hello everyone so i live five minutes away from here in a trick me fifteen minutes to find the room so it seems like we're the best kept secret candidate forum here in the county i want to thank you all for being here  is there anyone outside of the campaign that's here ok good i make great so we're starting late and  i wanted this to share a few things but i'm going to not share as much as i wanted to share because we are starting late i'd like to get this thing going so we all get home at a decent hour this this election is very important to us this represents our agricultural future the people that are going to be in office voting on our agricultural future and i don't know if you folks know this but basically as a state or  state we support agriculture to the tune of point four percent no way i made a mistake this year they lowered it from point four percent to point three eight percent and in the same breath they're saying food security so it doesn't feel very secure to me as a farmer to hear that and my family and i we've been farming here since nineteen ninety three and we produce last year we produce twenty one thousand pounds of food for the community on two thousand square feet so unless we were that efficient to produce that much food  people are saying why aren't you more acreage is because the government doesn't support me to be on more acreage so this is really serious stuff a lot of what you're eating here tonight is grown here locally and as you notice in tasting it tastes really commons here in the spirit of being able to grow our food here locally so we started as an organization in actually in two thousand and nine but really in two thousand and ten march of two thousand and ten we had our first meeting on maui and now we have ten chapters across the islands and about nine hundred members so we are growing exponentially and we're fortunate to know that we have not only farmers but gardeners and foodies alike who value our mission and what we're what we're about in rejuvenating our lands and also at the same time advocating for our local food production so what we've done as an organisation is put together a five point plan you'll hear about that five point plan tonight in our questions and that five point plan basically deals with the whole system of agriculture what makes up the whole system of agriculture and as we see it is workforce development and we're working on that right now in the spirit of having programs and grants in place to support that through the county called family farm apprentice mentoring so we can mentor those who are passionate like i was at forty years old getting into farming didn't know what i was doing i was a gardener you know but i had the passion and that's what i still have today and that's what's can sustain our family farm along with my wife's passion and our son who works full time on the farm and our daughter who came out of it actually she designs and fabricate her own women's swimwear line so here she grew up in a farm family knew about being an entrepreneur and she went and got to go work for somebody else you know and design has her own business in that respect so there's a lot of benefits to our economy that represents a family farm the multiplier effect we like to call it so outside of work workforce development we support agricultural land trust we to see land trust created here on the island where people like myself at that age could affordably work the land and have their work in trust in the spirit of any equity they put in through their labor they can get out once they get it and that would be enforced in a way that we wouldn't have any quote unquote gentleman estates they would be active farms and so we have a man in our organization who's actually a board member of our five hundred one c three foundation tailbone our has been advocating advocating and working on developing that third thing is new treat recycling centers we're developing and advocating for those in our regions c the reason why we have so many chapters is because we want to build our agricultural strength regionally we want to you know when you're growing things in hama it's a lot different than you're growing in line where james is right now you know and so each region has its own issues and its own challenges and its own benefits and we want to highlight those and bring that to where we can have a supportive system in place so nutrient recycling our nutrients back on to the land to rejuvenate the soils that have been depleted by plantation agriculture over a long period of time is an important aspect of what we represent and the fourth thing is food hubs have aggregates places where we can as farmers bring all our produce and then have that aggregate out whether it's fresh and  or value added so we can put a white moniker on it and put it anywhere on the planet you know and then we have our original labeling protecting our engines where things are grown and how they're grown  and it's so beautiful to see these kind of farms these boutique farms springing up all over the place so it's important that we support our farmers first and foremost making a living at what they love to do and secondly to put across five point plan and you the folks that are running for office they can get into office to support us in this respect because we're poised to work with anyone who is willing to work with us so on that note i'd like to introduce our first slate of candidates tonight it is the upcountry don't walk in front of the speaker  surprise me ok laura first question is going to deal with workforce development should i be introducing myself i think we invite you is candidates to take a minute to introduce yourself first maui i have a strong connection to not just of that place but the people as i've been a teacher and in that area serving the country area specifically the hollow doesn't just in compass students from our country however a student from practically every district in our county including and they drive every week to come to a lot of country i'm really excited to be her tonight you know seven years ago i started my program at sea very hard and where we cultivated law and in the air and found success and you my name is stacy moni and i am also from maui i have several generations my japanese side my great grandfather emigrated here from kumamoto my portuguese side my grandfather and grandmother emigrated from my dad but you that's my cultural background and i for the last thirty years have been an advocate for this community working primarily in domestic violence but domestic violence doesn't happen in a vacuum it's a lot of the community issues things like poverty homelessness housing all the different effects of of you know living on an island community and the cost of living and all those kinds of things i've been running women helping women as executive director for the last fifteen years about a one point five million dollar budget that i operate and manage every year twenty six employees on two different islands and six locations so it's a pretty big job so i think i'm well qualified to become your next county council member for a country i also have a small garden or i joined the y farmers union recently because they said even a small garner would qualify and i'm very grateful i know on a very small scale what farmers experience on a large scale aside from the having to make a living at it so i'm not doing it on that level i'm just trying to raise enough tomatoes for my grandson to eat every morning so i am here mostly to learn to i'm glad to know that the white farmers union is relatively young and so i'm not too far behind the curve and i'm grateful to be here so thank you so much i have a quick question do we have a time or anyone ok so our candidate should be directed to watch our timers then very good thank you any organization which is a first for me in quite a number of years but i am definitely looking and so anyway to launch right in our first question is going to be about workforce development sorry for the false start on that and there are comment on that is that with the average age of farmers in hawaii it at sixty we can all agree we need to grow a new generation of farmers equipped with the skills to create successful farming position of or future position in county government in support of farmer producing programs are there program specifics you would want a beginning firm or farmer program to have in order to win your support programs are there program specifics you would where you want a beginning firmer program to have in order to win your support are there specifics you think the program should have ok thank you first of all i think that's such a wonderful program and very very timely i don't you know with age cns going out of business and with the need for us to sustain ourselves and our food supply here i think it's really time that you folks are doing that farmers an apprenticeship program also having gotten grants from the county i know that they have a lot of requirements but i think when you're looking at a program like this you're looking at something new and something different so i think everyone could come with a different set of goals and they might all be very very worthy right because you might have somebody who's trying to create a farm you might have somebody who are who has a farm was trying to get a bigger farm you might have somebody with a big farm that's trying to invest in and infrastructure more  equipment or something like that so i think those kinds of grants shouldn't be too restrictive because you need to be able to be creative with new projects so i would support that because i think the need is here and it's huge question and the statement and i think of the programs that we have in place programs that we grew up with like f if a and things like that i noticed as an adult i don't see as much participation when we were in much anymore and that's something that we need to start to support more in our schools to support our fund i'd like to see that apprenticeship programs incorporate alternative farming practices i think most of our programs focus on those practices that are plentiful and mean shame and i think we're seeing the trend of farming changing throughout the world and it's important that when we educate our children that they are equipped with those new practice backgrounds thank you thank you very very much you don't need to repeat just the last few sentences please ok  i'll repeat the last sentence in your position our future position in county government in support of pharma farm apprenticing programs are there programs specifics you would want a beginning farmer program to have in order to win your support absolutely absolutely in my thoughts in a farm apprenticeship program in any apprenticeship program is importance of diversity in their training as a young farmer you never know what's going to happen what crops are going to change what the needs are going to be where the market's going to head if i were to look at and support a good farm apprenticeship program it would not be just a workers program i would like to make sure that there would be different cross trainings in crop maintenance crop diversity in pest control in soil maintenance which is a big issue that will be discussing in a little bit and especially i think a lot of people when they think about farm apprenticeships they think about manual labor so i that's why i would like to see more training and more education in the program so that the farmers that we produce are going to be able to accept and be able to deal with some of the change in diversity in the market thank thank you all our next question is strangely enough on the same theme only it's about nutrient cycling centers and soil health and regenerative agriculture so our lead in comment currently many of our hawaii farmers months purchased imported nutrient farm amendments is an expense for farmers that's passed down to the consumer in the meantime we accept twenty thousand tons of food waste at the maui county dump that could be a valuable indigenous composting the tiriel so the question for each of you it's a one minute question and i guess we will start with this time right do you see any barriers that are currently in the way of getting nutrients under way and what can you help do to alleviate those burials barriers in other words why are we using the stuff that's going to the dump and how can you help i think one of the barriers is definitely that many of our leaders are not maybe not privy to the background of all the different farming practices in the last two years of my degree i focused on the anthropology of agriculture and how different countries throughout the world are now reverting back to their indigenous agriculture systems in brazil in korea and learning that the system that worked all along was the best system for the place which makes perfect sense but we've been i think in a in a place where we've only did it one way for so long that maybe i open to looking at alternative methods and until we start to elect leaders that are educated and are experienced in these places and then we start to put know has i believe requested a million dollar grant from the county just start developing these centers and i say costs because land is going to have to be designated for this once that happens we're going to have to go through the permitting process for the county of maui on the issues of this  soil health and recycling i think that's going to be a big issue one of the biggest barriers i think is going to be dealing with businesses and companies that are producing this mazing amount of waste and how we're going to get them to cure the extra costs to distribute this and get this to the soil recycling centers with that i think one of the most interesting parts about this in the solar health is as we're dealing with the land that alexander and baldwin is about to transition over to farmers and the soil health of this contaminated land  soil that we're going to have to regenerate to get to be able to start building or get so don't forget what would you do to alleviate the problem what i would do is as your next county council member i would work with different parties to help deal with these cost issues to help designate the land to help work with the organizations again that are producing this food waste to get to the site and to help this story regeneration probably you know thank you very much all right we're moving over here to stac we have multiple hotels here who do these huge catering jobs and have all this extra food and i actually know that because sometimes the food ends about our shelter when it's good but you know there's all this byproduct you know when you're prepping food all that stuff there's so much food just from the hotels and catering companies that could end up in composting that makes perfect sense to me i think part of the problem and the barrier is that we similar  we don't know better yet like we're just learning about that that we could take all that food and turn it into wonderful rich soil is it's not a new concept by any means is a very old concept but we've gotten used to doing things in a agricultural way versus in a farming way and so i think that that's a big piece that's missing so what's missing is awareness so i would work with you folks and with other people that are doing the regenerative soil building to educate us as county council and as leaders throughout the state about the importance of that thank you thank you very much all of you thank you i don't know if we mention this this race actually has four people running but we don't have one here tonight so on your ballot you going to see four names but three of them showed up what can i say we need an empty seat ok food helps across the nation food hubs are becoming solutions for centralizing food processing and distribution increasing food production capabilities for small farmers by paving the way for reducing farmer costs our age if you you chapters see this as an opportunity for creating farming cooperatives such as ac d c energetic by nature ac d c s our agricultural community development cooperatives our five point plan is working with the state wide farm to school initiative for growing food for the dio we school lunch program all three of you you have one minute please describe benefits you can imagine for the citizens of maui that would result from the maui county facilitating in funding a food hub let me repeat that please describe benefits you can imagine for the citizens of maui that would result from maui county fishermen up there selling for fresh fish you've got people growing and cooking with their own food and and selling wonderful fresh food at the market so something like that i i also think that oh and one of the biggest things that happened for my family is this fresh eggs you know getting our gannett eggs that cost goes great by getting locally grown eggs that are all different sizes and colors and and when there's a huge difference so that was an education for me and you know one of my things that i'm i keep saying is you know i grew up in a time where things were different and going to the supermarket became a luxury and that if you had any status you go to the market you don't have to have your own chickens but we're reclaiming that now and i think now that we know better we need to do better and so that's my thing i always want to buy fresh eggs thank you you yes and this is of course about food developing a system and i'll repeat that question please ascribe benefits you can imagine for the citizens of the citizens of maui that would result from maui county facilitating and funding a food hub we have this food hub would have like a commercial kitchen it have ways for things to be products to be created so if we don't have anything like this right now to speak of literally know if it's my connection as a practitioner the benefits for i children and our community to to be able to access and eat from this is insurmountable to be able to feed our not just something to keep my stomach full but there's something to sustain us many different levels and so to be for the county to be able to to the processing and to support the food is something i would definitely like to support as a council member it's a step in the direction we need to move in the direction of being sustainable as a community food  community of those i just some of the