to that end? And he said,
(18:58):
you have a lot of things going on working with
the university that I mentioned to do a value added
manufactured processing facility. A couple of us went to New
Zealand we saw they had those food little pilot areas
where you could go in with a recipe and they'll
help you figure out your value added product with your
business plan. So we're trying to create a curriculum and
I know Denis is as well. They're working with the
(19:19):
high schools to come up with classes on that. How
do you come up with concepts of value added products
developing in and become an actually coming up with a
business plan. And we have good examples now, I mean
Big Island Candies and if you've been there, but they
exploit quite a bit and they're well known. They're here
in the mall, so if you have time, you can
go look at the Big Island Candies. But we could
(19:40):
do more. I mean, I think there's so many niches
that we could find. And it's a good it's a
great climate growth things. Yeah, there's so much here that
I knew there was a lot of products, things that
I wouldn't find necessarily ground where I am from South.
But there's like a lot more then I anticipated. There's
so much you can go see, like the lavender thing
(20:03):
blew my mind, Like I've never even considered where lavender
comes from. Yeah, well we can't do other things. We
can do vanilla, we could do cameo. You know, our
climate is such a we can grow a lot of
different things because we have so many different micro climates.
We just need more entrepreneurs to kind of take those
ideas and make a bowl of it. And then if
(20:25):
the state can figure out a way how we can
provide incentives so we can allow some predictability and allow
people to take risk. Its all of those investments, and
that's something that we should consider. How we can help
provides jobs, you know, increases our diversity of product, and
hopefully it enhances the visitor experience too. Yeah, as you said,
(20:46):
so there's ten million people come through tourists ten million
a year. Wow, it's so population about we're one point
four million people. And I would say, and from of
the people who've talked to you, it sounds like Hawaii
is becoming more of a food and drink destination where
it hadn't necessarily been that before. Would you say that's
(21:09):
actually yeah, I mean, especially with the rise of hawaii'sional
cuisine about twenty years ago. Um, and the visitor bureau. Really,
they used to do all kinds of promotions, sending strips
around the world. I think social media has changed that
a lot too, because then people can access it and
see it a lot more and there's a lot more competition.
I mean, now we have the the Culinary Institute kind
(21:31):
of creating pathways for for aspiring shifts, and you can
even a grocery you can see just this grocery store.
It's not the same kind of grocery store we grew
up in. I mean it's like part restaurant. You know,
this food contest in the restaurant. Who would have thought that, right, No, never,
So it really has evolved a lot. It's more participatory.
(21:52):
There is a little bit more of this interview left,
but first we've got one more quick break for we're
sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsor, and back to
the interviews. Is there anything in particular you're excited about
(22:13):
in the future and projects for yourself for Hawaii at large?
Your well, I mean, if we can create more entrepreneurs
so that we can get more local people to stay
and not move away, and more people to make a
living wage and they can stay in Hawaii and have
a good quality of life. But we it all it's
all part of systems that we've gotta build, coordinate and support.
(22:37):
But you know, it'll take one step at a time
because I always been home, Like did you always know
that you were going to I mean, if we had
this word in hole in Hawaii, it's a Hawaiian word
called kuliana. And if anybody, I mean, I'm sure a
lot of people talking about aloha maybe hold po kuno,
but I mean one of my favorite Hawaian words is
actually cooliana. And that's what's your obligation, what's your responsibility?
(22:59):
What's your commitment to either your family, to your community,
to your neighbors. And I feel like that's my my
kuliana intu turn my community into a better place for
the future, so that people can have a better quality
of life, not just young people, but people aging in
place too, you know, because food is evolving so much.
(23:19):
Where with a with a large geriatric population, I even
food has to kind of change a little bit to
match that. And Hawaii has a has a high percentage
of an aging population. So the Japan so to as
the US, so they were like a good gateway for
that kind of innovation. You know, we just have to
own that space. I mean, there's so many opportunities with energy, food, aging.
(23:44):
We just have to be a lot more aggressive in
in these ideas of how we're going to become globally
competitive or relevant. Well, hopefully you guys take some time
to go to a lot of hole in the wall restaurants.
So I mean, if you ever if you need some ideas.
But there's some restaurants that I know, I forgot the
name off the top of my head, but it's in
(24:05):
my second book, The Puka Guy. So what happened with
that was after we did The Casu Guy, we were
at All Dames, which no longer exists, and we were
at we know, we're book signing and people would say, well,
what's your next book, and so we're like, oh, what's
our next book? So we came up with The Buka Guy,
which means uka and Hawaiian means hoole. It's a hole
in the wall restaurants they didn't mean. And then the
(24:25):
last book was called The Omiaga Guy. So that's gifts,
like we're cookies, candies, mantafua. So it's all these little
things that make Hawaii unique. It's a small restaurants, a
small family restaurants around the corner. That's that you can't
find any place else. So if you that's the kind
of thing, I hope you guys can take a little
tour on and find find more on those. That brings
(24:48):
us to the end of this our second full interview
released from our trip to Hawaii. I love how at
the very end, that's when we found out he has
We knew he had a book like of Whole in
the walls. He was our people, our people, and we
kept running into that, and so many people we we
(25:08):
talked to while we were in Wahu of just this
eagerness to share all of the places that they love,
all the food and drinks that they love, and the
fact that he had a whole. It used to be
his thing and he's like, oh yeah, I'll give to you.
Gotta make sure. He was like, hold on, how much
longer are you here? Okay, hold on, we can do this,
we can make this happen. And as a busy senator,
(25:31):
I just appreciate so much he was like, no, I want,
I really want you to go check out and just yeah,
and all of the time that he took out of
his day to come and speak with us, UM, so
thank you so much to him again and and again
to the Yam and Co Cheese for forgetting in touch.
Yes yes, and the wonderful okable, so wonderful and so madness.
(25:55):
We loved it. Um. If you would like to email us,
we would love to hear um you. Our email is
Hello at savor pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
savor pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
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(26:18):
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way
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