Ep 10. The Zen of Farming with Glenn Teves

Aloha & Welcome to the SOW podcast, aimed to provide educational support, information, guidance, and outreach to farmers, ranchers, and allied agricultural producers in Hawaii. In this episode, we hear from Glenn Teves, County Extension Agent on the rural island of Molokai, about how to maintain an even keel when faced with some of the struggles of agriculture in Hawaii.

This podcast is brought to you by University of Hawaii College of Tropical Ag. and Human Resources (CTAHR), and the Seeds of Wellbeing or SOW Project. This podcast is supported by the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

Resources:

• Hawaiian Homes Act of 1920
• More about Glennʻs life - from one of his newsletters 
• More about ʻaina ho'opulapula

Find out more about us:

• Seeds Of Wellbeing website
• Seeds of Wellbeing Resource Hub
• All the SOW links

Transcript

Thao: 0:00

The views information or opinions expressed during this Seeds of Wellbeing series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of the University of Hawaii, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, and any Affiliated Organization involved in this Welcome to a Seeds of Wellbeing"Voices from the Field" podcast, project. featuring voices of Hawaii agriculture producers for Hawaii agricultural producers. These podcasts are made possible by a grant from the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, also known as CTAHR. And the Seeds of Wellbeing or SOW project and is supported by a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture. Uncle Glenn is an esteemed and well respected farmer, and UH CTAHR extension faculty on Molokai. He shares his philosophy, principles and purpose needed to remain Zen and committed to farming. All right, so thank you, Glenn, for coming on to our podcast again. we're I know, our audience are very excited to hear more manaʻo coming from you. You've got such a historical and a wealth of knowledge, so I'm going to start off by asking you to elaborate on your zen of farming. Can you tell us a little bit about your ideas of that?

Glenn: 1:39

Okay, well, the first time I came up with that I was teaching some classes on the Big Island. And I didn't even know what Zen meant, you know, and so I have to start looking at, you know, what, what does this mean? So, you know, talking about meditation, it talks about intuition, it talks about not thinking to much, which is counter to what we do in farming. I mean, you want to know the art, you want to know the science and everything. And I think what is important about Zen is to have a peaceful and calm in what you do, and not be real, uneven keeled when you're doing for me, it's like, from one storm to the next. And so, I read this one thing, today says, close your eyes, count to 10, create your morning routine, you know, and kind of look at this and say, okay, count to 10 is probably something we need to do anytime we fly off the handle. And I kind of reflected on something I heard one time on a movie "Beverly Hills Ninja" to be one with the universe. And so, you know, how how are you one with the universe, you just one piece of this big puzzle. And you need to know your place in this whole system. At the same time, the meet, we had a meeting today with all extension agents and somebody mentioned, you know, extension agents are really eclectic, which is I think, different from dyslexic. And geing able to merge into many areas of thought. That's why the eclectic means. So personal derives ideas, styles for taste from a broad diverse range of sources. So you know you have friends that farm, you have maybe family that used to farm and you you carry all this, this knowledge or the second nature with you. My grandfather was a horse whisperer on the Big Island and you know, he would look at a horse and he could tell you know, history of the horse without even knowing. Youʻd look at the horse and said"This horse was abused" or looked at this horse and he said, "This horse is a really bumpy riding horse" just by looking at it. So he had this second nature and I still remember one time when he told us, "Okay, get ready. I'm bringing in some horses from Molokai." So we live in Manoa Valley and we raised animals in Manoa, and so he comes home with 50 horses, and he tells us"Okay, I want you guys to go over there and tell me which horses are tame and which which horses are not tame." So we go out there okay, we jump on this horse. Okay bucked off okay, this guy is not tame. Go into another horse, okay, this horse is team. And at the end of the day, and heʻs sitting on the fence watching isn't saying anything. And at the end of the day, he said, "You can tell if a horse is team or not just by looking into their eyes." So look at their eyes, you look at their ears, you look at how you know how wide-eyed they are, and you can tell if a horse is trained or not, you know, so you have these, these second natures that, I mean, you have to bring it out to help you maintain an even keel. And it's even more difficult when people are dependent on you. Okay, so you've got a spouse, or significant other, you got kids, you might have grandkids, and they're depending on you, on your success. So it's a heavy burden to carry. When you're, when you're doing something like this. And you have to, you have to maintain an even keel, and not lose it.

Thao: 5:39

So how do you do it? Glenn, how you maintain that with all those demands on your shoulders?

Glenn: 5:45

I think part of it is going through the struggles and having experience in doing this kind of struggles, and some people live a lifetime of struggles. And you need to get good at it.

Thao: 6:01

Like exercising! Like your losing weight, and the actual, the actual stress of that actually build muscle. So you kind of the challenges are building your mental muscle,

Glenn: 6:11

Yeah. So so everybody can give your struggles. Your spouse right? could give your struggles, your kids can give you struggles, the weather can give you struggles, and all these struggles, build up your muscles. And so you need to have these experiences. You need to remember it, but at the same time, you cannot have it overwhelm you. You have to maintain an even keel, like okay, chalk that one up to experience as long as you're not making the same mistakes over and over and over that I think we call that insanity.

Thao: 6:49

Doing the same thing over and over without...