benefits thank you eric should i repeat that for you know i think i got it thank you for the question is i'm very passionate about this i was reading a statistic recently that back in the one nine hundred twenty s in america there were no grocery stores so just less than a hundred years ago we did not have grocery stores and what happened people grew their own food people worked on barter systems people were able to have their own food hubs in their communities where they were able to trade and barter their goods for the things they needed why do i think food hubs are important because a food hub for sustainable agriculture and healthy organic g m o free food is so important all of its basis because to develop food you have to develop individual organic forms or local farms not just organic with that you have to develop the workforce training that would be involved with that education for these people this is part of the five point plan for the farmers union in my mind to bring apart this new change in our agricultural system and how we view our food how what we eat and how we eat it so i would be completely for developing these food hubs for the idea of training apprenticeship programs bringing healthy food into our community and developing through the county of maui ways that we can use and certify these are getting farms so that a food can be given so we're going to switch to policy a little bit and we're going to have a separate question for each of you we have specific questions with each of you in mind our topic is the farm land zoning and affordable land trusts in other words  kind of some new concepts we have ag zoning but we don't really have anything that is taking it from egg to really you know what a small farm might might produce and certainly we don't have anything about farm trusts right now we're starting what up but there's something that is functioning many places but new to maui right now so eric we're going to start with you we're not picking on you but this  this you have two minutes so here's your question our organization supports the concepts of farmers living on the land they farm and lease through an agricultural land trust what ideas would you propose in moving in this direction so that it would be actualized in other words how can we make it so that people can lease farm lands and actually live on them it's a wonderful question it's interesting thing is i think we're looking at with a plan of how we're going to do this it's not just going to happen they're going to start these little individual forms we need to start developing the infrastructure through roads through water water mains electricity that will develop these satellite farm areas once that is developed then we can start developing the housing start developing more sustainable lands that these farmers are actually putting more interest into their land as they're developing the cost and the resources that they can be gained from that as we're developing that we need to look i think we need to look at that first for the zoning aspect of it developing the infrastructure before we can start dealing with the changing of the zoning of the agricultural land to develop workforce housing so i really believe that what needs to be done again through the county council and through the moet  community is to start getting on some big business to say what is your plan especially alexander bald how are you planning on developing this for as you they have stated for use for individual farmland once that is together then i think we can move forward as a group towards a project to develop this changing in the designation of the land to develop workforce housing and to develop sustainable farms thank thank you thank you so much for those of you just coming in this is the upcountry consul see that we are  speaking with right now so these are three of the four candidates for the a country consul seat a stacey you have your own question two minutes what are your ideas for changing eggs zoning that will allow for more options for farm worker dwellings including temporary structures such as the new trend of tiny houses in your i think that's an excellent idea i love the title house idea and i think that we do need to change some of our regulations if you will to allow for that because right now it's kind of complicated you really can't just put up a year you still need a permit if you have a tidy house you need to put it on wheels i mean it's kind of silly but i think that as a county if we're really committed to one affordable housing which we keep saying we are and if we are really committed to farming and growing our food and supporting local businesses these are all very small businesses we're trying to support we keep saying we are and we need to find ways to make that happen and so i would support that i think the concern is that sometimes people will say that it's workforce housing and build a mansion on their land so i think that we would want to monitor that and have an enforcement part of this as well to make sure it's one thing yes we absolutely want to support workforce housing if you're working on the farm that's very important and we all have to have support and housing but there are people have taken advantage of that so i think we need to keep an eye out for that but i would definitely support looking at the at the you know tax raids you know i'm a big proponent of enforcement and watch you know looking at not everybody's paying their fair share sometimes on taxes some people are paying too much some people are not paying enough so to have an a foresman piece to make sure everybody's paying their fair share that's really important to me i think we need to look at that and that that would actually pay for itself pretty quickly i also wanted to say that you know the we have a big housing crisis here so this is a solution i think to several problems  the housing and the ag and the growing food so i think it's a good solutions i'm really glad you're asking those questions thank you thank you have two minutes and your question is completely different given what it costs for the average farmer to rent a house lease farmland pay for equipment pay for imported amendments and import irrigation costs etc in other words there's a lot of cost if you want to farm what do you think it will take to make farming more successful enterprise and what could you do about it if you're elected i think it is going to take the corporation of county and state government to be able to put aside those funds you know in just touching on the other questions i think i believe in order for us to change what is acceptable and that's going to take a change to what you revert by statutes or change to our county charter but that's something as policymakers that is in our power to do and i think we need to be able to look at the policies that have been in place for ever and and reexamine if they truly suit us today and if they don't then we need to look at what our community really needs and funding i would be able to bring different parts of our community together i think one of my strengths is being able to reach out to those who are the experts in their field i readily know that i am not in experts in off field and i am aware of that and i i very much honor and respect the expertise of those people who are experts when i was on the state land use commission i did vote against of very controversial development on awful because threatened to shut down the biggest food producer and i stayed alone fires and the head of the department of agood give us nor assurance that those caps could be duplicated in other sites they could give us no assurance of how much the cost of irrigation would be to develop a new site and so as policy makers as government leaders we need to be able to protect those people who are producing food we need to be able to protect those places that they are currently farming those places that are currently in ag and we need to to put aside those funds and invest if security food sustainability is our goal like water infrastructure like all those things like like housing affordable housing we need to be able to prioritize and give funding to those places thank you so much funny you should mention water that's our next batch of questions and stacy we're going to go with you for two minutes given the risk of corporations controlling public water is definitely a big issue added e m i management of that has been a definitely a big issue i think one of the you asked if the state should own it maybe it should be the state maybe it should be a third party a completely one of the thoughts that i've had is maybe it should be a separate entity that just doing the public trust maybe not necessarily a nonprofit but it could be a nonprofit but it could be a completely separate corporation that runs and maintains that system because right now the the challenge is you know we have a big corporation who has used that water system for its very existence and sugar you know so and they you know they built it and they've maintained it but they've also read their investment many times over so now it's time to share the water with everyone re stores some of the streams that have been you know they've cut the streams off so the life cycles there have completely changed and there are farmers along the way we need to if our commitment is to diversify agriculture we're going to need to share that water if our commitment is to affordable housing we're going to need to share that water if our commitment is to farmers we're going to need to share that water so on many levels i was support someone outside of a big corporation with  invested interests in it owning it maybe it's the state i mean maybe that's the best answer maybe it's a third party i i would like to investigate that more thank you very much ok eric with all the grandiose grandiose ideas for agriculture we are still looking at serious water availability issues that have multiple entities controlling access we also have an old an antiquated delivery system that needs repair and or replacement how do you as a candidate see the needed infrastructure being put in while dealing with the multiple entities out there that wish to control the water should i repeat that was the legislature approved alexander bottom to keep the water rights for the next thirteen years that's a complete travesty that should have that should be immediately really looked at and changed so that we're not it's not under corporate control i believe all of that water and that infrastructure that was built  in my water flume system was all built on the back of the line and local workers and should be given back to the people there's not an issue of water on the island it's the access to the water alexander ball it was a total of eighteen different wells on the plantation which supplies water to the plantation not counting your game and there was water by is everywhere i think we need to get control back of our water system so we can use it to get back to the streams to get back to our the people who need it with that we need to deal with our water quality we have to get back to looking at the old system you know we have great groups at the watershed partnerships we have to make sure that the water coming from the mountain is safe healthy and clean for our farmers to use i think we need to look at it as this top down system  protect our water resources and again to reclaim the water that's here on the island to the people who really deserve it and not the large corporations who abused it thank you thank you your question what steps would you take to protect maui's water resources from being controlled by outside corporate interests i absolutely support the state member state legislator or policy maker but i would definitely like i said one of my strengths is to cultivate good relationships i think we need to urge those that represent us at the state level to move in this direction like i said if if water is our our focus it is i need it's been i need for decades we need to be able to control or that  you know i when i remember going up to michael and taking the hollow and watching all of the thousands of gallons of water just being dumped up  there and not in use and it's it's shameful it's disgraceful when so many people need it that we hear so often about the need of all the different parts of our community that no one entity should be able to waste that way and so i would be very active in looking at the policies that concern this thank you very much once again we each of you will have your own questions that nice so the white farmers union united is actively involved in proving the efficacy of organic and regenerative practices for field practice and economic efficiency with the hope that this would replace currently employed practices that the farmers union doesn't really support so knowing that we have a few questions for you starting with eric what would you do to empower the hawaii department of agriculture in hawaii health department by supporting bills that monitor pesticide drift to protect our health and environment such as things like product testing soil testing runoff testing so we kind of know where pesticides are drifting and going i would completely support that and i think that is that should be the responsibility of these corporations that are spraying these pesticides they need to have adequate reporting with that i think citizens in maui county need to take the helm on that and start doing their own tests there are organizations the department of water supply there's other groups where you can swab your screens i think we need to find out especially if you're living next to an agricultural area where there is spring or you suspect to look at what the chemicals are in the area with that i have to say that i think a lot of it is up to the individual landowner i'm against pesticides you know in my in my career and i have a large stand as a farmer  working with farm flowers with protea for a while i managed to cool a vista protea in cooler which in the seventies was the largest protein farm in the point island and because of marketing aspects we lost our protea growing you're on the island we were out competed with in california and with the new zealand that was a marketing aspect of it but i have to say that when i was working for cool of us the protea me and my coworkers we did walk off the farm because at that time my boss was listening to dow chemical and it was spring safari which stacey one minute again when it's been proven that there are biological applications that can provide solutions to agricultural production issues what is your position on promoting these over practices that use other substances which which are well known hormonal disruptors and possible carcinogens and might cause physical harm to both people and the environment so the question is about if there are proven biological applications what your position on promoting the over you know our business as usual practices again i think it comes back to when you know better and i have to do better so part of the i sat on the resolutions committee for the democratic party last year or last convention two years ago and one of the big things that came up from koichi was that people children were being born with horrible birth defects you couldn't deny it there was such a high level of that that was proving to be connected to pesticides and runoff and things like that and so the party created a position saying that that need to stop that we need to be informed and that people need to know what was happening in their areas because it was so dramatic i would absolutely support that too i think the least that we can expect is to know what's going on in our especially near schools and there are homes near parks and if there are biological ways that will work then we need to look at that if we if there are proven ways then we need to use that instead because i know that there are ways that are we're just not using because we're not being sort of sold by dow chemical you know so i would support alternative ways of pesticide herbicide yes thank you one minute for you in your position in the county council so say you're elected what would you do to move in a direction towards a biological solutions to you know the weeds growing by the side of the road etc etc i think what i can do and what i'd like to do move us in the right their action is is really education and different tests because i think hoey people we're more like show me like i don't want to read it i don't want to read a report of what's happening all across the world if you show me and it works over here and i believe it and so the more we part we put people together that have that experience that ensure our county workers if we're talking about our parks and our our highways our department of parks and rec our our county managing director if we can be able to show through experience through through it works that these these alternative methods and methods that are better for us where then then they're more apt to use them and i would want to create policies to make us use them thank you thank you very much we have one last you one last question and this one's labeled other but it's for all three of you and we'll give you one minute we have noticed that many of the candidates running this year are freshman in a field of potentially seasoned council members how do you see working with others men that may not share you that your values or point of view and how to address our agricultural needs let me repeat that we have noticed that many of the candidates running this year are freshman in a field  potentially seasoned council members how do you see working together with others that may not share your values or point of view in how to address our agricultural needs and eric you can go first one minute again another great question because a lot of again as young council members and we're not just young council members we are all we are group of young individuals who have a desire to be involved in politics and this is our application to the maui community and our opportunity to learn more about the issues and be involved in any kind of negotiations and any kind of a planning there is always a need for mediation because there are always conflicting views as council member my goal would be to be there as that mediator to help bring in different parties to communicate well and to come up