October 26, 2012 (Hawaii 24/7)—U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently announced $18 million in federal funding to support new farmer training and education programs in 27 states. The Kohala Center received a $562,000 grant to create and deliver Kū I Ka Māna, a beginning farmer training initiative. The County of Hawaii is providing the necessary matching funds to secure the USDA grant.
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September 30, 2012 (West Hawaii Today)—It doesn’t matter if you “eat to live” or “live to eat,” plants make up one of the three or four essential parts of our existence. Over millennia of civilization, we have learned to nurture plants in order that we may have some control over our destiny. Seeds, whether for vegetables, ornamentals or fruits provide ways to restart our garden plantings season after season. And if “seeds” is loosely defined, we can include cuttings and other forms of vegetative planting material. Seeds form a chain from the past to the present and a link into the future providing a path and a sense of security as we venture forward. They are the starting point of many good things. Without seeds, the world we know would not exist.
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August 25, 2012 (West Hawaii Today)—Knowledge will be key if Kona coffee farmers are to survive the pesky coffee berry borer, a scientist who has experience with the pest said Friday. Understanding the insect will be the best means for coffee farmers in Kona to continue producing a high quality product, said Luis Aristizabal, a specialist in tropical-agro ecology with the University of Florida’s Mid-Florida Research and Education Center. Aristizabal is a scientist from Colombia, a country that has learned to live with the coffee berry borer that arrived in the late 1980s.
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August 21, 2012 (Hawaii Tribune Herald)—A two-day workshop, “Integrated Pest Management of the Coffee Berry Borer,” will bring pest expert Luis Aristizabal to West Hawaii to share his expertise with local coffee producers. The workshop will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Aug. 24-25, at the Kona Hongwanji Mission in Kealakekua. Hawaii’s coffee farmers are facing a very large threat from a very tiny enemy: the coffee berry borer (CBB). A beetle native to central Africa, CBB is considered the coffee industry’s most harmful pest. Some Kona farms reported losses of over 25 percent last year and there are concerns for this year’s crop. 
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August 18, 2012 (Hawaii 24/7)—A female Hawaiian monk seal apparently decided to observe Friday’s state holiday and rest up at Kahaluu Beach Park. The seal, which experts on the scene said may be pregnant, spent most of Statehood Day napping on the shoreline to the north end of the park along Alii Drive. Park visitors were kept at a distance by ReefTeach and Marine Mammal Response Network personnel, but were able to shoot as many photos as their cameras could handle.
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