What We're Doing

Richard Ha writes:

Oil went over $119 per barrel yesterday. Everyone knows that this is not good. We have to take action now.

Here’s what we’re doing at the farm: I have written before about the hydroelectric project that we will soon start construction on. This will stabilize our electricity costs, which are now more than $13,000 per month. In addition, we have talked about making biodiesel from french fry grease.  In two years we will be energy self-sufficient! We plan to let our workers charge their plug-in hybrids as a benefit of working for us.

And we will continue to offer our workers fruits and vegetables to supplement their diet. Because of rising oil costs and their effect on food prices, we feel a heightened urgency to provide our people with food to supplement their families' diet.

I mentioned here before that I was very concerned because a couple of our workers were asking to borrow money from me for gas to come to work. When we announced that we were winding down our banana operations, I told the people about to lose their jobs that they were still welcome to come to the farm every Thursday and pick up fruits and vegetables with the rest of our workers.

Only two of the original workers did not come back to see about available work. But I am very happy to see that one of those two still comes by to pick up fruits and vegetables.

When Chef Alan Wong came by recently to do a kalua pig cookout on our farm, and we could not bring all of our workers to the cookout, Kimo made sure that we made a container of kalua pig for every one of our workers who could not attend.

Kimo and I talk about the effects of rising gas, electricity, water and food prices on our workers. If we could, we would raise our prices so we could give all our workers raises. But in this day and age, retailers do not want to raise prices at all. So we are caught between high farming costs and sales prices that are not keeping up.

We have decided to raise pigs on the farm so we can make smoke meat and kalua pig to help supplement our workers’ diets. We will use our banana and tomato waste as pig feed.

Soon enough, we will also be raising fish and shrimp.

In addition to the banana, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, bell peppers and other odds and ends, we will be able to give our workers fish and shrimp within the year.

It is definitely not business as usual and it is important that we take care of each other.

The basic idea is that as oil prices rise by “x” percent, we need to figure out how to lower our cost of living by “x" percent. Sometimes it takes a bit of innovation, but it’s what we have to do. I think our workers hope that we can figure out a solution. We don’t want to let them down. 

Comments

[Ben Discoe]

Richard, i am totally happy to hear you are looking out for your workers, and aggressively reducing your oil dependence. Hogs on the farm are an excellent idea!

But, can you tell us where on earth $13,000 of electricity goes? For a hydroponic operation, i can imagine a small amount of power for pumping, and maybe some lighting in the winter to extend daylight. But surely that can't take much electricity? Where is it all going?

[richard]

Aloha Ben:
You are right, our hydroponic operation uses very little electricty. The electricity is mainly used to control the ripening of the bananas. The speed of ripening is controlled by temperature. It is also used to precool vegetables prior to delivery to Big Island stores. Or, for Young Brothers refrigerated containers to other islands. If we don't keep the product cool, the shelf life is reduced quite a bit.