with a viable solution to every problem because conflict is part of life and as we're seeing in most election process is right now that this is where we're bringing people together and trying to organize to develop the vision of what we want community to be in the next couple years so again as the next council member i would work through communication through conversation and through information sharing to come up with the most you know and best solution for my county thank you thank you thank our next candidate will be stacy and you want me to repeat that we have noticed that many candidates running this year are freshm in a field of potentially seasoned council members how do you see working together with others that may not share your values or point of view and how to address our agricultural needs first of all i think it's wonderful that there are a lot of new people trying to get into public service because i think that where a testament to the fact that where ready for something different and so i i i think that's wonderful i also think that for most of my career as an advocate i'm working with people who often don't see eye to eye domestic violence was not a very popular conversation in the eighty's when i first started doing this work so we brought this to the public we started having conversations and then we had to engage people to help us in the solution because it was a problem that we couldn't solve by ourselves and sometimes we had very differing opinions and so part of the thing that i'm most proud of is creating collaboration is that we're very effective to work on creating laws that protect victims of domestic violence creating task forces and collaboration's and that work together and bring people in from actually you know sometimes on polarized positions so i think as an advocate i have already had that experience of working with groups of people and i would bring that skill even as a freshman i'm not a rookie at working in groups of people thank you view of how challenging being a candidate is and i think one of the strengths that i have is my background in education to be an effective teacher you need to be able to present the same information a bunch of different ways because you're dealing with students who come from very diverse backgrounds are very diverse communities and so i can't just say one time and hope they all get it i have to say it five times in different ways and hope you all get it and to be able to know what different ways to say it i need to look at you as an individual and see where you come from i want to know where you come from where your background is so i know how best to present it to you so that you can get it so we can get on some kind of common ground you know my my travels in different countries have also helped me to not just present that information to people here in hawaii but but people from different countries and i believe it's my cultural background that helps me to understand those of different cultures and we need to be able to find common ground in order to move forward and i also understand that although we may disagree on one issue the issue doesn't define a person and i think too often we see leadership today that we are allowing one issue to define people and as a wonderful community the community that has helped to raise me we cannot be a little each other to think we are defined by just one issue because where we are more complex than that and we are we're so much better than that also and so i think i've already had experiences with there are people you know i don't agree with  everything but in okinawa we could we could be at the same event i can take them to a car or a bar after you know we can be social we can we can have a conversation you know we don't have to agree on everything i was t by us not agreeing actually speaks to our intelligence you know if we are taught the same then how intelligent would we be you know so this agreement doesn't have to be divisive and i look forward is really exciting to me when i came to the what you find meeting a few weeks ago and listen to speak this whole mentality this whole vision is really exciting like i said i spent the last few years of my education studying anthropology of agriculture and and it's amazing in india we talk about water in india they have a water temple system and this is how they manage their water where the people who designate how that water flows and how much flows are the priests other either they're not government the government and the priests were hand in hand one does not supersede the other and when we think about that in a setting like this is sort of laughable but it exists and it works and i think we need to be able to one be educated on what works in different parts of the world to be able to bring what is the very best home to have we also need to be educated in what always work here  our indigenous systems because we know what what works we know what this i know is made for and we need to be able to consult those experts we need to value that information and that education instead of ignoring it and putting it to the si so i'm very excited about about the vision i'm excited about this movement i'm excited to see what we can do together as a community  thank you very much thank our next responder and i'll repeat that our next responder will be eric and do you have any concluding remarks about your positions on air culture or is there a question you wish you could have been asked and if so please ask it and respond two minutes thank you and yes to both questions i want to say that you know in reviewing some of the  pharmacy and i'm just so impressed with the five point plan because i really believe that is that is a great starting point and it's actually not even starting point it's in the process but how we can actually have sustainable healthy food grown here on the island as a  coming from a century old plantation family a lot of my time here on maui has been spent with the ajna in my past i have worked for going commercial in sugar i've worked with the watershed partnerships i've worked as a state forester for the deal and are again i used to manage kula vista and that even as a farmer other than working with the land i was involved with pesticide issues with land use issues with definitely the water issues that took to keep that farm going and to try and rehabilitate that farm after years of disarray through that through all these experiences i learned so much about the needs of farmers the needs of the land of the needs of businesses to actually survive in a very competitive and a world market again working with some of our flowers were not able to distribute overseas because of being out competed due to marketing aspects that happened in the eighty's way before i got involved those are all heavy issues and later i would love to communicate with everybody to get more ideas to help me understand individual issues to help  me be a better council member what's going on the one answer i want to bring up that i wish to discuss more is the g m o issue yes please because i really think as your council member i would i would definitely support another community movement to thank you very much with that thank you for coming out  you stacy do you have any concluding remarks about your positions on agriculture or is there a question you wish you would have been asked and if so please ask it and respond in two minutes well i really am learning and i'm still doing research in fact i was just saying to some people that i was talking to tonight that i'm still doing my research even as i came in and met some people i've been watching on social media it was a honor to meet some people and i so i'm still doing research i think i've learned so much in my little garden and you know and it inspires me i created a whole program just from a piece of calo that my son got visiting someone's field he brought it back he dropped it in a pot because i didn't have time to grow it yet or to plant it and it shot taproot straight down in like two days it was huge and i said look at how resilient this plant is and it reminded me how resilient people are and so we created this whole program around this one little kahlo and so i learned a lot in the garden i learned a lot from farmers you know that are doing way more than i am but one of the things that i think as a county we should do is support people who want to grow food because sometimes they're i think we need advocates for farmers and i think the county should create that whether it's in the form of a grant writer or in a in the form of an ag department or but some way to support the farmers because you might be really great at growing food and regenerating the soil and doing all the work that needs to go into and maybe not so great at writing a grant you know an r p g just came out which is a request for proposals to grow food for the kids in our schools it's a brilliant idea they were doing it in hanukkah until they got busted and you know you're just like why can't we grow food in hama for the kids and it's so insane but state our peas are very complex and i don't know i'm a grant writer i know how complicated they can be so i feel like the county would do well to higher ground right or to help not just the farmers but in this context certainly the farmers who may not have that skill set so i would like to see more advocacy for people like the farmers who need that level because there's money out there we just need to know how to get it so  happens to our food and how we house our people is very important to me and these are the things that have prompted me to write this term so i thank you for being here and to listening to our responses oh cat or a french frigate shows i look around the room and in the interest of full disclosure i need to point out that our moderators have both been that neri clients of mine i look around the room and i see numerous people who i have provided that mary services for over the years i decided to run for the county council because i have been involved with agriculture for forty years as a veterinarian providing services for cattle horses sheep goats and all the small animals you can name as well as wildlife i'm looking forward to the election thank you we begin with our question on workforce development the comment on those the prefatory con that is with the average age of farmers in hawaii and sixty we can all agree we need to grow a new generation of farmers equipped with the skills to create successful farming enterprises the whole y farmers union united maui chapters farmer am program is about to begin its third year with county funding and you have one minute to answer this if it if they if you were to come to the council budget and finance committee asking that our f a i m program be a permanent line item in the budget demonstrating ongoing county support for growing now wese new generation of farmers what issues would you want to raise before making such a decision in committee dr kaufmann thank you for such a specific question if you want a new generation of best thing the government can do is get out of the way in preventing and putting up obstacles to that how many of you in this room have a farm plan or had written a farm plan if you're a farmer living on ag land you have a farm plan i expect to see more and i have a farm plan your net do you have a farm plan i don't have a farm that's all right you've got a family i do too and those are wonderful things every year you have to write up your farm plan how much money are you going to make for the next five years as a farmer and the answer is well who knows is it going to rain is it going to flood what is it going to do and what are you go do with all these pieces of paper putting them in a filing cabinet and all the work i've done to create that what happens with it probably absolutely nothing it just sits there doing nothing my farm planting everybody's farm plan our founding fathers of the united states farm plan was straightforward we intend to not starve to death so we're going to make enough food to eat it is yellow my time's up or is it a warning i've got two more fifteen more seconds that's a lot well that's my farm plan i don't want to starve and i want to get rid of the paperwork that i have to turn in that proves it thank you for farmer print a smattering programme be a permanent line item in the budget demonstrate demonstrating ongoing county support for growing maui's new generation of farmers what issues with you want to raise before making such a decision in committe with a farmer apprenticeship mentoring program i would like to see the benefit not only in growing a new base of farmers but also in sustaining and growing the farm land that we utilize to apprentice these farmers what i would like to see is partnerships with land trusts are growing land trusts i would like to see partnerships with small farms in the sense that these small farms are actively provide back to the program and to the community not only the food that we all like to eat but but that workforce that will be knowledgeable will have hands in the ajna no matter where they're at and we'll know specifically the types of things that we need here leigh and be able to take that forth and i'd like to see further that there are supports after this mentorship program so that we can continue to support those young farmers until they get to a point where they can actually begin to pay back into the program because i always want to see a pay it forward but remembering where they've come from because if we can build that base there and maintain that strong foundation then that is one of the first steps not just self sustainability for food but food security thank you so we're going to jump over from farm labor to nutrient cycling centers and soil health and this is a two part question so the first part is for each of you each have one minute and  starting place for meeting the state's goals for food self sufficiency and food security what's your position on regenerative agriculture and the nutrient rich health of our soils and we're going to start with you this time i think what we need to do is provide those spaces where we can start to look at that using material that we have here to grow our own our own soil amendments to help to support those kinds of biomes and the biosphere is that our particular plants thrive and what i'd like to see are more partnerships between livestock farmers vegetable farmers those who even farm grain to some extent now that hemp is being talked about as a huge crop to look at you know working in a diversified and inclusive manner i think we really can keep a lot of the waist down from certain industries by utilizing it in other industries and that all of that together you know we can kind of again in a pay it forward manner use the m from livestock areas in order to to fulfill our soils you know to mend the soils as as a result and then offer that at a lower cost to our farmers here thank you so ellen what would you say to  the question about your position on regenerative egg and nutrient rich health the bar soils well i'd start by saying this could be a very painful sixty seconds but i hope not too bad the background in agriculture that i have this much better seeded inverse in livestock things with those rather than things with roots whether you call it in your which is exactly what it is or whether you call it garbage you've got to move it around and put it somewhere to do any good with it in the old days when i was a young man garbage was dealt with by collecting it and the hog farmers would gladly take it and if you paid them to pick it up and then they fed it to their pigs and then they sold their pigs they could make money on both ends of the transaction and it would work it doesn't work that way anymore the economics of raising livestock that way are not there how are you going to move your garbage around is it going to have steak bones in it is it going to have napkins in it how are you going to process it and handle it and make it make sense i'd sure like to know you don't run around cow pastures picking up cow pies to use for fertilizer you go to places where there are a lot of livestock theodore's or cows and you get a lot of nor one time in order to use it for fertilizer that makes sense and it's done today drive down on up you know there's a sign thank you you need to wrap up but that's ok well we'll just try and wrap up all the manure in a fifty pound bag have this question is kind of addressing what you've been saying dr gough and many of hawaii's farmers a much purchase imported nutrient farm amendments and it's an expense that's passed down  the consumer's mean tile meanwhile we have twenty thousand tons of food waste at the maui county dump and it does could be a valuable indigenous composting material so allan what plans do you have one minute to treat that food to become compost for farmers well my immediate plan is to run for county council so that i won't have to spend as much time moving the nor and garbage around the island and if successful perhaps i'll be in a position where i can make it easier for other farmers to move manure and garbage around the island bio digestion you know it was gosh close to forty years ago ron proof or was it happy who a hog farm and there are people here who remember that i see the heads nodding and he was producing methane out of hog manure and you could make that work we'd love to change our garbage into energy into something useful but at what scale are you going to do it and are you going to make it economically viable and best skilled at listening that's what i marion i don't make my diagnosis or come up with a solution until i've listened to my client and some of the listening skills are what are going to be most important for yourself or myself we know there are people on council who don't have very good listening skills and they're good people and i don't mean you know it is fat that thank you you see when that red thing comes up it means you're minute is over i'm my red green color blind sorry  i am so sorry i didn't i didn't bring this up at the beginning ok well we'll give you a little bit of a prompt yeah the yellow means you have what fifteen seconds can you see yellow or  cycling compost cycling cycling nutrient cycling compost center on maui so you know what do you think about this plan they're trying to get the department of ag to fund a