In this sense ‘time’ is used based on our personal value system. For example: a farmer values growing food, so a farmer has “time’ to grow it because it has priority over other activities during that time. It seems to me, we choose where and how we spend our ‘time’ according to what value we place on the activety.
So if I am not growing or producing food for myself…thank the heavens someone (farmer/hunter) decided they were going to spend their ‘time’ growing/acquiring food so I can eat it. And how do many people in the US reward farmers for their ‘time’ devoted to feeding us? We don’t usually want to pay too much for their food products and we consider a farmers social status to be quite low, even though we literally can’t live without them unles we choose to spend ‘our time’, growing our food, ourselves. Wow! Thinking this through, I just gained alot more appreciation for food farmers, imagining I would have to produce/hunt for food for myself to live.

Sally’s sister, Marilyn Salzl Brinkman, also wrote a book entitled, ‘Aprons, Flour Sacks & other Folk Histories’ a collection of articles about the everyday men, women, and children and about the farming communities in central Minnesota not from a scholarly perspective she said but from a folkloric perspective. As I read her stories it reminded me of stories I heard in my own family about farming in Alberta. The stories also reminded me of my childhood growing up eating fresh fruits, berries and vegetables from our family garden in the summer with the excess being canned by my mother and the aunties so when winter rolled around we ate the preserves of their labor.

It was churning around in me when I read Sally and Marilyns’ stories…I realized that engaging in the process from growing food to eating food gives us the connection we need to make food important, something we value rather than just a commodity, that we stuff ourselves with with no real interest as to where it comes from. I believe that it takes time, it takes people, and it takes working together with nature to grow food to nurture people.

Marilyn Salzl Brinkman, Aprons, Flour Sacks & other Folk Histories,Sentinel Printing, St. Cloud Minnesota, 2008
Sally Salzl Thelen, Thrashing Time on the Farm, Stearns History Museum, Crossings Volume 34, Number 1, 2008

Between watering cycles one day, I had the opportunity to sit down with Dan and ask him a few questions, starting with what motivated him to become a farmer (he’s a young farmer in his 30’s who is a full time farmer)). “Lazines…hahaha”, was his off hand reply. His background in agriculture stemmed from growing up next to an agricultural community in southern California, where citrus and pomegranit grew. His neighborhood friends families had farms. Now those areas are all concrete and buildings he said. Dan paused and then refected, ” Eventually I gravitated to farming because I felt it fit into my attitude towards life…I enjoy plants, they don’t talk back, I can pick my favorites and cull the rest.” There was a lot of humour during this interview which I took as a balancing mechanism to the seriousness of farming because as Dan put it, ” Get ready to fail, there better be more reasons to want to be a farmer than money because there’s a million things that can go wrong in growing plants.” I asked him if he introduced himself as a farmer in social situations. He said, “It depends who I’m talking to. There is a connotation of ‘hippiness’ if you say you are a farmer, sometimes I say I’m an Agricultural Technician.” ………….to be continued

Date of interview: _______________________ Location of interview:________________________

Aloha! I am a student in the Communication Department at the University of Hawaii-Hilo. I am doing an independent study, researching numerous farmers growing/raising food in East Hawaii County and asking them what challenges they experience as farmers and as sellers of their products at open markets. In the Spring semester of 2010, I created my web blog whosyourfarmer.info to be interactive with anyone interested in the dialog of raising food, raising our awareness of farmers and raising communication between farmers and food consumers.

Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed!

Please let me know the following before we begin the interview :

1.Do you wish for this interview to remain anonymous?

2. If the answer to question #1 is no, then would you agree to any of the following? :

a) Agree to be interviewed with or without an audio recorder:
print name_________________________________
signature___________________________________
dated______________________________________

b) Agree to be interviewed with or without a photo taken:
print name_________________________________
signature___________________________________
dated______________________________________

c) Agree to have ____________photo __________audio posted on my blog:
print name_________________________________
signature___________________________________
dated______________________________________

3. What kinds of food crops do you grow for the farmers markets ?
___ fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts

___dairy (milk, eggs, cheese)

___prepared food (cooked food, honey, jams etc.)

___other________________________________

4. When you sell food, at farmers markets, in your observation, rate what your customers care about .

[ On a scale of 0 to 5 ( 5 being the most important)]

a) how the food looks 0 1 2 3 4 5

b) where the food is grown 0 1 2 3 4 5

c) how the food is grown 0 1 2 3 4 5

d) who grows the food 0 1 2 3 4 5

e) price of the food 0 1 2 3 4 5

f) freshness of the food 0 1 2 3 4 5

5.What methods of communication do you use and find effective in getting information to your customers about the food you sell at the farmers markets?

(ex. talking, signs – with general information, labels – detailed information, other methods of periodic advertizing)

6.In your observation, what questions do your customers ask the most about your products?

7.From what area do you consider ‘ locally grown ‘ food to come from? [ Mark one ]

___ grown in the district

___ grown in the county

___ grown in the state

___ grown in the country

8.What is your ‘definition of a farmer’ ? What motivated you to become a farmer?