Glenn: 6:50

So you know, I mean, okay, you make new mistakes now, but you build upon your database of understanding, then realization, to move to the next level, you know, so for me, I mean, I may not be the right person to be interviewing at times. I mean, I'm in I'm here as an Extension Agent. I also have experienced farming and I come from a ranching family. My wife, my wife is fourth generation, Hawaiian homestead farmer, her, her family, were the first ones, a first group of homesteaders that were farming here, and who saved the Hawaiian Homes Act. The Hawaiian Homes Act was a temporary, experimental project. And so when the federal government and the state came to Molokai in the late 1920s, and saw these individuals growing these crops, they said, okay, the program is a success. But what they didn't see was all these struggles that they went through to get to this point, carrying water, water only being available certain days, carrying water in buckets, drought, heavy winds, praying for rain, and then going with fate and just planting. Okay, we, we did what we had to do now we're just gonna have to plant and then the rain would come. So there's, there's, there's a lot of pieces to this puzzle that have to be realized. And, and I think you have to have faith in what you're doing, or you don't do it. You're either all in or not at all. And I think a lot of times, people don't have all the pieces in order. You know, it's like, Okay, I'm gonna go farm, you wake up in the morning and say, today, I'm going to start flying. You can't do that. Okay, you cannot do that. There's a lot of thought, pondering that goes into farming. Because as a friend of mine on in Oregon was a vegetable breeder. He goes, you know, some days he goes, there's a lot of moving parts today. Okay. And so how do you keep all these parts moving without having something stuck into the gears and then put everything to a stop?

Thao: 9:17

And so how do you do that then?

Glenn: 9:20

I think sometimes you got to stop and sit down. You got to ponder like, Okay, what am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? Because sometimes it's just easy. You just keep on doing it. Just keep on doing, keep on doing. You got to stop and say, okay, am I doing something right? Am I doing something wrong? Am I just not in touch with what's around me?

Thao: 9:46

And so you recommend like a an assessment like an assessment like you should do this.

Glenn: 9:55

Okay, funny you mentioned that, because I did one. I did this self assessment, and especially was based on some USDA. "Do you have what it takes to be a farmer?" And I kind of ramped it up, I added some stuff that I thought was important in Hawaii. And, and so what it is, and GoFarm uses it a lot. I questions like, you know, statements like "I know more about my crop than anybody else," you know, or "I know that farming is a very risky and stressful business," "I realized that I'm far from any medical services." So you have all these, when you go through it. I mean, you can easily pick out where your weaknesses are and where your strengths are. And I tell them, I said use this as a way to strengthen your weaknesses. I mean, human nature is such where you're going to run away from your weaknesses. Yeah, I do that all the time. Youʻre gonna run away from your weaknesses, and you're gonna go do the things that are comfortable for you, and you cannot do that. I mean, you got to you got to face the whole animal.

Thao: 11:09

Yeah. So what would you say? Because right now we've done this assessment. And it's the stress and the depression is actually quite alarming, so I want to explore about what do you think is the fundamental root of that's contributing to the mental health issue among our Hawaii ag producers?

Glenn: 11:28

I think I think COVID just made it even. I mean, COVID just magnified everything. Uncertainty! What is going to happen tomorrow? Can I show my crop? Am I planting the right crop? Am I connected? Farmers, I think, by nature are isolated. And they don't, a lot of times, they don't talk to each other, they don't have opportunities to talk to each other. You know. So, I mean, when we have meetings, it's amazing. I mean, what we try to do is you need to get them out of the off the farm. So what you can do is we have food. So they'll come like, Okay, we gonna have laulaus, with poi and stuff. Oh, I'll be there. And sometimes the content of the of the meeting is not as important as the interaction with these guys in linking up with each other. "Oh, yeah, I can help you on that." What is really strong out of the Hawaiian community, the Hawaiian Homes community is interdependence. So a farm, a farm business is more very independent, I got to survive. And for the extreme ones, I got to step on everybody in order to survive. And so you don't have the large company, the large farmers, I mean, they just willing to step on everybody, if they have to, just to stay alive. In a rural community, especially in Hawaiian Homes. What makes Hawaiian Homes communities different is that some of these individuals, their families have been living next to each other for seven generations, okay, so you know, everybody. Sometimes we get into each other's hair, but what I found is that when we have a common enemy, we all come together, you know, so you got to find that common enemy that brings everybody together. The stress, I think, some of it is your fundamental root,

Thao: 13:29

the fundamental root because you said uncertainty, but what is it? Yeah, cuz some people can't be okay with uncertainty. So what is