pilot absolutely think that's a wonderful idea i think that that maui in so many ways is poised to be able to provide an excellent example for the rest of the state when it comes to regenerative farming practices when it comes to this type of nutrient recycling center and i absolutely believe that if we have the supports in place and at a small scale we can just grow that out but the more the more success that we can show with this i think not only will bring in state fines but will also bring in federal funds because there are several u s d a programs or programs by other farming initiatives are looking very critically at nutrient recycling centers because it's not just a mowing problem it's not just to have a problem it's a problem across the nation in places where they need to be growing their own food as well  our next subject is food hubs our prefatory comment is across the nation good hubs are becoming solutions for centralizing food processing and distribution increasing food production capabilities for small farmers by paving the way for reducing farmer costs our hawaii farmers union maoi chapters say this is an opportunity for creating farm cooperatives further why farmers union five point program is working with the state wide farm to school initiative for growing food for the dio we school lunch program the question you each up one minute if you are able to support a capital cost for a pilot regional food for now we count using county and state as a match for federal funds would you prioritize it as a bill or procreation that you would stand behind introduce and or vote for if yes please describe benefits you can imagine for the citizens of boughey that would result from our county facilitating and funding of food if no these give your reasons why it's a lot of question add your your up on that i would absolutely unequivocally support that there are access to funding resources across the nation now for food hubs there's one called the healthy food financing initiative that you can find a healthy food access dot org there is the access the food access portal which also details quite a few funding sources i believe that a food hub here not only can aggregate product coming in and we need to help our farmers think about their growing a product because when we look at it everything is value added it's not a tomato it's salsa it's a sauce you know these are the kinds of ways that we need to get people thinking about the food that is grown here and i believe that with the food not only can we educate farmers but we can educate the public we can have agra tourism where we can have people going out and getting more in touch with their food because that's the issue here at hand today we are not in touch with our food we do not know where it comes from most of it is packaged and we do not know what's included in it and i think that's the crux of our getting ill and we need to take that back for our own h same question for you out well i'm really glad because it makes it a lot easier to heard other people address it already this evening i think initially there is some confusion what is the food is a farmer's market no it's not exactly farmer's market but one of the things i heard  said is that if food hubs you want to have a commercial kitchen you give me a big affirmative on that i need a commercial kitchen one of the things i like to give to people one on sitting up in front of you and talking with you or to you camera or there is something very practical we're in a world of limited resources there's only so much that can get done one of the most difficult things th council members have to do is say here's the pie i'm sorry you're not going to get a piece you're deserving you should have it women helping women i'm all for it but there's not enough to go how are we going to do it and got fifteen seconds w i'd suggest is looking at putting those needed commercial kitchens into our community centers because we already have a location we already have the structure and already have some degree a kitchen thank you short and to the point switching the little bit around we're going to talk about zoning farm land zoning and affordable land trusts and we have separate questions for each of you so we're going to to at this time we did last time to but that's with the scripts as sorry so this is a one minute question what are your ideas for changing exile meaning that will allow for more options for farm worker dwellings including temporary structures such as the new trend of tiny houses and temporary things like your pts i think what we need to do is look at the zoning of our land not as a commercial viability of what the cost of the land is or what it's supposedly worth whether it's an inflated worth or it's one that is and invested worth i think what we need are long term agricultural ground leases that we need to be able to offer a whole farm affordability a ford ability protection scuse me we need to be able to offer our farmers the ability to build equity on on their land to be able to how's themselves and to be a workforce especially if they are involved in an apprenticeship program or if they're involved in more community jobs i think that's a very important thing to have in order and that changes through zoning and i think we need to look very critically at how we zone ag land and who's valuing it i mean taxes on ag land i think should be less than for those that are in active participation in production thank you oh thank you so much thank you all ellen given what it costs for this is a one minute question one minute response as well so given want to cause for the average farmer to rent a house lease farm land pay for equi pay for imported amendments and implodes irrigation cost in other words a lot of expense if you're going to be a farmer what do you think it will take to make farming a more successful enterprise and what could you do about that if you were elected well the first thing is there's going to be a farmer we could simplify it a lot if we would just take the definition of farmer and say it's anybody who files a schedule have on their federal tax return people get bogged down in conversations about how much money you have to make to be a farmer well there's no guarantee that when you take up the mantle of being a farmer that you're going to make any money at all and then if you do give it a number you must make ten thousand dollars to be a farmer people will game the system i've got a ten thousand dollars go i'm going to sell you for your ten thousand dollars land so let's not spend a lot of time making it more complicated and creating issues that people will skirt anyway one part of the question i'm going to not answer i'm going to go to true next question because i think it's important where these people going to sleep where are they going to be well i know where they're sleeping already the old madison containers are located all over this island and farmland and that's where your wolfers sleep and sleeping him next is where they sleep but i close my eyes and squint because i don't want to see stuff that i might have to tell somebody about but the farmers the entrepreneurs are doing what they need to do to be able to get by and get the job done thank you that's why my time is up well i think you've made your point you've made a good point there are both of you made a good point we're going to move on to a separate question here for each of you a one minute question for each of you this subject is protection of back or cultural lands the proper tory comment b f seventy was a near disaster for farmers and ranchers that lease or own barge properties we need these lands protected from ever being seen at their market value information put forward by the budget and finance committee said that maui county could realize one thousand million income from this change ag working group brought in economists to review the counties model story aking thank you it was the mechanics that we always need prompters right the mechanics of overstating estimated income from a tax change caused great concern among  agriculturalist and undeserved good a system of agriculture we need now i county driving a positive image for the puter of agriculture so one minute each and the same question what would you propose for getting lower tax rates on agricultural lands were real farming and ranching is happening and part two to this question is that assuming you will be on the budget and find acts committee where the budget you would look at you would look for other tax revenue to make up for lowering taxes for least real farm and ranch land i'm sorry that's somewhat since it was first proposed the first time and we were able to get it voted down and the second time it looked like we had the votes figured out i didn't show up because i knew we had the votes figured out it got voted down and then i went down the third time bringing with me you know the first time i got some of my clients to come along including one who just had a knee replacement surgery the third time i think i had had my knee replacement surgery agriculture is subsidized over this entire plant the larger the agricultural operation the more subsidy there is the small rancher and farmer and that's who's here in the audience tonight gets the least subsidy and you're the ones using your sweat equity and the dollars out of your pockets from your second or third jobs to support your agricultural habit so what can we do well i got tired of going to the seventh floor of the county building to give testimony i got tired of looking at my clients sitting there looking at the backs of the council people except for the chair sitting way up high above everybody else and i decided at one point in a very weak moment to try and do something about that some experience putting silver stakes into the blood sucking vampires on this island i think we've killed b f seventy but it's not dead and it won't be dead until the people who sit on the council have experience in agriculture and listen to us thank you lands or real farming and ranching is happening and part two to this question is that assuming you will be on the budget and finance committee or the budget you would look at where the budget you would look where in the budget mr word scuse me where in the budget would you look for other tax revenue to make up for lowering taxes for least real farm and ranch land me seventy and i also testified on this what that was was a disconnect an absolute disconnect by our county to the people it did not take into account farmers that did not include people who are actively farming and that was the wrong thing to do when we look at what we what we can do to support our farmers i think we need to look at ag conservation ease ents where those farmers that agree and that the promise that this is what they're going to do is grow food you know that we allow them the conservation easements to help ease the burden of taxes on those specific properties whether or not they decide to build other other dwellings on it to how as themselves or their family or their workers i think that we very critically need to look at more support than four percent of our budget and the second part of that question i'm sorry michael i we're in the budget but you look for other tax revenue to make up for lowering taxes for least parmalat and real farm and ranch land absolutely look at where the visitor industry gets its funding from i would take from the visitor industry funding first because we seem to have this or members of the council seem to have this idea that that industry needs to be funded above all else and while that does bring money into our economy we cannot eat from it we can't we need to eat from our ajna and so i believe and i absolutely would on the budget committee look at that funding first thank you well on the subject of eating food security and self sufficiency dream it could you in one minute tell us if barges of food stopped coming to maui from the mainland tomorrow how you would propose to organize our food security for such a catastrophe easy question absolutely not an easy question because you know to me and i've i've looked up the definition of food security what that means is the access and availability of food for all regardless of whether or not you are economically advantage or disadvantage now mali county itself given if we were cut off from supplies by the barge right now we do not have enough food to last us out that week we definitely don't and furthermore those who are at a better economic advantage than others will end up getting that food there's no doubt about it you know supply drives and demand drives the market what we need to do and what i would like to do and hope is to support those small farmers those that are going to our farmers markets now and allow them the tech that they need the manpower the equipment whether it comes from county sources or not to help pull out that food harvest what we need and make it a community thing because if we all share we are we are in an island it is a kako thing we can we can get through it thank you thank you one minute question is about buying and eating locally if the price of local food is unattainable for the average resident how can the county partner with its farmers to ensure that they get what they need to make a living without either having to overproduce the land or ask lower prices for their food in other words how can we make food fordable by helping farmers produce it affordably and be able to sell it affordably i think i'd have to say i can answer that question in two words on stone the reason i'm stunned is you need a whole course in economics to answer it and i can't even begin to come close to that in one minute what i can say is that you've got to have food available if you're going to eat i've got a bunch of goats if you want some gold milk or some go meat i can make that happen you want to go to a barter system we can all make that happen but if you really want food security the part of it that is most interesting to me is making sure we keep out the alien past that we compete with for the food resources that are present all you've got to do is look at something as simple as the yellow sugar cane a food which loves cacouna grass which cattle eat and sugar cane which nobody eats and my time is up you know you have fifty more seconds or ten more seconds sorry ranchers throughout the state it started eating more sugar cane well sugar cane went belly up because of economics the real and mazing thing is that this plantation stayed alive for thirty forty years longer than the plantations on the other necessarily take a lot of land to have food security you just had to do it thank you collective of members who protect the interests of our family farmers from any practice that contaminates commodifies are compromises their ability to farm and market their products currently employed practices we don't support and i would say that don't work in one minute and starting with dr kaufmann what would you do to empower the whole why a department of agriculture and the why department of hell by supporting bills that monitor pest a pot pesticide drift to protect our health and environment such as product testing soil that's a great question and it went on i think for about a minute fifteen seconds and i got and then it to response sorry i didn't say the look color thing you know the good thing is we're having fun this evening and i think that is i want to take part of that question and say as a veterinarian i deal with chemicals all day long the wonderful thing about many of the chemicals that i deal with the drug dealing their drugs their medicines what are you going to call these things and the words we use to describe things that can be helpful to maintaining the health of our pets there's a little dog over there if you got him on heartworm preventative it's one of the once a month products and it came about most likely through some form of genetic engineering but where the originally greedy and of the ever met ins came from is from soil organisms clients whose children have had parasites which they got from their animals when children go blind because of parasitism in their pets it's very important to keep healthy chemicals being a chemical is not necessarily often bad ok empowered it's just making them accountable they are not working within the parameters that are already there for just the basic supports for just the basic regulations and i think what needs to happen first is to get them to adhere to the white you know administrative rules to revise statutes they need to pay attention to the public just talk doctrine scuse me i'm sorry because this is really a passionate thing for me especially having dealt with the department of health over came burning and just the absolute attitude with which many in that department and and i may say even in the apartment of ag have towards the people bringing up very valid concerns is disgusting and so it's not about empowering them they already have a motive of power it's about holding them accountable and responsible for not using that power and for enforcing rules for us for our benefit and the benefit of our children thank you well i've never grown it so i'm not really that experienced but factually what are we going to do you've got to have land to grow and then you've got to have a  to make it profitable how are we going to grow any product on an economy of scale that will be profitable i don't know at this point we don't even know if there will be water in the central valley for the next three years it wasn't thirteen years as was stated earlier for the next three years there's going to be water coming through e m i after that the supreme court will rule or maybe sometime during the three years it'll rule where is the water going to go it is a public trust so it would be reasonable to suppose some of that would go back in the ocean for the environment some of it for people in the up country water list i certainly hope so you've got generations waiting in some of the for the central valley what we grow will depend on the amount of water available thank you net same question of sorry to interrupt the deplo applause how do you envision the hemp industry taking root on maui or in the state as a whole and what are your plans to help our smaller farmers who want to grow it well i think the opportunity that age c closing presents for us with this particular crop