9. Is your farm a family business? If yes, who in the family, is involved in your farming operation?

10. Are you a full time farmer?
If not, approximately what percentage of your total work week is devoted to farming and selling
your products at farmers markets?

11.What government agencies or other groups have you found to be helpful and supportive in your farming experience and why?

12. What aspects of farming would you advise someone to consider, who is interested in becoming a farmer?

13. Demographics of person interviewed : [ please circle one in each section of a, b ,c]

a) gender : _____ female _____ male

b) age _____(18-30) _____(31-40 ) _____ (41-50 ) _____ (51-62) _____(63-70)____(71 +)

c) household income _____ (up to $30,000) _____ ($30,000 to $60.000) _____ ( $60,000 to $ 80,000)

_____ ($80,000 plus)

d) race [choose one or more]:
_____ American Indian or Alaskan native/ __ Asian/ ___ Black or African American /___Native Hawaiian/ __Pacific Islander/ __ White / __ Other

e).zip code ____________________

I appreciate your interest in my research project.
You can read more about it on my web blog : whosyourfarmer.info

Thank you!

The long days of a farmer’s life hasn’t changed that much over historical time. I have been known to water my nursery during drought times with a flashlight in the night. Watering plants by the light of the full moon has been quite ’special’ also.

Lew Nakamura, of Hikari Nursery, called me at 7:00 am before he started work because I had missed ‘his window’ the night before’. He agreed to have any of his interview information posted on my blog site saying, “Yes, you can put it out there!”
He began with telling me he is a University of Hilo graduate in Tropical Agriculture. His first and main crop was draceana, a very desirable interior scape crop and very profitable for many years. But the last few years, there has been huge competition from US mainland and international sources, so his market in the mainland US has dropped substantially. Lew has adapted his crop selection by transitioning some of his acreage in ‘The Hawaiian Beaches State Agricultural Park Lease Land’ to food crops of tomatoes, eggplant, okra, peppers, and green onions. This is a new venture for Lew in many ways in that , growing draceana commercially is a mono crop, sold in bulk in major co-op container shipments to the mainland, therefore no real consumer interaction. Being a nurseryman, he was used to growing in containers so to move into food crops it was more natural to grow and market his vegetables as container plants.

Selling produce on a local level, he said, is all about interaction with the consumer. I asked him what, in his observation of his customers, do they care about when choosing his products. He said the questions asked most often are: ‘What variety is it? Is it organic and if not what kind of chemicals are used and what media is it grown in?” He also said they are most interested in how the product looks, and the price. Least of their interest, in his observation, is who grows it or where it is grown.

Lew’s business is a full time family business which includes he and his wife and sometimes his teenage daughter. I asked him what his definition of a farmer was and he said very definitely, ” A ‘real farmer’ is someone who makes their living off of growing food and plants. There’s too many fake farmer’s and gentlemen farmer’s who get tax breaks and other assistance that they should not get ” He figures these breaks makes real farmer’s look bad because public perception is that farmer’s get more breaks and support than they do and it isn’t fair. He went on to say that full time real farmers need all the help and assistance they can get in terms of agricultural lease land, agricultural loans and water discounts to make agricultural business viable.

With all the hurdles of farming, I asked him what his motivation was to become a farmer. He said straight off, “Independence, it was a way to use my degree to make a living for myself, I was a first time farmer when I started my business. ” Lew started when he was in his mid twenties, and now thirty years later, the next generation in his family, his daughter doesn’t look like she is going to follow in the family business, at least not at this time. But he said if he was to advise someone who wanted to get into farming he would tell them to get into food production. Currently there is a lot of support by government agencies for marketing, grants etc in the area of ‘food safety’.

I thanked Lew for his insights and I was happy to have spent some time to reflect on his career as a farmer who is supporting his family through agriculture.

I am always grateful when a farmer agrees to spend their precious time to talk to me about what their farming life entails. I want to know because I want to understand, through their farming experience why they farm.

My curiosity for interviewing food farmer’s is reflected in a memorable quote in the movie, ‘ To Kill a Mocking Bird’. The main character Atticus said, ” You never really knew a man until you stood in his shoes and walked around in them.” I think a farmer is someone to appreciate and through their stories we can ‘walk around in their shoes’ and then gratefully give thanks for their efforts to bring food to our tables.

I was inspired by this concept to enter a whosyourfarmer.info produce truck float in the Pahoa Holiday Parade, in Pahoa Town, happening on December 4th, 2010 starting at 10 am.

As usual, I get this great idea and then in the process of preparation, the idea expands as I get more people involved, generating more interest and making more connections. It started off as a float entry in the parade …now there will be a whosyourfarmer.info booth at the Pahoa Highschool and Intermediate Ho`olaulea that same day, partnering with the eight graders for their “farmers market’ fundraiser.