Glenn: 13:35

I think, I think, knowledge, I think a lot of people who farm don't have the knowledge to farm. And in farming, there's two pieces to the puzzle. In farming. There's the art and the science. So a lot of them are weak in the science. They don't know how to diagnose diseases, they don't understand soil a whole lot. And the soil is complex in Hawaii. We have 160 different soil types, more than anyplace else in the world, and every single one slightly different. You add another layer two that, and that's the climatic zones. So I think we have like something like eight or nine climatic zones, most of the climatic zones, with the exception of tundra. And so you multiply those two numbers, and that's how many microclimates you have, that's how many different climatic conditions you have. Some crops will grow good in some certain conditions and other crops will not. Okay, so you have you have those kinds of situations but at the same time, you have the market side. You know, and you have distances and then you have changing costs. You have all these things that are coming out coming at you hard and fast. And for a lot of for a lot of people they cannot handle. I mean, you want to have a certain amount of certainty. I mean, somebody tells you, okay, I'll buy all your papaya, all you got to do is produce them, okay? Now you just cut your job in half. Because I mean, if you're doing a good job, you shouldn't be spending at least 50% of your time on marketing. Because if you don't have a good market, you're not going to make it. And so you have these food hubs coming along, that will help farmers, maybe you get a better price. If you're going through wholesalers, they're taking half the profit, and youʻre only getting half. The price of freight is going up big time, the price of freight between Hawaii and the mainland is going up. I heard some prices of 300% increase in in freight across the Pacific. So you have all these these moving targets, and you're trying to you're trying to predict what crop to grow, what the market is going to look like, three to six months ahead, or in the case of fruit trees seven years ahead. And you might be you might have made a bad a bad decision. Okay, how do you fix that? Okay, you know, so you went just went from lemons to lemonade. So I think, I think Hawaii more than anyplace else, we have all these layers of things that are starting to affect us. Climate change. Climate change is big time. I mean, I can see it on Molokai. And it has to do a lot with the weather, the wind direction has changed. I mean, we used to have trade winds 3/5 of the time. This is based on data since 1910. Over 60% of the time is trade winds. Three years ago, there was a 25% decrease. This year so far, It's probably 50%. With the exception of some of the strong winds you've been having lately, the wind is changed from the Northeast direction to an easterly direction. And this is based on information from NOAH. So you know, I email the meteorologists, I said, Hey, what's happening, you know, the weather is such and such, and I get into debates with them. Okay? And so, Craig Kodama is one of the meteorologists so about a month ago said, Hey, Craig, what's going on? Man, the weather has changed to more of an easterly winds, and what's happening is Maui, and the Big Island is blocking you guys, so you're getting this funny kind of wind that is not bringing the rain. So for the last three months, I guess from December to around March, we had no rain. And we had hot days and nights are in the 50s. Okay we never get that kind of weather! Certain things grew really well, in the early season. The mustards, the broccoli, cauliflower, won bok, pak choi, all this kind of stuff. Kai lan did really well. But what had happened also is that the cold weather killed off a lot of the parasites and predators that that control the bad guys. The bad guys went out of control caterpillar is coming out of the woodwork all these insects just wiping out the crops. So it was really good early in the season. I said weʻre eating cauliflower, weʻre eating broccoli, and the wife she "Man, we gotta plant more of this stuff." And right behind there, the pests were right on us, and just eating up everything. The fruit flies were coming out. You know, I mean, pepper weevils, you name it, because of this weather. And so now I'm looking at, okay, what's gonna happen in the next three months. And the good farmer is trying to project down the road. They're gonna be right, theyʻre gonnaʻ be wrong, itʻs gonna be based on intuition, or it's gonna be based on data or he's gonna be based on both. You know so just this morning, just this morning, I said I wonder what the weather is going to be what do you think? You know, and asking my wife, and you know, she family has lived here since 1926 on this island, and originally from Maui, taro forming from Maui, she goes, aw man, I don't know, you know, I said I'm thinking it's gonna rain you know, later, when I have rain later in the summer and it's gonna be good, but every thing is predicting drought. California, the western states. I mean, you're talking about what the worst drought in 300 years. So yeah, so you know, you're getting this kind of information and you try to absorb and okay, how does it affect me? What am I going to do? What I'm going to do different? What does the market look like?

Thao: 20:00

No wonder! That is, I mean, you're really highlighting and making it very obvious all the different stressors and their multitude of stressors that changes all the time. And so you've already and you are, you've already shared that you need to have that even keel. So I want to talk about like the solutions, then moving towards the solution. So what needs to be addressed and solved to really help Hawaii farmers?

Glenn: 20:25

Man,

Thao: 20:27

because they're already accounting, like weather, it's unpredictable, right? But what is the human part that can be solved, to help Hawaii farmers, the human element, then, ʻcause you canʻt control the nature elements,

Glenn: 20:39

There's thereʻs trust, that needs to happen between farmers so they can work together they can help each other out. Sharing information about what works and what doesn't work. This is kind of like the new area, I think, because in the past is like, I don't tell anybody what I'm doing. I'm not gonna tell anybody, what I'm planting and everything like that. So we get into this big secrecy, but it's about survival. Yeah, I mean, if you want to be secret, and you don't survive, that's your fault. We need to be talking to each other, we need to be interacting, we need to be strengthening each other, we need to be drawing upon each other's strengths.

Thao: 21:19

So how do we do that? How do we do that Glenn?

Glenn: 21:24

You know, I just read this real interesting article, and it was this, this philosopher that came from China, to the United States, to try and get to the gut of Hawaii of the United States, you know, what, what makes United States what it is, you know. So he came down to the fact that technology is what keeps America going. And now he went back, and he's one of the main advisors to the President of China. Okay. And so he's saying, one of the big problems with the United States is the family system is falling apart. Okay. And he's just like, disintegrating, because we're not spending enough time. And so what they're doing in China is they're strengthening all this kind of stuff, to keep the family in focus. I mean, this is what, you know, I don't know if that's what we want in the United States, you want freedom you want to choose and everything, but he identified the family system as really important. So So what if you don't have a family system, you probably gonnaʻ have to create one. You gonnaʻ have to create this family system in your community, to, to strengthen, to make everything work, more solid.

Thao: 22:47

So is what you're saying then, is that this unwillingness to share is actually the root is because we don't have a strong sense of belonging and love within a family if you had that you'd be willing to share and be generous with others. Is that what you're trying to say?

Glenn: 23:01

I think that's one and but the other part is that everybody should be a family.

Thao: 23:06

Everybody should be a family?

Glenn: 23:07

Yeah, so you know, your neighbors and everybody, I mean, talk to talk about that. Whatʻs that saying that, you know, "It takes a village to raise a child." I think some of that applies, you know. We live on an island where everybody knows everybody, and that can be good or bad. Because the bad is that we kind of allow things to happen. People are into drugs, and we Oh, we know the family, we don't, and we don't get involved. We allow it, we allow it to fester. And that's a big problem in Hawaii. I mean, the drug problem is, is crystal meth is out of control. And it's creating a lot of social problems. And it's in every, almost every household, or it's getting into every household. And we allow it to happen. We allow we don't set standards, okay, this is not going to happen. And we don't get involved. Everybody kinda like I think a lot of it is old style. You know, my mom used to always tell me, you know, what she said, it was interesting, she went to Kauai, and she bumped into these people. And they said, "Oh, I know your son, he grows the best tomatoes. But he's a radical. You know, he's an activist." So my mom says, you know, this person told me that so what the hell does what the hell does that mean? What does activist mean? What does radical mean? You know, I mean, it's it all comes down to your own mindset. on Molokai, we're known as activists, you know, because we get involved in our community. We don't let anybody come in here. We don't let any kind of development come here. We ask hard questions, you know. How's it going to benefit us? you know, or is it only about profit? you know, are you going to share the profits with us? And so, we need to be involved. I go to other islands and I say, Well, what happened to this island? You know, you guys get this island. This happened on this island?! I went to Kauai and the guys go, "Well, you gotta understand that we need jobs and everything." I said, you know something, you guys are a bunch of wimps, you know, to allow this to happen to your island, it needs to benefit you. It's not, it's just like capitalism run amok. So I don't know, I mean, to me, Molokai is a, I mentioned this, I think Molokai is a breakaway Socialist Republic. And so we need to have some middle ground in all this. I mean, we need a little bit of capitalism, we need a little bit of socialism, we need to be caring for each other. When somebody falls down, we got to pick that person up. We don't just go step on them or walk by, like nothing really happened in our life. So I think a lot of that is about caring, you know, some of these farmers, they're so isolated, they're out there with these heavy burdens on their shoulders, and nobody's there to help them.