first offers us an opportunity to remediate the soil because we need to do that quickly before we can actually start growing viable food i believe that will feed ourselves i'd i do want to support farmers that commit to growing have answer mediated purpose and indeed identifying parcels for them to do that we don't have supports in place we don't have the equipment or the technology here in hope to process hemp and so that will be a little bit of an issue that does need to be worked on canada has a very robust and viable hemp industry and they do have a history of working with that and so perhaps we can help people sense that there and have them come to us i mean it is very possible to have partnerships outside of the united states as we have in the past before  the overthrow that that can very much fulfil us as well as thank you thank you we're sorry to cut you guys off but we still have your closing remarks and then we have to por it believe it or not so the closing remarks can it is do you have any concluding remarks about your positions on agriculture or is there a question you wish you would have asked and if so please respond and it says here you have two minutes each i'd like to make a one minute just in the interest of moving to our next candidate sorry why don't you go first printing at this time give alan a rest he's done such good work here so you have concluding remarks about your position on agriculture and doors are a question you we wanted to be asked and you want to answer my concluding remarks i like to eat i'm not a farmer i raise chickens for fresh eggs but i do see the benefit in just that small scale farming of sorts for myself and my family the benefits of eating something that i know exactly where it comes from and i know what it's been fed and and it's huge it's beyond physical sustenance it connects us to our i know and so i very much support agriculture and supporting ourselves and the people who call maui home who live here who grow here and i mean grow their families grow our food who lay their bones to rest here because it is all of us it is not those investments is not those johnny come lately it is those who who actively make this their home and want to continue to see it as such and so for those of you that grow the food that i like to eat  continue to support that in any way possible so thank you thank you allen your concluding remark against the question i wish you well what about your family and i want to talk a little bit about my family in the minute i've got simply because i love them so much and i'm so incredibly proud of are you in that group to try i'm going to tip my hat to you i know what it's like to raise children of the q and it's not easy it's a hard thing to do i got it right the third between us we have a total of five children under the roof and the wonderful thing about this family is that it includes blood of chinese hawaiian puerto rican african english french russian german and my and it is almost we've got about twenty five different ethnicities under our roof and it is a joy to be raising those children thank you has a three way system or a two way system you get a you get a notice when you have fifteen seconds left and then you get a read and hopefully you can see the riyadh when your time is up so we thank you for your cooperation in advance so if we would start out what do we start out with you tiger you want to just take a minute to introduce yourself to our audience at here and in our viewing public one minute kelly was wishing that richard was here too but i'm sure something came up we're all i think really qualified this year i been looking at all the different races and i'm actually flattered to see the intelligence and the ground floor initiative that everybody has taken to understand what's happening on this island and that's it's a very odd thing it's a paradigm that's happening and we're just really lucky to have the opportunity i'm i'm really stand for being a local businessman and i bring executive experience integrity leadership in a council i i love this platform here because i'm actually at the university currently in the art of agriculture and i cherish if she watch was like because she's taught me a lot in everything oh it's going on with university i believe that we have our mind set here to show you mean kelly being the only ones that showed up here to show us what we can bring  been involved in a lot of issues around the island for over thirty years we've lived my husband and i have raised two children here before they were born and raised they graduate from high school they both got their masters from  know and so we're pretty entrenched in the community i've been on probably over a dozen nonprofit boards or commissions including the farmers union including and so i come to these events and and have a lot of background with the organizations but not just as a board member as an active participant in those organizations and i want to talk a little bit about our company that my husband and i have been running for twenty years pacific biodiesel because that's really our sustainability shining star and we've done a lot of agricultural demonstration biofuel crop demonstration over the last five years i've become very immersed in how to get those kinds of things funded at the state and federal level and i got expertise in a lot of the issues that have been talked about today so i'm really looking forward to these questions mahalo thank you so much i'm going to point out before i turn this over to mike that we have four people running on your ballot we have two of them here tonight so thank you very much for being with us here tonight these two candidates kelly and jerome thank you thank you carol our first area is nutrient cycling centers saw the health and regenerat agriculture our comment on it is currently many of our why farmers us purchase imported nutrients food and nutrient firm amendment's it's an expense for firms that is passed down to the consumer in the meantime we accept twenty in hawaii department of agriculture funded pilot nutrient cycling composting center on maui and what do you see and what do you see any and do you see any barriers that are currently in the way of getting nutrients cycling under way and what can you do to help alleviate those barriers do you need me to repeat that there's a misprint here and i stumbled  over kelly ok thank you for the question i absolutely support the nutrient recycling centers and i actually have some experience in that because a lot of people as a lot of you know we've been taking the ways cooking oil out of the landfill for twenty years noble fuel and so yes i know that i know about food waste and i know that one of the things that almost every other municipality does that we're not doing right now is anaerobic digestion and that's it that would be a great food waste handling  technology composting is another great one i think the biggest barrier right now we have is probably our county administration we've we've we've got a county ministration that is trying to do away with recycling and the community really needs to step up county management and the importance of having a county manager that would work together with the council because the council needs to be working with the administration on these initiatives not against  tiger first officer for standing up everybody is watching this and everybody i've got my stuff together i'm really for this i've been composting from my you to life actually for about fifty fifty years old  composting with my grandfather since i've been three or four he always had a big bucket near the boathouse where we put the fish stuff we put all the stuff we carved up for the vegetables in the garden then he made sure that he would mix it with a little bit of grass for we cut the lawn and we put it back in really a couple of questions here i might not be the best in it i'm going to tell you so but i'm going to tell you right now i have access to the greatest library on this island and that's a law library up there at the courthouse and on it you each mc and i do do a lot of research i'm a paralegal and that's that's really what i look for the our next question is about a foreign land zoning and affordable land truss so this is a one minute question and for each of you let's start with you again jerome tiger the farmers union supports the concept of farmers living on the land they farm and the land they lease through an agricultural land trust what ideas would you propose in moving this direction so that it can be actualized that people can live on their land one we've got a problem with our county council at this time with turncoats mean with the planning department this is a great opportunity to grab five ten acres of land start to him if we have to start off with a raffle because i do it the universe you know we've got three hundred students in the process we just graduated fifty and was another hundred right behind them so we don't have this big army of farmers ready to take on but we're starting to prepare myself being in the private sector in business financing and also franchising i'm in the business of creating a cycle and i see that what we can do years with our farmers they're not going to know everything they can to learn how to chill if they want to do it but this is not a fifteen year operation you should be a learned stuff in ninety days council and i hope to them one of them thank you thank you kelly this is the same question how can we get farmers living on the land they farm and lease through an agricultural land trust can we move in this direction and you know what what would you propose so they can really happen well thank you see and there's actually already a movement to make that happen and my friend dale boehner has been working on that he was the former head of the coastal first allowable wind farm on an agricultural zone land trust your own valley i think that's a great way to go to look at it through the land trust but why it's going to take is a group of people it's consolidating together and  sufficiency i see this as somebody who sat went through previous mayors attempt to eliminate them out of the money from all of the the non profits on the island and within a month all the nonprofits got together did a study on how many volunteer millions of onto your hours they bring to the county that idea was gone and so that's what we need to do we need to show the value of local food and what it brings to this community you have that food security thank you thank you very much we have a second part to this question each of you has a minute for this as well and so let's see it will start with you this time kelly says you just finished so the county made an attempt to purchase property from holly organic egg park do you have any idea what became a loose end do you think we should continue to pursue this concept in the next county budget session well i do think that we need to continue to proceed maybe not with that particular piece of property i think that was my understanding of that was it was the county working with the state it was a bill proposed at the state legislature that didn't get signed by the governor so going back to the table with maybe a different angle  and i see this as somebody who worked for six years trying to get biofuel production tax credit passed i made it up to the fifth year got it passed didn't get it signed by the governor this year we actually got it passed and signed so it does take a lot of work to get it takes a lot of collective work it takes a lot of people coming forward and explaining why this is so important i think it can happen i think it needs a bigger voice and i think it needs an advocate from the county council at the state legislature i have a lot of experience working at our state legislature for not just this issue but you know us every culture issues various energy issues various tax credit issues and those those are relationships come to bear as a bunny in the county council thank you thank  jerome same question so now i guess we know what happened so you don't have to really dig for that one right but do you know how do you think that we can you know get this actualize these owners and these foundations and ask them can we help this land with that mean i'd have to buy it because they might be an attack situation that could go and it to us by gift this is a a buyable option and we organization that we parlay these names we keep these people on these petitions so we can go back and we can still get petitions faster and keep accountability to it because that's what we lost it last initiative and that will happen again thank you very much switch back to my camp ok we're going to move into water are coming down this is although this make this question may seem may not seem right let me start over here all of this question may not seem to be directly related to their culture it does impact our coastal water reason fishing as a subsistence form of food security and tourism as our economic driver for our county for the past thirty years injection wells near the ocean  t louis key in line have been used to dispose of personally filtered sewage water the county lost the lawsuit citing violations to the clean water act and faces potentially millions in fines and has spent two point two five million on allowed for both of you you'll have one minute what will you do to initiate a citizens task force and request proposals for this for the state of the art treatment plants  so we can end the use of injection wells that are harming the ocean environment and drum you can go first one minute this is fantastic this is one of my pet peeves is one of my priorities if i'm elected is to push it up said the department regards to water than a problem here we consistently let the finest week consistently violate the laws and we don't clean up after ourselves this has to do with real basic sewage treatment and water containment and purification of it i come from milwaukee was gunson because in some of these questions were to come up with farming situation you're in his organization make sure you know we're going to have a product and a micro micro business platform we can make money and i'm trying to show you that there is options out there thank you thank you kelly do you want me to repeat the question what will you do to initiate a citizens test for is in request proposals for a state of the art treatment plants in so we can in the use of injection wells that are harming the ocean environment well that's a great question because it's already happening there's already a citizens task force in istari working on this i went to a day long workshop back in may at the that was showing up in the algae blooms that the turtles are eating and now getting tumors and so what came out of that workshop was because we did have somebody who was previously in ways in the management of the ways of our system in the county come out and do part of that presentation and what was ascertained is that they're doing everything according to regulations our regulations are not strict enough for what's happening up there in the above these above the cove park and the calm apart areas are the worst even the line it gets all the attention because of the lawsuit but that that that is turning into a citizen citizens task force and i would support that going forward we looked at various kinds of technologies and we ascertain that that's the first thing we need to do is a study on what technology would work the best with the county waste water systems thank you thank you for the thoughtful response both of you and thank you we're moving over to pesticides  bows and you each have kind of a separate question here one minute question so the farmers union is a solution based action oriented collective of members who protect the interests of our family farmers from any practice contaminates commodifies or compromises their ability to farm and market their products so truth in advertising that's what the farmers union stands for they're actively involved in approving the effica organic and regenerative practices for field practice and economic efficiencies and the idea is to replace currently employed practices that the union the farmers union does not support so we'll start with you this time as well as human health b and the environment so would you initiate and support a county pilot program such as a testing for b pollen and honey to monitor pesticide drift  persons nearby and i think we have to look at those i would say it would say we have to go back and look at what's happening with the moratorium because that really needs to be looked at and maybe maybe we need to take it to the state level maybe that will make it successful maybe we'll get through the courts that way but this is the first pass going is it's not it's not it is not time to give up on this you know we got a major victory by getting a pass through the county and it's only upward from here is going to take work to get this pas also support strongly support labeling of g m o and i think and labeling of g m o as and i think personally that because i've been involved in marketing that the market if we if we know we will not buy i don't talk to anybody who actively a g m o product and most people look for non g m o so if we know the market will last year as in the right direction the market will be the pressure that we need for agricultural community and the other thing i hope you're out of time so i don't there's just more to say to rome or your question is a little separate separate one minute also and it's about if there is proven biological applications that can provide solutions to agricultural production issues are you in support of promoting these over practices that use substances that might cause some harm like hormonal disruptors or carcinogens and they can harm people and the environment we would you be willing to support the biological applications if yes sure why and how you would support moving in this direction if no give you a reason why i'm not i'm not in favor of adding anything that affects our kids and especially learning stages between three and seven years old all these chemicals have been proven look at the chemical formulas i've looked at them when they're been burnt what they turn into the c effect what they do to our population as a whole it's insane that we would allow this to go on in wisconsin we banned it it's coming here