The Parade route ends up at the school, so it is a perfect opportunity to have a whosyourfarmer.info booth to display the DVD’s: King Corn, The Real Dirt on Farmer John, The Future of Food and Food Inc. I will also have whosyourfarmer.info bumper stickers for distribution. Any fruit and vegetables remaining on the truck at the end of the parade route, that did not get handed to parade watchers along the way, will be donated to the eight graders ‘farmers market booth fundraiser’ at the Ho`olaulea. The whosyourfarmer.info booth will be set up next to the eight graders as a tie in to their theme of a farmers market.

Tune in for more development on the whosyourfarmer.info parade float and booth at the Ho`olaulea

Summary
- A whosyourfarmer.info float will be in the Pahoa Holiday Parade Dec 4, 2010 starting at 10:00 am.

- There will be a whosyourfarmer.info booth at the Pahoa Highschool and Intermediate Ho`olaulea from 10:00am-2:00pm

The opening scene in the documentary ” The Real Dirt on Farmer John” is, John Peterson picking up a handful of dirt, taking a bite of it and commenting, “The dirt tastes good today.” I thought this guy is really weird, but I kept watching as farmer John told his story about growing up on the family farm in northern Illinois during the 50’s.

His grandfather had bought 360 acres of farmland in the depression (1930’s), so John was third generation farming the family land. Like most family farms of that era, they had some crops, had some chickens, beef and dairy, the kids were all in 4-H club. He recalled how farming was always a struggle, kind of a gamble, because while everyone worked hard at it, there was always too much or not enough rain or there were pests or diseases that would affect the farms productivity at times. But family farms were just that, family and community working together. When planting or harvest time came around, family and neighbors all came together to help each other out. Community was ever present, sharing common values and goals as they worked together to achieve them.

Starting when John was a young child, his father always showed him how to do things on the farm, like fix machinery or tend to the cows; he liked the rhythm of milking the cows and swinging the pails. Unfortunately, John’s father died young, when John was just 18, so then the 360 acre farm was John’s responsibility, with mom and two sisters.

The dairy income allowed him to go to a nearby college after high school as he continued working the family farm. His new college friends felt the farm was a sanctuary, moved onto it and as John said, ” They were city people who wanted to get close to the land but didn’t know what to do with it”. They had never used a pitch fork in their lives, John couldn’t imagine that.

I won’t tell you the whole story because I think you will really enjoy seeing it. John is a great story teller, he had me laugh and cry with him in his journey as a farmer. What I especially loved about his story was the elements of passion to the lifestyle and connection to the land that I mentioned earlier. He said his destiny in life was to care for the land. Without it, without the animals, and the machinery with which to work the land, he felt felt he was a failure and very alone. For him, being a farmer gave meaning to his life.

I felt for the farmers and ranchers, who can do little for their crops or animals when the weather turns to cloudless skies and drying winds. For an extended period of time now, this current drought is negatively affecting many areas on the Big Island. How do our farmers and ranchers make a living when the weather gods are not co-operating….and how does that relate to what local food is available for people to buy?

This is the essence of this fall semesters’ research in whosyourfarmer.info
I am going to talk with some of the local farmers on the Big Island, who grow or raise their products and market them at open markets. I will ask them to tell me their story of being a farmer and to talk about the relationship they experience in growing and selling their products directly to the consumer.

I almost feel guilty, and yet so thankful, because as I write this, sitting here in Puna, the sweet, sweet sound of rain is coming down…what we have come to call a ‘real rain’….replenishing my spirit and the spirit of the land.

Life seemed simpler back when we didn’t have as much choice or certainly not as much information about the food we buy and eat, as we do today. As I grew up in the 50’s, my family lived in the city. My parents shopped at Safeway for the bulk of items, but there was daily milk delivery from the local dairy (near the city) , weekly bread pick-up from the local bakery (a few blocks away), potatoes were bought from a local farmer ( outskirts of the city) in the fall that lasted us all winter, and sometimes we bought a ’side of beef’ (cut up and packaged) from a local butcher (within the city), that we stored in the freezer. So even then
‘ local’ had a lot of different meanings depending on what item you were buying. I don’t remember any talk of what the dairyman, baker, farmer or rancher put into the milk, bread, potatoes or the beef before we bought and ate it. Most everyone seemed to basically trust that the food we bought and ate was good quality, good value and good for us. I also remember that many items were just not available out of season. It was a big deal to get the first pick of the season when fruits and vegetables became available. The ability to eat seasonal produce beyond the season, was extended by way of freezing or canning the food items.

Nowadays…its a bit different. In the January 2010 issue of Martha Stewart magazine, there’s an interesting article written by Carol Ness entitled ” Fresh Thinking:organic, local, seasonal”. She writes, “…picking out a head of lettuce makes you feel as though you need advanced degrees in agriculture, chemistry, economics, and nutrition” (p 99). There is lots of food terminology to inform ourselves about. I found this article to be helpful in simplifying the explanations and comparisons of the general categories : organic, local, seasonal.
Within all categories the same issues were discussed : Flavor, food safety, cost, environment, nutrition and bottom line. I’ll elaborate more on this article from my perspective at a later date. Meanwhile you can read the article for yourself at the following web address :

http://www.wholeliving.com/article/fresh-thinking-how-to-shop-for-fruits-and-vegetables