Past and Future Seed Sustainability for Hawai‘i - Panel Discussion
Moderator – Dr. Hector Valenzuela, Vegetable Specialist, UH CTAHR
Ellen Sugawara, Moloka‘i ginger farmer/seed collector:
I have been saving seed for 30 years, since my college horticulture professor told me that any good gardener should save seed. I have tried to start a seed saving program on Moloka‘i, but this is really difficult if you don’t have basic knowledge about how to select seed. It is very easy to downgrade seed, but hard to upgrade it. We need to trade seed at all altitudes and microclimates in Hawai‘i so we can stop importing seed. Hawaiian bred seed has become resistant to Hawai‘i’s diseases, whereas imported seed is susceptible to disease and not adapted to Hawai‘i’s climate. We need 100 more people to do this: to find what grows well on your farm and share that seed with other farmers here.
Glenn Teves, UH CTAHR County Extension Agent:
I have worked on Moloka‘i for the past 20 years growing ornamentals and vegetables and raising cattle. Trained breeding experts are invaluable because so many times the untrained eye does not have the body of knowledge to understand what traits to select. Firm tomatoes select away from mosaic virus, for example. You need to know this so that you can make the right breeding choices. A deep connection to plants is critical to do successful breeding.
Seed exchanges encourage farmers to share techniques, knowledge, and seed. We must create opportunities for farmers to interact with one another because volcanoes go off and earthquakes happen. Seeds are critical to our future, but there will be a time when we can’t get them from elsewhere. If you don’t have seed, then you can’t plant the crop and you can’t eat it. We need to continue to breed for heat resistance and other important traits so we have a local source of seed and so that our plants continue to develop their resistance. Seed security and storage is out there in your community, in the farms and gardens of your friends and neighbors.
Paul Massey, Regenerations Botanical Garden, Kaua‘i Seed Exchange:
We are experiencing a garden renaissance on Kaua‘i—there are now 11 community gardens with about 1 new garden starting up each month. At Kaua‘i Community College, 80 students are enrolled in a farmer training program. The community garden network provides training sites around the island for people who can only spend one day per week in training. Soon, a sustainable living center will be built on our college campus, consisting of 10–15 acres of gardens, a living center, a community seed bank, and a facility for growing out of seeds. We need to nurture our relationships with the plants that sustain us—our food plants. A growing network of home gardeners, small farms, community gardens, and community colleges are working collaboratively on food self-reliance and helping us to create a source of sustainable seeds for our islands. We need to reorient toward a Pacific palate. So many plants from the rest of the tropical and sub-tropical world have the potential to sustain us. Through our botanical garden we are hoping to become a conduit for these plants.
Dr. Russell Nagata, Hawai‘i Island County Administrator, UH CTAHR:
Plant breeding is not difficult in concept, but you have to follow through. It’s fun too. You can personalize your plants through the breeding process. There are lots of folks who can help you. Our governor says that food security is important, but the budget for CTAHR is being cut. People forget what it’s like to be without food; people complain about food prices, but they forget what it’s like to have nothing to buy on the shelf. Older people who lived through the Depression remember what it’s like to live without enough food.
Jill Wagner, Hawai‘i Island Native Seed Bank:
I have worked for many years at various elevations on restoration of Hawaiian ecosystems. Wildfires, land development, and grazing have decimated Hawai‘i’s dryland forests so that only 2% of these habitats remain. These were once the dominant ecosystem in West Hawai‘i. To rebroadcast native seeds we collaborated with the Hawai‘i Wildfire Management Organization to create a seed bank. This facility for the storage of native seeds has been in existence for only a year and a half. The National Park Service, Ka‘ūpūlehu Dryland Forest, Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden, DLNR, and the Nature Conservancy are all working together to collect and save native seeds. My job is to go out into the field and collect seed. I dry the seed and store information about this seed in a database.
For the most part, anyone who wants seed can get it freely. A committee of representatives from the participating organizations reviews seed requests. We also share information about saving, storage, and propagation of common native seeds. We also save seed for the National Park—rare seeds, or even common seeds for those who don’t have means to store seed at their own homes. Our seed bank is Hawai‘i Island specific. It is appropriate to have a similar seed bank on each island.
It is very important to think about the long lived species—the trees. Food crops should be intertwined with an environmental ethic to preserve the land in the long-term, including the restoration of native trees.
Ray Uchida, O‘ahu County Administrator, CTAHR:
In my former role as director of cultural and fertilizer practices for AMFAC, I managed five sugar plantations. I helped develop drip irrigation for the sugar industry, which raised yields and cut back fertilizer use. We maintained the largest nursery in the country at one time. But once the sugar plantations shut down, all the State agencies working on agriculture also shut down. UH hired me to write a book for extension agents to help them better understand Hawaiian soil fertility. Over the years, the UH Seed Bank has been getting less and less money, everyone has retired and no replacements have been hired. I have taken on all their positions myself—feed and forage, tissue culture, and vegetable crops. I have single-handedly maintained the Seed Lab by utilizing our farms on Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, and Hawai‘i to produce seeds. We have been able to maintain all of our existing seeds. But we would like to learn about new varieties, publicize them, and share seeds.
Greg Smith, Ka‘u market farmer/former seed grower:
I have been farming for 20 years. I consider myself lucky to have my hands in the soil every day. In Hawai‘i we need to change our 90% imports balance. To do this we need to be able to grow a lot more food and more vegetables. We have a huge need for more farms, farmers, outlets, distribution networks, and successful model farms. I sell everything that I can grow—there is simply not enough competition here and not enough farmers. In Hawai‘i, we can grow food and make money, too. There is a huge demand for local food. We need to grow more food, so we can make this island sustainable.
Alton Arakaki, Moloka‘i County Extension Agent, UH CTAHR:
I attended Ka‘u High School in the plantation community of Pahala, where everybody saved seeds. There, saving seed was part of community life, to ensure that you had fresh vegetables. My parents saved seed in their safe. When the sugar company broke down the plantation camps and people moved to the main town, we started sharing seeds between the camps. What we are doing here is not new. I’ve been working for many years with taro. We have been having field days for 25 years now, trading taro. Carbohydrates have been my interest for a long time. This food group, which includes taro, sweet potatoes, and yams, are our biggest source of energy. We need to pay particular attention to this food group. The best way to make sure the taro plants survive is to get them out to as many people as possible.
Of the 12 soil orders in the world, Hawai‘i has 9 of them! Soils are created via climate. In Hawai‘i we have 190 soil series—all of these pockets of different soils interacting within different climate pockets. You need to know your soil pocket in order to identify which varieties to grow. Similar soils have similar climates, which is key in deciding which varieties to grow where. Plants in Hawai‘i are adapted to a very specific area. Knowledge of this sort can and will sustain us.