Thao: 26:05

Are these farmers, the large farmers or the small farmers that your saying?

Glenn: 26:08

Small farmers, the startup farmers. I think the, I just saw some data today, GoFarm had 430 graduates so far since they started, and 60% of them are farming.

Thao: 26:22

That's pretty good.

Glenn: 26:24

Yeah, so I'm looking at this and I'm saying, Okay, what kind of lease did they get? Did they get land? Nobody's helping them get land. So now you got a month to month lease, and I hear nightmare stories. This guy had a month to month, he started making money, the landowner saw that, and they kicked ʻem out and took took over the land. So you have all these little factors. And I think what you need to find out is what is the root factor in all of this? There's a lot of factors, and but what is the root one? I mean, I don't know, maybe we can't get to that. But maybe some of the main ones. But I think being able to talk to somebody else, sharing ideas, sharing values. In Hawaii, I mean, I was raised in a family of six boys, and I'm the oldest, and we have two sets of twins, and so from the youngest to the oldest was five years old. Our our family were ranchers? We ranched all over Oahu. Okay, all Hawaii Kai. We ranched all behind those valleys. Kuliouou Valley, Lualualei Valley, Kipapa Gulch. And we, I mean, we had to work! And we didn't have enough time to get into trouble - although we still did - but we learned my grand, my father used to my grandfather was into it, my father was into it, and my father used to say, the animals eat before you do. You know, so we had all these things that we have to do. And so we have a Chinese neighbor on one side, two Japanese neighbors on another side, Portuguese neighbor on another side, and we were one big family. And so that, I mean, I still remember our Chinese neighbor, Jenny Luo, if we did something wrong, she'd be yelling across, "Glenn, get off your brother!" And my mother wouldn't say anything. My mother wouldn't say a thing you know."But I see you doing that to your brother. Don't do that to your brother" you know. So you have this kind of family system. And then across the street. The Arizumis. Aunty Millie Arizumi was a baker, she had Manoa Bakery. And she would take give us all the leftover pastries, 55 gallon drums, to feed to our pigs, and Aunty Millie made the best chocolate chip cookies. We're just waiting for it. Every Christmas. And Jenny Luo made the most unreal Chinese food and you can tell we can smell a hamha being cooked. So Okay, get ready. You know. So when you have a community like this, they're all watching over each other, helping each other. And so you got to create this if you don't have it, you need to create it.

Thao: 29:14

So it sounds like you're saying the root is this disconnection and isolation?

Glenn: 29:19

I think that's a big part of it. Nobody is sharing their struggles with anybody, they like theyʻre carrying it on their own shoulders or their, you know, their immediate family and nothing more.

Thao: 29:30

And that's the mentality among farmers at least on the mainland that you this this idea that you "cowboy up" and you're like, do it on your own and that you know, you show that you can manage it. It's so how to how do we overcome that sort of mindset?

Glenn: 29:43

Okay, that's the American spirit. I think maybe we need to look at the Hawaiian spirit. And by Hawaiian, I mean all of us. Every every group every you know, that we can work together we can overcome the direction of the world.

Thao: 30:04

So, are there any group or their current groups now that they're doing this? That facilitating this sort of sharing of resources, and putting down boundaries?

Glenn: 30:14

No, I don't think so. I mean, there might be little things here and there. I think part of it is that the more isolated you are for people, the more doubt you have about them. And the more interaction you have with them, you can start chairing and change, you know, changing things. My wife was involved in a survey of Hawaiian homesteaders about two or three years ago. She interviewed 100 homesteaders, and it was for food sovereignty. So it looked at what they ate and everything like that, but what came out was that a lot of ʻem were isolated on their homes, they had issues, and they didn't know where to turn. And she says, We gotta do something, we gotta go, you know, help them as they won't. Gotta create a institution, I mean, we need to create a system of doing these kind of things. And we like a lot of times, we just driven by grants, you know, in our job, we driven by grants that may not even address what we're doing an Hawaii. And so I think that kind of effects things in certain ways. I mean, if the University of Hawaii was truly bottom up, you know, clientele driven, we could be addressing these specific things and prioritize what is happening in our communities.

Thao: 31:43

So you know, the solution that you, one of the solution you offer, is provide more opportunities for folks to come together to share. And most grants don't allow food, as you know, right, as an expense, and for parties for gathering. So if there was opportunities for more of these creations, where people do come together to just to share, talk stories, and food, that might be it right? We don't need to do anything else.

Glenn: 32:09

I think the other part too, is to have people that can come and help as well. But see, even then, sometimes in rural communities, they're kind of cautious about outsiders coming in, and Molokai is like that at times too. And then for us, sometimes we don't want to, we don't want to bring people in if we don't know enough about them, you know, because they come in, and they're scammers, and then, you know, they'll say, "Glenn you brought this guy in?!" You know, so, I mean, our, our credibility is paper thin, even in Extension, you cannot screw up. I mean, you really have to keep in mind that the people you work with are very important.

Thao: 32:53

And so I want to go back to also this issue of labor and land, because you already mentioned some of that. Right? So that's one of the big stressors for farmers in Hawaii, the access to land. Yeah. And and you didn't mention it yet, but we'll talk about it of labor, right, skilled labor. So can you can you offer some solutions to those two issues?