we all need to step up again and get the new thinking at sun and do this thing as a new age and  maoi and stop allowing your sicko on just ban it it's the same thing as i said in my thirty reasons why don't vote for me is i ban injection wells let's get a new sewage system built every day we wait it cost us ten thousand dollars more in the future and that goes up to a million million dollars when she hit one year out so you have to understand we've got to start acting fast we've got to take this step as an initiative and as a group of people sitting here tonight listening to me this is serious business i love this island i haven't been you're my whole life i want to be the rest of my life but i'm telling you it's getting tough with them spraying stuff you can see what it does even even to the hill even to the insects it's poison to stop it and thank you very much taken on maui or in the state as a whole what are your plans to help support our smaller farmers who want to grow it and we'll start with kelly well thanks for this question actually two cosmetics twenty five thousand different products that you can make out of him but going forward now that we got a law passed and this is a proposal that came out of that help or shot from a working group that met the next week we actually got it concerns because there are several concerns about invasiveness about cross pollination and some other things like that so we need to get together and open up the discussion talk about those things as well as the benefits tiger who wants to grow the g a o is actually doing a survey right now to find out who wants to grow hemp and for what reason and i have vision it starting out small getting bigger but but definitely mally and hawaii taking the lead in the hemp industry in america because we can grow year round here thank you additional profit your bottom line so three crops in you as you're learning as you're growing your first couple of you'll learn what's going good not to get too close to water you want to arid what's going to go on with the watering cycles and etc so i think the profitability  it's time to get the people involved and we all know one thing we all can do plant stuff growing water and eat it because we all like to do all this stuff we all like to make a dollar doing it if we're involved it's a fair market value so i i mean really i think it's a fantastic opportunity and help i've looked the world market on it and it's a commodity the united states used to burn we still have all or like solar energy was produced by for one hundred thirty five years i believe benjamin franklin on the largest oil company in that and i just watch understand that it's a great product and i think there's a lot to be sued for with that goal and i thank you so much great job candidates we have one last one last opportunity for you to wrap things up and you have one minute each to offer any concluding remarks about your positions on agriculture or if there's a question that you would have liked to answer but it didn't get asked you can ask matter kelly if we had everybody else here but what have you done to prepare for farming in december before i said before i decided to run we had a big thing with macau trust go down everything is finalized after twelve years my dad being dead and i took  twelve thousand dollars and i went to the mainland and i went and visited some of the farming land in southern california that have we have built for new i thought it was winter so you have to understand i didn't get to see i didn't get to go farther east where it was kelly you're one minute to conclude or ask yourself a question you wish you would have been asked so many well i guess a question i wish i would have been asked for it would be about my it's my experience and how i got into agriculture to this point and it really started with this in a biodiesel we started it started as a big recycling project back in one thousand nine hundred five determined to take all of our cooking oil our grease out of the landfill make it into renewable energy product that could be used in the islands and we're very proud of that one hundred percent of all of our fuel now that we're up to over five billion gallons a year stays in the state of hawaii and so we have experience in walking the talk of sustainability ten thousand gallons goes down to palm ira but i'm not counting that because that's helping been down there and i really want to stress the fact too that getting into egret culture was not ever our intention or we feel like the tail wagging the dog we always thought farmers would come forward and actually grow some of the crops that we need to continue on with food and fuel models that are sustainable for our state it didn't happen and so like i always do when something doesn't happen i want it to happen i got involved and i made it happen and we got funded to the tune of three point five million dollars to da for the past six years to get our crop demonstration project to the point where we actually have a question on the one of my goals for this next year is to bring that to maui so we can enhance our opportunities here on maui and agriculture and so for your support as a person who has firsthand experience in a lot of these issues not just in concert but i'm really excited to have had an opportunity to talk about that and to support all of the farmers on maui thank you thank you very much thanks to both of our candidates sounds maoi consul c remember there are four candidates on the ballot we're only seeing two tonight so keep that in mind very good job thank you very much because sore running a little over time but everybody's ok other still savor food outside if you like to indulge in some food group thanks to our businesses that provided food maui pasta company a cooler produce greens and simply fresh line of farm and so you know real pappy that the idea came up at our board meeting why give the malays let's give them food so we like that and that's what we did so welcome everyone thank you very much for being here tonight all right so please take it away moderators michel how and lucianne today thank you start blessed tonight and thank you for staying this long into our presentation we're going to start off with a giving each of you a one minute chance to introduce yourself tell the voters a little bit about where you are and i'm going to start with mr carney at the end here with a degree in education and eventually started being a teacher had a high school prior to doing that i got into the private sector and had some experience in that sector of trying to survive and make a living and start family and raise three children who been fortunate to get it get it with a college education and pay the bills and we continue i live up in a way you country of states some of you may think it's  a gentleman a state agricultural subdivision but mr gross is to call up there i grow my bananas up there and there's a lot of us that are actively engaged in farming i've been farming bananas from about two thousand and nine to the current at the height i was growing probably fourteen thousand pounds in two thousand and eleven of ample bananas and so i'm like many of you put my hand into the into the thirty and have been trying to do what a lot of us are trying to do i served on the council for a little while about eight years back in two thousand to one thousand nine hundred nine to two thousand and six so i have some hands on experience on the office that we are all trying to serve and so with that i look forward to the conversation this evening thank you is something that began a couple of years ago and it's time has let us here to say we need to be involved participate in this process this evening i'm excited to be here because of the topic of agriculture and most importantly food and it is a critical point here on this island and with interest i have in the production of food thank you moving over to have your one minute introduction thank you very much and thank you to the sound and camera people you've done a wonderful job in all of the things that we praise and i really appreciate it for this island a co composting facility one million tons we have kept one million tons of green waste biosolids that's wasn't cooking grows out of the landfill and we have created thousands and thousands and thousands of tons of good soil amendment class a e p a a approved for use and food and fruits and vegetables and that was my opening act so i'm very very happy to be here among the farmers i grew up in farm country in montana you can you conclude because we're at our one minute here and that's what the red means law joe blackbird i want to take you back in time just got promoted to the hazardous materials captain at the my fire department took an oath to protect life and environment but very lucky got sent a way to the top training in the nation chemical response to side chemistry operations went into terrorism incident command came back here and taught many of our firefighters and actually all over this all the civic responded to a lot of chemical incidents the one i'm most proud of is i went to school one day and a teacher handed me a box full chemicals and she said can you take a and i said well the fire department doesn't allow us to take them and i looked at the bottles some looked like they had  acid old so for its and other things long story short i ended up cleaning out all the chemicals out of the schools call it chewed for it put it in a place where it wouldn't affect our kids to this day some of the firefighters still look at me and say you should have done that because it affected your career but i did thank you you in case we didn't explain before we have a lovely time keeper and when you see the yellow you have fifteen seconds left and the red means one minute we were there so our first questions on the workforce development you've probably heard this a few times this evening but our farmers are aging and we all agree we need to grow a new generation of farmers and they need to be equipped with the skills to be really successful at their farming enterprises so the farmers union  has a farm apprentice mentoring program f e m and it's about to begin its third year with county funding so the question is and we're going to start with a legal this time if the farmers union would have come to the budget  finance committee at the consul asking that our fam graham be permanent line item in the budget and in order to demonstrate that the county has ongoing support for growing our next generation of farmers what is shoes would you want to have raise before making such a decision other words what would you want to know before making such a good decision so starting with the legal one minute i really would not have the issue because you know it's it's a demand that we have that is real right now on our side we need to invest in our future and we need to invest in our farmers and farm idjit cation so that we can have people on  island growing food so it's not an issue that will hold back on i know that that's what we have not done earlier vinson mentioned that the states engagement of commitment to agriculture is only point four percent not even or is it less now but not even a half of a percent is invested in agriculture and in that arena of agriculture how much of that is focused on the production of food so with that i strongly believe and would strongly support that the county must support a program such as this such as a farm apprentice mentoring program thank you  thank you you need the question repeated or can you remember from when we get it basically if this came with the budget committee would you support it and would you support it being a line item every year and what would you need to know in order to make that decision ok i would definitely support it i'm all in favor of forth and new generation of farmers and what i would need to know is all the data that my council people my colleagues would need to know in order to get this passed so i would take a look at the data i would have to take a look at the experience of the people that are in this  program the county probably would find there's not service chair if it could get funded in perpetuity without some really strong strong data supporting the use of public funds for that so that's what i would be looking for how can we make sure that this gets through and i would need to have all the information possible in order to have an order to create a really good strong argument with my colleagues thank you joe same question if you've got to prove to your colleagues that this should be a permanent line item budget what are you going to need to know i want to complete breakdown of costs what are the administrate of costs how many people are being benefited how is it going to carry on we know it's important but everybody who comes before the consul has their own story and their own ta tell how much they're think is important so you need to sell the console on it we know it's all sufficiency is critical eighty five percent of our food is imported but they're faced with a limited amount of money and an unlimited amount of requests so basically i would sit on even help you look at how you can tailor your presentation to make it palatable to the powers that be because  you have a lot of nonprofits obvious island that do a lot of good so it's just you have to culture your situation so that it would be the most beneficial that they hear to the community thank you thank you very much dana thank you  income so i think what joe said is very important you need to make sure that you have the performance of a project in this case for a fund you need to make sure that it's performing and if it is performing then you can start discussing holding on or if it's doing above what performance it was presented with then you can get expanded funds as far as permanent funds that's why we have other funds that got dedicated funds and that was passed by ordinance and so this is something that would have a potential to get a dedicated permanent fund but that again you've got to go through steps to do that i know earlier miss king from south maui as a candidate talked about how long it's for her to get stuff done this would be the same situation it takes a lot of time thank you thank you all our next areas nutrient cycling centers soil health and regenerative agriculture as a good starting place for meeting the state's goals for food self sufficiency and food security what is your position on regenerative agriculture and the nutrient rich health of our soils ana thank you very much and that i get to go first well like i said my first project here was to to build a compost but i didn't do that alone i had a team of people i had tim gunter from this community standing right there with me saying yes there is a market for this stuff we need this i'm taking a look at an island that is lava and sand and i'm taking a look at all the nutrients that were going into the landfill biosolids and also all of that grain waste it did not make sense to me and so i feel quite strongly about the net need and the sas city for us to continually continually have a high priority for the health of our land through through adding adding treats all and we need to put the nutrients back in and part of that fun is i went with mr conway one day we went searching for worms using haiku basically because we wanted to both of us in our growing wanted to use some regenerative situations i need to get a lot more educated on it for me it's not an area i have expertise in i'm oh my lawn and i almost fell down the other day in fact i did fall down because i take the grass and i put it into my terrill as mulch and how you fall off a lot more you're going to have to ask my wife about that but i love the thought i'd like to know more about it and i would support it thank you thank you again as i mentioned i live in an agricultural subdivision right above happy valley it's four hundred sixty nine acres we have one hundred eighty for two to three point eight acre lots thinking out of the box and outside of the context of being a council member i think you'd be a great idea for us in working with joyce one of our one of the one hundred eighty four i think we would be a good example of initiating something within our own agricultural subdivision to do compost and spun thing that we have there were already generating i think tens of thousands of pounds of food out of that subdivision every year every year and i think we have the capacity to to start doing something there one of our challenges would be we have a property there that supposed to be dedicated for the park we may go to the county council and ask them to consider waiving the park instead think nutrient cycling centers is long over due we live on an island that every day has a lot of food waste green waste and we need to utilize you know they were talking about twenty thousand pounds of food waste we need to consider utilizing these bio digesters on a large scale invest in the nutrient you taught me train cycling standards you're talking prove producing natural fertilizers that would be then spread around on your island and so we have a lot of hotels a lot of restaurants generating a lot of ways how do we convert that we used and  turn that into natural healthy nutrient fertilizers for the community so we do need to invest in that in our community and i would be open to investigating more and thank  currently many of our a y e farmers much must purchase imported nutrient farm and then mounts in the meantime we accept twenty thousand tons of food waste at the maui county town that could be a valuable indigenous composting material what plans do you have to treat that food to become compost our farmers and then we start which oh well what other one minute i'm on a minute thank you no no i'm good one of the situations we have is our recycling program has really gone downhill what we'd rather rather do is recycle from the site instead of trying to separate somewhere else and so the idea would be to get that food waste and i'm not sure how the process would work into the hands of the people who could use it my example edge pretty good though is the pig farmers who go around to the restaurants and pick up all the food waste well there's not in a pig farmers for the food we sold how we would do that i'm not sure but i would like to see a recycling program that includes food waste because that's