Stories in The Kohala Center Leaflet
Seed Initiative: Hawai‘i Seed Savers Come Together
May/June 2012
First-time gardeners to seasoned seed collectors are connecting through the Hawai‘i State Public Seed Initiative (HSPSI) to create, nurture, and sustain the foundation of our state’s food supply. Coordinated by The Kohala Center’s Nancy Redfeather and Seed Basics Workshop Coordinator Lyn Howe, the HSPSI seeks to increase the collective capacity of the community on the art and science of growing crops for seed, seed saving and storage, and on the selection and development of varieties adapted to local growing conditions.
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A New Generation of Seed Savers
March/April 2012
The Kohala Center is offering five student scholarships as an incentive for young gardeners to take the next step and become participants in the plant breeding process. —Nancy Redfeather, Coordinator, Hawai‘i State Public Seed Initiative The Kohala Center is offering a Seed Basics Workshops for Farmers and Gardeners on O‘ahu at the Lyons Arboretum on Saturday, March 24, and Sunday, March 25, with an optional farm tour on Monday, March 26.
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Seed Workshops on O‘ahu and Maui
January/February 2012
In November 2011, The Kohala Center launched the Hawai‘i Public Seed Initiative with a two-day Seed Basics Workshop and optional farm tour on Kaua‘i. Forty farmers and home gardeners attended and were presented with a wealth of information on how and why to save seed.
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Save Our Seed
November/December 2011
The first in a statewide series of workshops for farmers and gardeners on seed saving was held on Kaua‘i earlier this month. Future workshops are planned for Maui, O‘ahu, Moloka‘i, and Hawai‘i Island. These two-day workshops, funded by a Ceres Trust grant awarded to The Kohala Center, are designed to create a practical working knowledge of seed growing, botany and biology, selection, harvesting, cleaning, and saving. Each workshop will include hands-on fieldwork.
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Hawai‘i Public Seed Initiative
September/October 2011
This fall, The Kohala Center (TKC) will launch a statewide Public Seed Initiative in Hawai‘i. The initiative will consist of workshops on each of the five main Hawaiian Islands, with two workshops scheduled on each island over the course of the next two years. The goals of the project are to increase the community’s knowledge of and practical experience with seed production.
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Sharing Seed
September/October 2011
Island farmers and gardeners who save seed are invited to attend the annual West Hawai‘i Seed Exchange on Saturday, November 5, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden in Captain Cook. The event coincides with the Garden's annual Arbor Day Plant Give-Away. Farmers and gardeners are invited to bring saved seed, cuttings, huli (taro tops), and corms of food crops that grow well in our home gardens and on our farms.
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A Statewide Seed Initiative
July/August 2012
A group of 110 farmers and gardeners from across the state attended the "Hua Ka Hua - Restore Our Seed" Public Seed Symposium on April 16–19, 2010, at the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort in Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i. The Kohala Center, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and Hilo, and the Organic Seed Alliance and its university partners collaborated to create and host this symposium—the first of its kind in the state of Hawai‘i.
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Hawai‘i Island Seed Exchange
June 2010
Seed savers from around the island are invited to the 8th Annual Hawai‘i Island Seed Exchange from 9:00 am to noon on Saturday, June 19, at the Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden in Captain Cook. “This year’s exchange will be very different from the previous years,” says Coordinator Nancy Redfeather. “Since we just hosted the Seed Symposium last month which created a statewide seed working group comprised of representatives from UH Mānoa, UH Hilo, and the various islands, this year’s Seed Exchange will be more of a planning meeting than a festival,” she says.
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A True Revolution
By Nancy Redfeather Coordinator of Hua Ka Hua Seed Symposium
May 2010
The Kohala Center hosted over 100 farmers and gardeners from around the state, university researchers, and representatives from Organic Seed Alliance at the Hua Ka Hua Seed Symposium on April 17–18. Participants departed with new awareness and knowledge about the importance of seed, and the Symposium laid the groundwork for a future Hawai‘i State Public Seed Initiative. Mahalo to USDA/OREI, Hawai‘i County, and Kamehameha Schools Keauhou-Kahalu‘u Education Group for their support!
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Wild, Domesticated, Bred, and Engineered – Where Did We Begin and Where Might We Go?
By Matt Dillon, Director of Advocacy, Organic Seed Alliance
April 2010
How did a wild, inedible, coastal plant from the Mediterranean Coast develop over thousands of years to exist as both an organic chard and as a biotech sugar beet? In addition to being an aspect of the intergenerational life cycle of sexually producing plants and a vehicle for inheritance of thousands of previous generations of life, seed is also a narrative describing the history of plant and human relationships.
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Hua Ka Hua–Restore Our Seed A Public Seed Symposium
February 2010
Open-pollinated seed is being lost at a rapid rate. In the United States, 95% of seed varieties that were grown in 1900 are no longer available. These varieties were the backbone of the home garden and the market farm for centuries. The Kohala Center has received a grant through the USDA/OREI (Organic Research and Education Initiative) to hold a public Seed Symposium on April 17 and 18 at the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort in Kona.
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