Glenn: 33:14

Okay, the Department of Land and Natural Resources was just getting ready to transfer 90,000 acres to Department of Agriculture. And what I've been advocating for I sent testimony a bunch so far was two things. One, give Hawaiian Homes land that they can use for housing and other things. So they can give back some of the land that they cannot use for anything. Okay, on Oahu. 20% of Hawaiian Homelands are the Waimanalo cliffs. Do we expect the Hawaiians to be cliff dwellers? And I have brought this up in Island Insights last week, you know, and they read my question, I said, Oh, wow, they read the question! So we have we have lands, but they're in the wrong hands. So give the contribution lands to DLNR, give Hawaiian So what is preventing from so what is preventing the public or Home some of those lands to farm. The other thing, you have the Agriculture Development Corporation is basically giving lands to the big guys, to the corn companies, to the large farmers, when they should be focusing on new farmer initiatives. You know, it's like, we call it in agriculture, the Law of the Minimum, you can have all these pieces to the puzzle, but the one piece that is missing will stop you in your tracks. So it's like, okay, I can be growing taro on Molokai, and my market is Honolulu, but I only have a canoe to take it to Honolulu. I can only take a canoe load. That's all I can do. So that's the same thing with with agricultural development. So we got these farmers. They just got trained. They got trained in the economics, they got trained in production, they did a test run on a small plot. They know what they want to do. But they can't get land with land tenure. Okay, you need land tenure. So your, your plan can be bankable. If you have a month to month lease, you're gonna rape that land. You're gonna just get whatever you can out of it before you have to leave. You need to get 20 year leases, 40 year leases, so you can really start farming when you're young, and build something out of it. The other thing is you only you have to come up with models of how to farm. One of the big models on the mainland right now is called MIFFs. Okay, and it's multiple income farm family. So one member of the family has a job with health insurance, and the other one can farm, okay, the only other option is to create a State Health Insurance Program for farmers. And this is something I know the Reppun brothers have talked about, weʻve debated this, and this is really important. Very, very important. The other thing that they said, I kind of flashed on this recently, I think was um, Paul Reppun said what is the most important thing about farming? And he said, having a friend that knows how to fix things. Okay. So you got broken tractors, you got broken water lines, you got broken this, broken that, you need somebody to help you on that. But the land needs to also come with access to water. So and then the other piece to that is where do the farmers lives? I heard a real interesting statement from one of the large farmers, his son, and he said the reason why a lot of immigration, immigrant farmers farm is so they have some place to live. I don't think that's far fetched. They can live on their on their farm, they have someplace to live if they had to rent some place today, which is totally ridiculous. Okay. I mean, totally outrageous. And what's also happening is because it is"zoom era," I zoomed in with two people last week. One was living in Hamakua and the other one was living in Kau, and he said the land is just getting bought up like thereʻs no tomorrow. Okay, so you have these outside factors going on, it's going to make it even harder for people to farm, okay. So how are we making it easier for farmers to succeed? Okay, this is the what is the way. And so what are their basic needs? They need land, they need water, they need some place to live, And they need food too. Okay. So you got to address their basic needs. policymakers or whatever the powers to be to like to realize that farmers need support and to have access to land and labor and water and resources? What is it? Lack of vision. The main focus is getting reelected. Thatʻs the reality. Okay. So the main focus is getting reelected. And, and it doesn't have to be good. It just has to look good. And so who's doing the heavy lifting? Um, how do we get land, like agricultural parts, that, that focus on beginning farmers, new farmers that may even allow them to live on the lot, and working out the details so that they can have like a 20 foot container kind of home or something? Not a mansion or anything like a small footprint on the farm that they can actually farm because ag theft is a big problem. Yeah. So so you can if you can address all of these issues by doing this, nobody wants to take that on.

Thao: 39:18

Nobody wants to take it on.

Glenn: 39:20

Yeah, nobody wants to take that on, you know. Part of it is youʻre dealing with large landowners. I mean, there's probably one of the most powerful lobbies at the legislature. The LURF, the Land Use Research Foundation, so they don't want to see certain things from happening. One of the things we had proposed about five years ago I sat on the on the state Taro Task Force. What we wanted to do was to be able to grow taro in the forest reserves in the watershed, as one to grow food, but also to slow the movement of water out of the watershed. A lot of water to kind of migrate in the watershed and seep down into the ground to help, you know rebuild our aquifers. Yeah, well that got shut down. You know.

Thao: 40:10

Why?

Glenn: 40:15

I don't understand a lot of times what, what they. Okay, if you don't have a vision, all you're doing is blocking.

Thao: 40:25

So but I'm trying to understand the motivation then, why? What is it the benefit for blocking and allowing farmers the resources they need? So I just don't understand what is it that's blocked? What is the motivation behind, because every there should be a rational reason behind

Glenn: 40:42

25 years ago, a lot of the people in the legislature had agrarian roots, okay, they came off the plantation, that family that farmed and everything. Today, it's almost nil. They have no understanding of agriculture. And so that's a big problem.

Thao: 41:01

So that's the issue, then. The the lack of understanding of all the stressors and the challenges and what it takes to be able to grow food.

Glenn: 41:08

Definitely. And so how much money do they spend in agriculture? Okay, less than 1% of the state budget

Thao: 41:17

0.3%.

Glenn: 41:18

Yeah, so they got to put their money where their mouth is. You cannot just talk in a great line about oh, yeah, food security. I mean, if they didn't learn from COVID. If they didn't learn from some of the tsunamis that were just a test run for us. It's not a matter of if, but when, some of these things are going to happen - catastrophes - and we're going to be eating each other.