nutrients that can go back into the soil and the land thank you thank you our next question what are your thoughts on the hawaii farmers union plan for the park why department of agriculture funded  in cycling composting center on maui why department of agriculture funded pilot nutrient cycling composting center on maui do you see any barriers there are currently in the way of getting nutrients cycling under way and what can you do to help alleviate those barriers maybe start with dane please forgive me mike if you if you will please if you can repeat the question i  pray that i can ok what are your thoughts on the hawaii farmers union plan i'm sorry you do it here's the essence of this question the department of bag is funding a pilot project for these cycling centers for nutrients and the idea is what your what your thoughts on that is that a good idea or not and  barriers that you would see that are kind of in the way now of getting something like this under way to have a nutrient cycling center and what could you do to help kind of get those barriers out of the way  this is for each of dane a leak and handle so each of you have one minute address the same question you got a separate question thank you state department of bags so again we're running for the county council so little bit difficult for us to have the jurisdictional authority over that so i want to see that first and foremost obviously it would be a good idea because it's a step in the right direction i think everybody in this room agrees that what we're talking about the subject matter is i think we're all raising our hand and saying yes this is good stuff that we're talking about but from the context of what can we do as council members i think that's what's important and so when we i think we need to start looking at sites available land if the county has existing land that they could provide to work with the state on the pilot program if it's not state land if the county can come up with something in partner with the state on some of these pilot projects if we see some success to it then now the county has more of a leg to stand on in supporting these things beyond a pilot project but again we need to stay within the context of what we have control over and authority over and so that's my response to the state department of egg question on a pilot program yes but what can we  do i would deal with what they shared it is the funding is coming from the state department of agriculture and this is a project however my understanding i think it was targeted for something like a million dollars i think is too little  you would want to see a just like how we want to see regional food hubs created like on the west side in central and north coast side we would also want to see nutrient recycling centers in the hubs of different regions and you know all the different for example the different restaurants bring all their waste over there all the tree trimmers bring all the waste over there process it the goal would be not to have it in the landfill the goal would be to process it so that the community can recycle it back into their gardens back onto the farms are other counties sister county they give it away free free free recycling mulch and all things like that so i think we need to be a part in a partner in this with the state moving forward thank you ok there is an e p a hierarchy for food waste and for food for first people the second is animal food right the third is composting and then we go to any type of energy and then we go to the landfill that is the hierarchy now i have been involved in recycling like for a long time guys and we have funded pig farms even just last year when i was not at work a pig farm did get funding and the price that that we now pay in order to have that food waste go to the pigs is so minimal compared to what it would be to go into the landfill now the barriers for creating regional compost with food little little is that the collection process is incredible it is very very difficult and then you go to the d o h a and all the health requirements because if you intend i'm selling that compost you have a big wad of environmental red tape to cathro it but i think red tape specialist this this is from the horse's mouth here thank you so much thank you for some great answers to this question our next question is going to start with joe this end of the table and once again we're back to this concept of food hubs so the cycling center that's kind of one thing but the food hubs are a much broader kind of concept they could have you know shared kitchen they could have shared farm equipment that people could use it's basically a shared economy applied to farming  so across the nation these these are becoming solutions for centralized food processing distribution it cetera et cetera our farmers union chapter see this is a great opportunity for creating farm cooperatives and we also see it as a way to make sure that we have enough food for this program for the department of education to buy food for our farmers so our question to get down to the question i'm not reading the whole intro i'm i'm  obviously if you were able to support in the in the budget capital costs for a pilot regional food hub for maui county using county and state as a match for federal funds in other words you know get some county funds the state would throw in something and there be some matching for federal funds would you make this a priority bill or appropriation that you would stand behind introduce and or vote for yes you'd have to help me do it all you'd have to identify the best place for the food home because you've got to have good soil you also have to identify how we're going to get cheap  lot water there is no agriculture then what products we're going to grow and how we're going to get on to the communities or the schools so we have a farm to school program you would have to help me determine and push this forward because the  farmers union are the people who want this to happen so you'd have to put together the package make it make sense and then i would push it forward from my end of the situation talked a long time ago about i always supported organic farms how we do it where we do it where we get the water again are going to be the key issues and what we're going to grow thank you great dane you want to jump on that you need any repeating there no yeah ok thanks and i'm going to piggyback off of jill and agree with what you'll just talk about and included in that is in the context of legislative function it's all about relationships in is all about convincing those of your peers and your your colleagues who have different mindsets and convincing them of the benefit of this type of thing i'll give you an example just to give you an idea  even if you have advocates for something and i see susan bradford here a completely different subject matter we want to preserve several properties in front of a beach and you have advocates that support that and so you get somebody who goes in champions it and then at the very end because of other things that are going on money available to be of limited fun or lack of availability of funds people change their mind and they compromise it and so they're not able to get everything that they wanted to get the bottom line is there's a lot of navigating through the system based on what you just said you've got to navigate it through thank you your question one minute most definitely i would promote regional food to understand the opportunities that we have for this island we know the driving economic engine on our island is tourism and we need to look at other opportunities of economic development i strongly believe that answer will come to us in the form of food production but to get food production and agriculture up to speed we need a lot of farmers from the farmer printed side growing we need the level of food production at that level to where we now have merits for a processing center and that's where the food h comes in you know we've been looking at food help locations way before the thirty six thousand acres was coming on board we visit a site in haiku with the next fire station is located that was a potential food publication we not what would you do would you prioritize this is a bill or appropriation that you would stand behind i absolutely and i have to go with what joe said and also with  because because navigating through the system to get something actually funded that is new it's not impossible i know because i've done it for years with recycling but it takes on awful lot  sometimes a lot more time than what you would think so again i go back to the data i go back to the the business plan i go back to all of the details that people would want to know if they were responsible for spending public funds and that's what i would need in order to you know fully push this forward and that would be like joyce said joe said we're as council people we cannot function in a in a vacuum we have to have the community support behind pushing this government into new ways of doing things new ways of doing of thinking thank you thank you  our next areas farm land zoning and affordable land for us to begin with show our organization supports the concept of farmers living on the land they farm and lease through an agricultural land trust what ideas would you propose in moving in this direction so that it will be actualised there's already an agency out there that helps farmers  already have programs for farm workers and just for regular people who want to buy and live on agricultural land so i would strongly suggest farmers union and the interested parties get together with a to come up with a creative solution to this issue as far as what you can build on farmland you know we've gotten so technical here in the county of mali as to what you can bill how big your sidewalks got to be larger roads got to be that it's very difficult for anybody to do anything i would love to see farmers go back to the land make it easier for all i like one really neat idea it was by a chilean architect and it's called expandable homes and i think that's something that could work but i would start with the u s d a and sit down with them as to how they could provide funding so you guys can realize your dreams thank you thank you again one minute you can repeat the question does owning question just the specifics of that oh yeah i'm on to a new question with you and then i work through a leak and then i'm back to han i with the same question that i asked  just so we can keep it in a line and not get lost too easily is that all right ok ok no problem no problem then what are your ideas for changing ag zoning that will allow for more options for farmworker dwellings including temporary structures such as the new trend of tiny houses and  i don't have i don't frankly i don't have the idea of how to make that happen and again you know it comes down to engaging those who have the expertise in those respective fields whether it's for the tiny housing part or if it's for how you can apply it to housing for farm workers and i think we as council members our role is to engage the intellect of our community  to try and get as much information as we can to create policy and extract out whatever ideas that percolate to the top if you will and then we have those debates gathering the information to the analysis of the information and hopefully find the common ground amongst at least the majority of council members and to make it even stronger a supermajority of council members which in our case would be six out of nine so that's veto proof from our from our mare and come forth with good long term policy changes now if it deals with changing existing then we have to look at that thank you d given what it costs for their average farmer to read a house these arm land paper equipment and pay for imported amendments and inputs irrigation costs etc but you think it will take to make  arming a more successful enterprise and what will you do about that if elected go back to the future ok so with that we must learn from our past utilize the u s d a system they give of three hundred thousand dollars for a farmer what if we have ten united farmers and all of them got that application of three hundred thousand as three million dollars that they could utilize in the pool to up they don't all have to buy a one hundred horse tractor all ten of them just need one they all need a little work together it'll work work in harmony in farming and we sent a couple of people back to spain last year to visit mondo gun and the intent in there was to study the concept of collaborative cooperative in people working together in a farming direction so that so that it will be actualised oh no you know you're talking about making it so that people can live on their farmland i think it's ridiculous that people cannot live on their farmland one of the things that would happen would have to happen is that our building permit process is broken we have to fix that we have zoning we have lots of regulations on what type of housing is permitted and where is the water meter that's an issue also if you're going to be living on the last and where is that water meter for your house and the infrastructure but at the same time we have to take a look at things like composting toilets we've got to take a look at you know catchment water other ways of actually surviving on the land that people have done for years that we'd have regulated ourselves out in in the process of becoming a government thank you very much on that theme we're going to jump over to protection of ag land and the budget finance bill seventy which i'm sure some of you are aware of anyway if you're not  union really wants to see farm lands protected from being seen at their market value and information was put forward during this last session of the budget and finance committee that said that county could really realize a huge amount of income from changing the way that land is viewed and highest and best use was what was going to be substituted for it's farm designation anyway the egg working group brought in economics economists they provided additional information and they proved that this whole mechanics was overstating the estimated income and they really wanted to make the point that we need maui county on board to really support a positive image for the future of agriculture here not look for more ways to make money off of it so your question would be this is for each of you and i guess we'll start with joe this time because we did with hanna what would you propose for getting lower tax rates on  or real farming and ranching is happening and part two assuming you'll be on the budget and finance committee where would you be looking to make up for what you subsidize a land in other tax revenues joe do i have to go first on this  avocado trees but they're not bearing and i have a nice house so i don't know where i would fall in this category i think we've got to go back to what the planning department has been doing which is making you do farm plan that they would come out and check the farm plant and if you were following the farm plan you would get discounted rate and they're actually doing that somewhat not but i discount it a little more where you would make up the difference boy that's tough because if you go out after probably the lowest tax rate which is a residential people you're not going to get reelected so i don't know the answer to that part of the question th you thank you very much well dan this hot potato is in your lap here so i served as the budget in finance here for two years in two thousand and five and two thousand and six so not only was i in the middle of it i was on the share that at the facilitate this type of discussion and so a joe touched on it a little bit when we're looking at ag we have to make sure that the guys who are claiming an egg and classification that they're doing ag and if they're not then they're going to get they're going to get charged more the other part of it is where do we come up with the difference probably one of the top this one says as was mentioned earlier the visitor industry they got four million dollars through m v p and i think when we have when we have the guys who are paying the higher tax burden they are also impacting us the most we still need to look at trimming the additional monies that they use for marketing it instead let them go through the marketing on their own so it's not about cutting them off completely but i think there needs to be a weaning weaning of monies towards that for the marketing aspect of our industry to support the additional industries that we want to lift up that's my answer  up same question so how do we keep them low for farming lands and where do we look for the extra money you know when they brought that proposal last year to b b f seventy seventy proposal that i would incorporate and have that moving forward and that was the funding of the two or three staffing position to go out and verify if these guys are actually farming so that we can then bring back and collect our tax rate on a true level it's just you know they file the paper there's no follow through in the taxation collection so  we were all open in getting increased staffing to to bring in that property tax collection i don't have enough time to bring out another idea but thank you  ok you've heard it all i've heard it all and i'll go with this guy i think he has some really great ideas now one of the things that we do as policy makers is we have to distill out the values of the community and put them into laws and rules that we all agree to live by and it is critical for the value of farming and raising food in this community be raised and that we place more value on that aspect as a community and i think we can rely on your organization and maybe some others to actually push that forward but it's actually the community pushing hard that makes the government why do i know this is that that's how i got here do you think the government wanted to recycle no it was the community they the government into into recycling so i know that that can happen i know we can do that was sustainability and food production i know it thank you a real easy question you know i mean is it was ok if barges of food stop coming to maui on the mainland tomorrow how would you propose propose to organize our food security for such a catastrophe and you know i think