Farmers & Renewable Energy

Richard Ha writes:

I’ve talked about energy and I’ve talked about agriculture, but everybody who makes decisions about agriculture and energy operates in a vacuum. If it’s energy, they only talk about energy. If it’s agriculture, they only talk about agriculture.

To make it work, we need to get the two together.

The recently announced energy agreement is a first step in the right direction – for energy purposes. Now we need to add an agricultural component to it, which they cannot do because they’re all about energy. We need the legislature to marry the two together.

Everybody agrees about renewable energy. What we need to do now is give farmers really strong incentives to put in renewable energy projects, because that will help them be energy secure and then we won’t have to beg people to “Please Buy Local.” Local farmers will be able to set their prices lower, and people will buy local farmers’ goods based on their merits. We won’t have to go through all the gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands to get people to “buy local.”

We need to pay farmers to do small energy projects; encourage them to do renewable energy. Maybe we give them ten percent more than we give others? The benefit is that you get energy plus food. That’s what it will take to be sustainable.

You can’t just be sustainable in energy and not in food.

Giving farmers extra incentives to use renewable energy methods achieves two things – it helps them save/make money and produce more food per person, while also achieving the goal of bringing more renewables on line. We know that “If the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm.”

The world has changed and we need to adapt to a new reality. The challenge for Hawai‘i is figuring out how to become food and fuel secure with the least amount of pain.

This crash course explains what is going on in our changing world in a very simple, commonsense way. Its explanations are among the easiest to understand that I’ve seen.

Because of our abundant natural resources here in Hawai‘i, we have the opportunity to have a relatively better lifestyle than that of the U.S. mainland. Net Energy Return On Energy Invested (NEROEI), minus the energy used to produce food, gives us our lifestyle. Therefore, in order to maximize our lifestyle, we need to focus our attention on both renewable energy as well as food production.

It is prudent for us to prepare for the worse and hope for the best.

If we join agriculture policy to energy policy we will have both food and energy locally produced, and that is the essence of sustainability.

Not “no can,” “CAN!”

Comments

[michelle medeiros]

Aloha~

I learned about your blog and your hydroelectric plans through your visit with Leslie Wilcox. I'm impressed.

My husband and I live on 5.7 acres of land in Waimea. It's not the best agricultural land. Wind eroded and rocky, it was used for pasture. But before it was "fashionable" I have wanted to create a self sustaining system.

In reality, the mortgage is too high at this point to quit my job and farm full time. But I can hope that the land will one day be able to pay for itself, without being depleted.

I dream of installing catchment systems, vertical wind turbine, and photovoltaics along with food crops. I wish there were a way to reasonably finance the system; a low interest loan the repayment of which would be equivalent to paying the actual electric or water bill.

What I need is to learn how to handle the finances of my small project, the way you handle the finances of your BIG project!

Thanks for sharing through your blog.

Mahalo~

Michelle Medeiros

[Richard Ha]

Michelle:
Thanks so much for writing. Coincidentally, I am going to Oahu this morning to testify before the House Ag and Soil, Water and Ocean committees.
I am planning to testify about just what you mention--financing for small renewable energy farm projects.
I was going to tell them that if they made sufficient financial incentives for farmers to produce rewnewable energy projects, it would encourage more people to farm and that would make Hawaii more food secure as well as more energy secure. The bottom line is; "if the farmer makes money, the farmer will farm." Mahalo again for writing.