Thao: 41:45

I hope it doesn't go that way. But there are some folks. But I mean, it can it can. I mean, it's so funny, because I was up at Kamehameha Schools, we're having this annual graduation banquet. And, and my brother, he's a, he's a mechanic for the bus company. And he used to moonlight up at Kamehameha Schools and drive their bus. So we're sitting in this luau with 1000 people, and he comes in and tells me, "Tsunami in Tokyo, get out of here right now." So we jump on the car, like let's go right now we get out, and as we're driving out, we see everybody running out of the running out of the building. And we're I have a pack, so we drive, I said, you know what, we're staying at pagoda we flew in and I said we gotta get water. That's the meeting. So we drive to a 7-11 on off Piikoi, and in in minutes, gridlock! I mean, cars all over the place, nobody can move, you know, itʻs like total gridlock. And I said,"Why the hell are we on Oahu?" If you're on Molokai, this wouldn't happen. You're on Oahu, and I'm thinking, okay, all we need now, is for electricity to go out. You know, then the cash registers don't work. The street lights don't work. Yeah, not the gas station doesn't work. And nothing works. Okay, then we're in big trouble. You know. And so who's planning for your for the future? Nobody's planning for the future. So this last one, we had this whole supply chain issue with Hawaii, couldn't get enough food. They were like giving out food. I mean, if we didn't learn from that, then weʻre just totally ignorant. Okay, I'm gonna play the devil's advocates to also Glenn because there are folks who said, we canʻt you know, the big ag versus small ag with small farms, right? Most of us in Hawaii are small farmers. But there there's there are folks who are saying that the big ag contributes quite a bit, if not, at least more than the small ag to the Hawaii economy, to the Hawaii economy, because they're selling their produce, even though they're not producing food for Hawaii. They're at least making, supporting the income that Hawaii is helping the Hawaii income. And the fact that Hawaii, they're saying, folks are saying, that Hawaii can't be completely independent. So even if we're food secure, we are interrelated with everyone else. So there's no such thing as we can be self sustaining or for ourselves. So how would you respond to that?

Glenn: 44:14

I agree. I agree. But we can do a much better job than what we're doing right now.

Thao: 44:19

How can you explain

Glenn: 44:21

Why having more support for agricultural development. Looking at food security as an emergency, which it is, and having funds, you know like the federal funds coming down, Maui County has given out some funds, grants for farmers to get them on their feet. We need to at least be moving in this direction. Oahu is a different animal than the neighbor islands. I mean, there's certain parts of the different islands where we can be fairly food secure. I mean, when I I was just, I was just making pickles the last couple of days, namasu, namasu and other stuff, you know, and I told my wife, Wow, just think all this stuff in these pickles, we grew. Okay, there's carrots in here, there's Maui onions, well we call it Maui county onions, Molokai onions, and cucumbers that we grew. I said, all of the stuff that we grew, and I know friends that say, "Oh, man, some days I have 100% Moloko meal." You know, got venison, got limu, got poi, got all this stuff that we grew. So we need to always be moving in that direction. And it's so funny because I remember the senator from Maui. He was Mamoru Yamasaki and used to be the Ways and Means Chairman. And I remember him telling me, he says, Molokai will be the breadbasket, you know. And I said, Senator, that's a good idea. But you know, something, in order to make bread, you need the dough. And he looks at me, and he smiles kind of smiles. He was the guy in charge of the money. And so you had these kinds of individuals that came out of hard times, came out of rural communities came out of plantations communities, that understands what it means not to have food. They understand. Today, people become complacent. I can go to Costco, I can get all this stuff. Yeah, but what if you can't even get into Costco? Or maybe when Costco doesn't have anything? So you're not, we're not planning ahead. We're not. We don't understand. We're not taking a vulnerability seriously. I mean, if we had a tsunami, it's all over. Okay. All electric plants on the shore, you got the petroleum facilities on the shore. You got the ports on the shore. You got roads on the shore? Yeah, youʻre in deep kimchee. You know, I look at that on Molokai too. I mean, we say, Okay, what we got in the ground? Okay, we got, we got, you know, 5000 feet of, of this crop, we can fall back on that. And then our neighbor has this, this guy has that and you go hunting, the deer runs through, the protein is running through our yard. We just got to go get it. So, I mean, some people will think that, oh, man, I don't live in that. I live in this new technology. And I just press a button, and here it is. As my colleague used to tell me, you cannot fax a deli sandwich from New York. You have to you have to make it. So I think I think we need we're not going to get 50% we may not even get 25%. But we never know if we never grow. Okay. Well, I used to say that my wife used to get wild when I used to say that. "What does that mean?" You know? And so, the other day I I um I was, we're making pickles, and it was a busy day for me. You know, it's like, okay, eight o'clock, I gotta do this 8:30 You got to do that nine o'clock, I gotta do this and other stuff online. And my wife said "You got to help me make these pickles" and it's six o'clock in the morning, and she was "You got to make the sauce." I don't make the sauce. I just cut the cut stuff up. But I gotta go. She goes. And so I got kind of frustrated, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, this is what farmers go through. sometimes. You get frustrated because you got to do something else, but you got to stop, get stuck with that. And she made a statement, she goes "Expect the unexpected." Okay. And as a former that's really important. Yeah, if you're gonna get all bent out of shape, because something happened, it didn't go your way, now you got derailed, to the max. You got totally derailed. And I learned from experience that once you get mad, you're gonna get thrown off track. You got to maintain an even keel. And this is one thing happened to me. It just, I was flashing on this last night. So I don't know, we got into a disagreement. I was all mad and walked away, I went up. And I was going to mow our field. We have about 10 acres, so I was going to mow the fields. So I borrowed a tractor from my friend. It doesn't work that well. It doesn't have brakes. The wires are loose. So go over there and it doesn't start. So I say Okay, I gotta, you know, I got to do something, so I get a screwdriver and start tightening up the screw. Okay, and I accidentally start the tractor. Okay, so now it's in gear. Okay, so it's moving, and it wasn't moving slowly. It runs over me. It goes, breaks my ankle, runs off my butt goes off my shoulder, and I just happened to turn my body, because it had a lawn mower connected to it, and the lawn mower just made a line on my back, and it was heading down the road, right for my sister-in-law's house next door. And my life flashed before my eyes, but it wasn't about me, it was about I will be remembered by wiping town this whole town of Hoolehua with this tractor. Because the tractor was headed straight for the credit union after the credit union was the post office. And after the post office was our office, and after that was the irrigation office, and I wouldaʻ wiped out the whole town. So I went and chased after the tractor, I jumped on the mower, I climbed up onto the tractor, and there was this wire, thinking, oh this might be the cut off switch, so I pulled this wire, and the tractor lunges forward, you know. And finally I said, okay, I'm just gonna have to fall over. And, you know, I'll fall on the stick shift, and maybe Iʻll get it into neutral, and I did it. I stopped it.