it's something we all fear that this could happen we basically have to get everybody together that's farming and people who even are farming and start using the fallow land that we have in his community we've got probably over a hundred thousand acres of fallow land right now so food security is critical to this community i don't think we've ever thought about what's going to happen when our community gets cut off i just need to look at it it's not going to just be food if we get cut off from food recall often fuel we're going to be cut off from electricity it's going to be a total situation where the community will really have to go back to agricultural as their main base and we've moved away from that tremendously in the last few years and i sure hope it doesn't come back to bite us thank you thank you everybody gets their own question on this round dane the whole why farmers union designed its five point strategy for helping make farming prosperous all achieving hawaii's food and feel self to pursue but when we talk about back to the future population control and how much people we could sustain back then that equaled out over the so i'm going to touch on that with the fifteen seconds that i have left the charter is set up where you can call an emergency and we would probably activate communication between our first local state and federal government to figure out how we're going to deal with the media see of the issue that you described in that question and so there's there's ways that are set up through charter that we would approach that thank you co what is your definition of food security how would you distinguish distinguish it from food sovereignty food security refers to  lability of food you know it regardless of which ever method you know it's just seem like in a crisis it's not a time we're going to say oh we only want or gannicus you know it's like we need to feed people so so we need to make sure that food is available now smoothed sovereignty you have a choice you have a choice to plan for that you have a choice to to take an indigenous position rather than waiting for that decision and making a phone call to the big brothers and say can we get help i would look at not help now we plant for the future you know we look about the new crops we have our  ay project the bread fruit project we can plant you know we know that there's ten different cult of ours of bread fruit that if you planted it in your community you would be able to harvest brid fruit every week so to prepare for disaster preparedness food sovereignty allow the we talk about buying an eating calais if the price of local food is unattainable for their average resident how can the county partner with its farmers to ensure that they can get what they need to make a living without to a situation with the state and recycling a long time ago i have to drop on my experience and what i've done we convinced the state to give reciting products a fifteen percent per year preference meaning if it was recycled and everything is bet out if it came in fifteen percent higher it would still go to be purchased the recycled per cent would be purchased weight i'm sorry so if there's any way that we could and if we're talking about growing food especially growing food for schools if we could get the department of the state department to adopt a fifteen percent purchase preference on locally grown food i think that would go a long way for establishing the stability of the marketplace which is i think what you were talking about the basics thank you well i only have a couple more questions thank you for all sitting through yeah we're at water now and this is another one where you each sort of have your own separate question i'm going to start over a dane's in there a n a one minute question we have all these grandiose ideas for agriculture on maui but we're still looking at serious water availability issues and we have multiple entities controlling access to our waters we also have an old and  kind of you know creaky delivery system that needs repair and or replacement so how do you as a candidate see this needed infrastructure to be taken care of while dealing with the multiple issues with the the old water delivery systems you know the pipelines the ditches and they're going to need repair and replacement but we have multiple entities that all want to kind of control them so as a candidate how do you see that we could actually get these things you know to keep running and not step on the toes of all the you know this water company and that water company and this former plantation and so forth i think we need to recognize again it comes down to jurisdictional authority and what we have the capability of doing we need to try and do as much as we can on our own without depending on the other entities that you talk about and example not on ag water but on drinking water was make a policy that controls how water is going to be controlled the show me the water bill which by the way i introduced the original framework to that before i left office and it became law and it's something that's going to carry forward for future generations i think even with the onslaught of people trying to challenge it now and try to repeal it even that was a step that was taken because it was something that we had control over that we could do at the county level and not have to worry about a state challenge a federal challenge in court and the legal challenges that a lot of these issues face so same thing in the back is that i did introduce by the way it was to go after but we can talk about that because you gave us a minute ok well thank you we were touching the surface here have the same question basically we have this old system in needs repair how can we make sure that the infrastructure we need to keep using these systems gets put in while dealing with all the multiple you know plantations and entities who have been controlling the water or who wish to control the water ok well water's a public trust in the infrastructure may or may not belong to the county and or different entities i would take a look at at would it be possible to actually by eminent domain take over that infrastructure and have it that be managed either by the state and or the county and have that be done with it because i do think that we have to we have to move forward and take in troll of the water and the every infrastructure no good having the water if the companies belly up and or is not putting the money into maintaining the system and i think it's critical that we take a look at now just one part of it but like all of it and how are we going to make sure that what we have we can actually maintain this maintain for the betterment of our whole community thank you joe we have a slightly different question for you related how did i think that would i told you the beginning you would have different questions what steps would you take joe to protect maui's water resources from being controlled by outside corporate interests boy that's a really difficult situation because you've got so much legal situations going on with all of it right now and it's costing millions of dollars for everybody who's trying to go through the state water commission to get water rights the problem you have is if you put say a company like e m i out of business that's thirty five employees and you're going to inherit all the legal challenges that they face i would everybody just sit out try to figure this thing out without hiring attorneys without hiring experts without hiring a permanent bright experts because at the end of the day the money we're spending just on legal challenges alone we could probably improve the systems get the water allocated for everybody's use and walk away from this thing if this is not going to end and we can talk about oh yeah this is what we're going to do it's not going to end there's a part of rights issue is going to go to the state supreme court it's going to be another ten years so all i can say is i wish we could stop legal challenges and sit on and figure it out thank you sensible there a little you have a separate question so given the risk of corporations controlling public water would you support state acquisition of a and b e m i water diversion and transmission system to ensure fair distribution and pricing in accordance with the public trust doctrine most definitely following the public trust doctrine and the same concerns that joel head you know like my my personal feeling is kind of going out of the box as a farmer that kind of looks at a permaculture land design why are we only looking at e m i as the source to give us water in the central valley you know why can't we you know the issue i look at i mentioned it the other night it's we have we don't have a water problem we have a water management problem and if you look at the thirty six thousand acres in the central valley and all the roadways that there are and if you turn all those roadways into water catchment opportunities and you create the swales and just aim it on the pool why the question you've got to answer is does it rain the answer is yes how much and when it rains it will fill the put a wise without having to pull water from the forest so we protect our natural resources and we just got a little that system of agro chemical irrigation is antiquated thank you moving on to the next ok or our last round our last area of concentration pesticides and g m most of the wife farmers union united is a solution based action oriented collective of members who protect the interests of our family farmers from any practices that contaminates commodifies or compromises their ability to farm and market their products the wife farmers union is actively involved in proving the efficacy of organic and regenerative practices for field practice in economic that the mission sees that would replace currently employed practices that we don't support and that don't work will start with jane when it has been proven that there are biological applications that can provide solutions to agricultural production issues would you be in support of promoting these over practices that use other substances which are well known hormonal disruptors and personage and that have been found to cause physical harm to both people and environment if so please share why and the sense you have on how to support this direction toward biological solutions and we're asking all four people the same question one minute each oh we're not oh at biological alternatives to using pesticides and chemicals i think we should do the pilot program right here at the county level and take the leadership role doing that pilot right in our parks recreation department and wherever we can apply it in our county another it's where we're in control of it where we're not going to be dealing with state or federal agencies that will be overseeing our actions  directly or telling us how we can do or not do things so i think that's where we can go with that we look at our practices currently at the county level and how we manage our we  are alien species whatever we're dealing with in our parks how we spring what we're doing in the parks and we look at the alternatives and apply it at the county level and see how it works and we go from there same question same question and i got to remember that our job as council people is to set policy and to pass laws and to take the values of the community and turn them into the laws by which we all live with that in mind i'm thinking that possibly the question would be would be act as a as a council ban the use of these other items in favor of the new items i don't think sell but i do and i'm with dana on the whole process of a pilot project i mean that's how i sold the development of the coke composting project to this county and boy i just started that and it just took off like wildfire i was surprised and and if we can get one thing where we have the data where we can actually prove then this would be good and this is the council we passed the budget and so what we'd have to do is we would have to fund a pilot project within the county that only focused on the biological are alternatives that would also that would mean you the community who are going up with the parks and talking to the people at the parks would you be willing to and then having it into the budget because i got to tell you if we had council people shove something into the budget it may or may not get done whether the money's there or not thank you ana show your turn same question i'm going to take a different tack on this what i'd like to do is take our hazardous materials response team that we have they're already being paid already there and have them expand their scope to do air water and soil sampling here in the community we know that we're using a lot of pesticides and we know we have drift and these people are professionals they're trained and we're paying them to be in the station and instead of knowledge as we do for an emergency i'd like to get them out in the field when we have concerns in the community it's a very low cost solution i'm a member of the local emergency planning committee we get grant money all we have to do is change the thought process that it's not an emergency it is all right we don't know what i found about lately of me so what we can do is use our only local resources fundament it's not going to be that hard and when they actually get any emergency response to this kind of situation they'll be better prepared a much smarter about how to deal with it so that's my idea and bobby i love the yellow  wide department of agriculture and the why health department by supporting bills that monitor monitor pesticide pesticide drift to protect our health and environment such as product testing regulations from the county level and the state department of eg department of health they have their regulations coming from their their higher ups and departments however looking at what they i along with what was mentioned earlier i fully agree that if it involves chemicals pesticides chemical drift definitely i would consider looking at policies you know especially around areas that affects the health and welfare of our people and so i would look at the colony youth centers if the you'd send as a being funded there let's really look at at the the potential hazards of chemical drift and pesticides and chemicals around our youth centers or any other county facilities as far as i don't know our power in regards to the state into these above us thank you we have reached the end of our panel so you each have one minute to offer any concluding remarks about your position on agriculture or any question that you might have liked to be asked but weren't asked and let's see where should we start should we start  will go first grade thank you joy yeah before my wife falls asleep out there luckiest guy in the world be married to my wife of thirty five years beautiful hawaiian lady her dad was the best man in the world healer in law and all her mom was great my dad was wonderful my mom went saying oh i music they have to back your head would stand up and my son now has a if they're both firefighters by daughters just gorgeous and i'm going to sleep well tonight the question that i wish you had asked me was what are we going to do about invasive species how right i wish somebody bought that up because it scares the living daylights out of me and i think something that's something we really have to discuss the latest one that i heard about was the very end virus affecting the honey creepers on coati so if you haven't read that article you need to read it thank you thank you so let's jump over to you dane concluding remarks or the question you wish you would have been asked thank you a lot of the questions tonight in my opinion unfortunately were outside the jurisdiction of the folks that you're talking to and what office are running for so to give you some of my my on the job experience and what i learned and it's in the charter and it's very system but there's two things that council members do and one of them is in order to urge something to happen outside of our jurisdiction you pass a resolution so you you write a resolution and then you try to get it passed on the floor and that resolution basically urges the state urges the federal urges somebody to do something the other one is we can do or defenses and that's where we do the policies it's not sexy but that's what we do and it's going to take somebody who effect if it navigating through that system and i think everybody up here has capabilities and i'm hoping that you see that i'll be the one that be the most capable but again that's for you folks to decide so thank you for having us leak of your your minute to sum up or ask that question first off i want to say thank you everyone for being here this evening at this time of the hour i also want to say thank you to the  fellow candidates here along the way you know we've been doing several forums so far and i've really enjoyed sharing and the ek and the knowledge that we've gained looking forward to applying a lot of these ideas when when you folks consider voting for me in getting through the representation for maoi county council i'm confident that the ability to be creative  effective and critical thinking will bring to the table to a t with a wave of change for the molly county obviously a lot of things were brought out it's definitely time to look at it and for me that's why i'm running it saying nuff already not for the same ole same ole let's solve and make a better place and your turn to save the best for last oh you're so sweet thank you i thank you to my fellow contestants here for the winning the prize it's been a real joy being with you and i want to tell you that if you want more information about my platform you can go to vote for four is for four hundred  two years if if i do happen to get elected i would expect to then the farmers union would meet with on a regular basis and apprised me of situations i do want to say that i am an independent thinker and i offer my time and my talents and my experience to serve our community and i will use an ethical approach to a policy development and i'll rely on my morals and the community values and him put and research from everybody i came up with people we did not get as far in recycling as we did without teaming up and don't give up on me and yet it's not over guys thank you very much thank