Thao: 50:50

Oh, my God, Glenn.

Glenn: 50:52

But then I broke my ankle and I have to go to Queens hospital, and you put three screws in my leg, you know, in my ankle. And then Iʻm thinking to myself, okay, One, do not get mad when you're operating equipment. So what happened was, I mean, this the good part about it, University says, "Glenn, you need to go to tractor safety training." So they send me to to Peosta, Iowa for one week.

Thao: 51:24

In tractor safety, not anger management, it was just

Glenn: 51:28

Tractor safety training up in Northern Iowa. You know, the funny thing about it is okay, the tractor that ran me over was a John Deere tractor. And I get to that place, and it was 150 anniversary of John Deere. So all these farmers are bringing all these tractors, so all of, like all this antiques, and I say, wow, this is like, this is like full circle. I

Thao: 51:49

Thatʻs a great story donʻt know how I ended up over here.

Glenn: 51:54

The lesson, the lesson is, do not do things that are important when you're mad, because you're gonna get worse than you're gonna get into worse situation than you started with.

Thao: 52:04

And that's a valuable lesson. Wow, thank you for sharing that. I wanted to circle back to the health care, because you mentioned that. And I think that's really important, because I have asked this why Farm Bureau at least on the mainland that farmers are able to have, because they have pooled the numbers right to be able to, to get health care. We don't have that in Hawaii, because we don't have enough farmers to be able to pull together, to advocate for that. So what would be? What do you think about that our what would be another options and solutions for us?

Glenn: 52:34

In a lot of things in Hawaii, were not big enough. I mean, I hear this so often. You're trying to do some special state-of-the-art facility on Molokai for waste management. And sounds like some kind of plasma burning stuff. And then you can extract these nutrients, you can extract fertilizer, you can extract all these different things. And, you know, I was sitting with these guys, and they said, Well, you know, Molokai, you guys don't generate enough rubbish. So you need to bring rubbish from all the different islands. You know, I said, "Are you guys nuts or what? You know, canʻt you just downscale it?" "Well, we really don't have the technology because we're looking at economies of scale and everything." I mean, we got to think of things in a different way. We're islands in the middle of nowhere. I mean, what kind of technology fits us? And the same thing with healthcare? I mean, there must be some way, to be, to have, you must have innovative minds that can figure this thing out. Okay, what kind of model can work for healthcare? Do we do self insurance? Do we do we do something that the State of Hawaii comes up with? We create some special program nationally that addresses this? I mean, there's got to be a way. The problem is we represent 2% of the economy. You know, so we like nothing, we're an afterthought. But then, we have

Thao: 54:03

Except for a tsunami. After tsunami, thereʻs the food that everybody's like, wait, okay, we need to make sure we take care of our farmers.

Glenn: 54:11

So you know, it's not a tsunami, it's a hurricane, or a strike on the west coast or something that's going to just bring us to our knees. Who's planning for that? You know? And so, I think, you know, I think as a whole our society is like, my mom's generation like that, don't bother. Don't Don't cause trouble, you know, that's the old, Hawaiian, Asian kind of attitudes, you know, and the Hawaiins are Asians. I mean, let's be clear about that. Polynesians are Asians, okay. So you um, part of that is society. Okay. You know, part of it we're not we're not agressive enough to make changes, we just allow our politicians to do what they want. We should be calling them out. I mean, they're getting very obnoxious. They're getting to be bullies. I mean, maybe you need to have bullying programs for legislators who helped them understand their role in what theyʻre supposed to be doing. They are supposed to be serving us. And that's supposed to be interrogating us and harassing us. Yeah. So yeah, we got we got major systemic problems in Hawaii.

Thao: 55:35

Yeah. Yes. And so the last question, I'm going to ask you, maybe not the last question, but is another question before I let you go. I've already asked for an hour of your time, but just a little bit more is how do we, how do farmers scale up? Because that's one of the issues I'm sure you heard about. Do we need to scale farmers? Or do we just have a bunch of small firms? Or Or should we scale up? And how do you scale up for the small farms?

Glenn: 56:04

I think it really depends on how you scaling up. I mean, if you're talking about conventional farming, it's not, it's not rosy in some conventional farms, okay. I visited some conventional farms on Oahu and they got major problems, they got pest problems, they got all kinds of problems. And what they do, I mean, what they do is they over they over plant, so they can supply the market, and if the market gets short, they plow it all under. Okay, that's a lot of food going under the ground. Is that the kind of agriculture that we want? Or is or do we want something that is a little bit more sustainable? That involves having a life of redeeming social value? eing able to make ends meet without having three jobs? I mean, what what is the vision for a way? You know, agriculture can play an important role in rural communities that have nothing else. So we need to look at it as an economic engine. And I think most people just kind of pooh-pooh Oh, you know, all these small farmers theyʻre not pay, you know, I mean, the small farmers are paying for their family, and they're not on welfare. Okay, so you have situations. What are the choices? You know, what are the choices? And I remember getting into a debate with one of my bosses one time about this, you know, well, you know, then, you know, we, Should we be subsidizing water for agriculture? I said, Well, you got a choice, you can do that or you can pay for welfare, which one do you want to do? You know, so, so and then he looks at me and didnʻt know what to say. I said "What are the options. What options do you want?" Okay. And I don't look at it as subsidy. I look at it as an investment in food production, you know, so it depends how you look at things.

Thao: 58:02

Yeah. And what your priority seems to be and where the values are aligned? Yes, yeah,

Glenn: 58:07

For us. I mean, you know, I mean, I look at Prince Kuhio and his vision, and I embrace his vision. You know, he, he had a term that he used is ʻaina ho'opulapula, and my mom used to see that all the time pulapula. And pulapula, yeah. My battery is going down. Pulapula means um itʻs like propagating material. Okay, so it's a like a cutting or a piece of a plant like a hui a taro huli. And so I know hoʻopulapula is, is the land to grow this huli, but it also implies the people. The people are huli, the people are haloa, you know, and they need to grow. So you, you're growing the people, and you're growing the land, growing the food from the land, and you're growing both of them together. And that's, I mean, that's the concept of ʻaina ho'opulapula, which is, Prince Kuhioʻs vision. Okay, so that's, that's really important. And that applies to everybody. I mean, you want to be able to grow your family, you want to be able to bring your kids up, so they understand all this stuff. You want to have a society that supports the good things for everyone, and not for a chosen few and the 1%. You know, maybe Iʻm talking socialism again, I donʻt know. But, you know, I think we need to kind of be moving into that, because capitalism is not working. Okay, that's clear to me. It ain't working. You know, it's um, resource intensive just wiping all all our resources and stuff like that. We need to start looking at other ways of living in Hawaii. And we really got to look at innovation as as the key to everything we do, and it may not be large scale agriculture. because you're talking about pesticides, you're talking about all this other stuff, we need to be doing responsible agriculture. You know, and so,

Thao: 1:00:10

And how do you then bring in those who are currently doing traditional conventional to, to your, your perspective or your It is important and, and, you know, in our survey shows this,

Glenn: 1:00:17

I think, you know, what's interesting about them is that some of them are changing. Okay? So I know one of them that's really large, heavy into composting. Okay, getting compost on the land, because they see the benefits. So some of them will change, some of them will stay the same. But hopefully, they're constantly moving in a in a positive direction. But yeah, conventional agriculture is really different. And Oahu depends on them. The neigh, and some, even on the neighbor islands, but on the neighbor islands, we have opportunities to do community based agriculture. The agriculture that that really sorts supports the community. And, you know, a small farmers, we always look at those who are having a hard time. You know, I remember a couple weeks ago was like, my, my wife said, Okay, this is kokua day. So everything we harvested that day, we gave ʻem away. You know, we gave ʻem to family and friends and everybody and, and I said, you know, I didn't say anything, I mean, you can be just totally capitalistic. But at the same time, you can be doing stuff like this, and feeling really good about yourself. Yeah. And feeling good is important. that the larger the size, and the more money actually you're producing, the higher is your stress and depression, which is oh, why did you say Oh, yes. Can you explain why help? Is it Yes, why you say that? I think I think um, more at stake. I mean, you know you got millions at stake. I mean, I know one farmer on Oahu, and he has a totally different mindset, he used to farm on Molokai, you know, and he said, "Well, if I can make five cents, a pound, Iʻm happy, okay?" It's because it's five cents, times 12 million pounds. Okay. And so he can, he can operate on these kind of margins, small farmers cannot, they got a lot of stuff to cover, you know. So it's a different mindset is more on, and this person is a strong economist, looking at this kind of stuff, but at the same time itʻs cutthroat farming, you know, I'm not going to let anybody get in my way, I'm gonnaʻ step on everybody, Iʻm gonnaʻ run over everybody. That is, that is, that is stressful, you know. But at the same time, you got community based farming, where, Oh, I can help you with that, well, I can rototill that for you, because Iʻm gonnaʻ have my tractor hooked up for that, and I can help you on the, Oh um, I'm short of this crop you wannaʻ go sell you know, your crop to my market? So have these types of models that are emerging, I mean, the food hubs that benefit a farmer, okay. A lot of the systems do not benefit the farmer. And so you got to look at that, because if the farmer doesn't farm, you got nothing to sell. So how do you support the farmer? Do you just take advantage of the farmer, you know, Iʻll buy your crop for 50 cents, and then selling it for $1, or $1.25. And that is the old model that's gone on in Hawaii for a long time. But this emerging model with food hubs and more profits, going back to farmers, is definitely shaking up things, and can really expand if we have the right resources, to bring resources to bear on this model.

Thao: 1:03:43

Well, thank you, Glenn, you've shared a lot of wonderful information and stories, I'm going to ask you just to end our podcast with three words of wisdom or three things that you would recommend any farmers to for any farmers to keep that even keel

Glenn: 1:04:00

Have a good night's rest. One, let's make sure I mentioned that one. And then the other one, I mentioned that the GoFarm annual conference, I said "If your farm doesn't have any weeds, that's a sign of a sick mind." So balance, balance is really important, and having small successes to build upon your sanity.

Thao: 1:04:34

So small successes. One step at a time.

Glenn: 1:04:38

One step at a time.

Thao: 1:04:41

But at least move right.

Glenn: 1:04:43

Yeah. Forward movement. I mean, it's like, you know, if you you ride a bicycle and you donʻt move the bike can fall down. I think Darwin used to talk about that. Darwin used to talk about it that.

Thao: 1:04:54

Well, thank you so much. I'm gonna pause the recording now. That was awesome. We want to thank Uncle Glen for his generosity and manaʻo. We also want to thank all our ag producers throughout the islands, and especially those that we have heard on the podcast, for discussing ways they address the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of Hawaii ag production. And thank you for listening to the Seeds of Wellbeing "Voices from the Field" podcast, featuring their perspectives of ag production throughout the Hawaiian Islands. If you have found it helpful, please follow like and share this episode with others. And if you have any ideas about how we can make it better, please let us know in the comments or use the link on our website. Mahalo for tuning in.