Jennifer Karaca

Pictured: Jennifer Karaca Photographer: Cadencia Photography — Pictured: Jennifer Karaca
Photographer: Cadencia Photography

“We want to show that if we actually helped people plant more and had more people to go out and harvest, that it really could have a huge impact on our food system.”

Could you give me a picture of what life was like for you in common ground, pre-COVID and then where you are today?

Before COVID happened we had quite a bit of support from people wanting us to come harvest their backyard produce. That was pretty steady. As soon as COVID happened, it jumped up by a lot. In the first two months of this year, I harvested a little over a thousand pounds a month. Since COVID happened, I'm at over 9,000 pounds for the year. So it basically doubled per month, the amount that we can harvest. It could have been a lot more, I just don't have the support in place and the staff to go out and harvest more. The demand for produce from the food bank and all the other community organizations increased by a lot.

Our organization has also been asked to pivot to help organize food giveaways for the community, which is something we weren't doing pre-COVID. Now, this is the fourth one that we've done and we've got two more coming for a total of six. I do the ordering, I go out and try to source a variety of dry goods and fresh, local produce so that people can have realistic groceries in these food bags. The produce has been pretty steady, if I can't get one thing, I'm able to find something from another farm. A lot of these small farmers are maxxing out and have had to ramp up their production tremendously to address the needs of the community.

Some of the farmers that I spoke with were actually behind on payroll because although they had to ramp up production, the income from that hadn't quite caught up. That's a difficult thing that they've been dealing with, as they’ve done a phenomenal job of ramping up and changing their business models. Pre-COVID they were mostly doing farm to market, for example restaurants and businesses, and now they're selling directly to consumers.

For the dry goods what we've seen is really a huge breakdown in the larger foodservice companies. They're experiencing a lot of shortages of items, especially in the meat department.

It’s been a horrible situation globally, which has miraculously also been a really positive thing in terms of the potential to transform and change our food system locally. It's been eye-opening for so many people, in terms of how broken our food system is. Even though we're a small,grassroots, non-profit, a lot of people have been looking to our organization for guidance. ‘How can we fix this? What can we do? How can we get more food into the system and how can we work with local farmers more?’ More people are looking for directions on how we can make better connections within our local food system.

“We're trying to fill in the gaps within the agricultural sector while catering to the needs of these landowners in order to provide more locally-grown food which in turn promotes wealth distribution and prevents gentrification.”

So my understanding of your organization is that pre-COVID CGC was formed to utilize produce that was potentially going to go to waste on fruit trees in people’s backyards.

The way we originally set up Common Ground Collective (CGC), was actually to be a full-service organization for ag landowners that were not farmers. Our original business plan was to do the planning, installation, maintenance, distribution, and harvesting for the landowners while collecting data to help more people turn their ag lots into small farms. We're trying to fill in the gaps within the agricultural sector while catering to the needs of these landowners in order to provide more locally-grown food which in turn promotes wealth distribution and prevents gentrification.

There's just one of so many benefits that occurs when you increase local food production, including positive impacts on health and wellbeing and saving on groceries. True sustainability is when you can trade and barter back and forth with your neighbors. That has been our real focus from the start, but since we're a brand new organization, we lacked the name recognition and track record needed to qualify for grants to be able to launch that entire service. So we started with the backyard harvesting program, because that is literally a low hanging fruit in every aspect of the term. We are trying to show that backyard produce could fulfill a significant amount of the island's demand. Our Foster Farm Harvesting program had a goal for 10,000 pounds for the entire year and we have reached over 9,000 pounds at just five months in.

That's just one person, one day a week harvesting. We want to show that if we actually helped people plant more and had more people to go out and harvest, that it really could have a huge impact on our food system.

Instead of joining in on the fight over the central Valley and the commercial ag lands, we are working to address the needs of these residential ag lots with people that want to grow. Many of whom work and don’t have time to farm, some work two or three jobs or they're retired and also some have kids they are busy shuffling around or they don't know how to. Finding ways to help these resident’s grow and their ag land in production is where our organization has focused our services.

“The gleaning program had a goal for 10,000 pounds for the entire year and w”e're reached over 9,000 pounds at just five months in.”

Now that you are organizing these food distributions, are you purchasing products locally?

Originally we were working with Pukalani Superette who was, on their own dime, purchasing products to give out to the community for free, which is amazing. I can't say enough amazing things about Pukalani Superette. They really care about their community and their customers. It's so touching to see business cares so much. They were offering to pay for everything out of pocket, but for the last two, we got donations from the community to help buy produce.

Then the Haiku Elementary PTA got involved and paid for Haiku School, so they wrote us a check to purchase the produce and the dry goods, and Pukalani Superette helped to source some of that from their distributors, break things up, store items and help facilitate it all. For Kalama school, we got two donations that paid for a large portion of it and then Pukalani Superette donated another $500 top of their time and other expenses as well as manpower. It has been so cool working with them to help the community, we feel really blessed to have been a part of that.

We are still looking for donations or funders to be able to do more giveaways for the community.

So I imagine, when you talk about dry goods, that it is challenging to find anything locally produced.

Dry goods are harder, when we're talking about what the community is used to eating, like rice and pasta especially. There are some local pasta companies, but being that we really are lacking in processing and distribution and packing facilities here, they are producing on a smaller scale so their price points have to be higher. Unfortunately, we weren't able to source all of the goods locally to put in the bags but we did do our best to incorporate as many local products as possible.

“I think that our food system has been so homogenized that we don't even realize that there are other kinds of produce that can be turned into flours and grains to make these kinds of products or starches that can supplement the types of dry goods that we're purchasing.

Would you consider that to be a vulnerability in the system that may have been made clear in this crisis?

Yeah, 100%. I think that our food system has been so homogenized that we don't even realize that there are other kinds of produce and grains, that can be turned into flours or can be used as replacement starches to supplement the current types of dry goods that we're purchasing.

If we get to the point where people know that there's a variety of things we can do, then they can feel more empowered to make changes. There are so many different types of agriculture too in general that if we provide more education and assistance in those areas then we could really have a robust system that could provide careers for so many of our residents. It is possible to address and increase our food security issues and reimagine our economic industries to create jobs and help sustain our natural resources. As far as agriculture goes we are just scratching the surface right now. I think people are realizing that we have to take a closer look and that there are other options for these kinds of foods that we've all been so used to eating.

“There's a lot of things working against the food system right now that I think have come about from a comfort aspect. It's more about comfort and ease rather than sustainability and functionality.”

Is there more than just awareness that's preventing these markets from like emerging and these products from coming forward?

There has been a lack of support for smaller-scale agriculture for a very long time. Originally Hawaii was a very diversified growing place where it was more focused on supporting the community’s needs rather than profitability. The Kanaka Maoli took care of the land, they were able to feed and sustain all of their communities with the phenomenal ahapua’a system. As colonization happened, like with so many other places around the globe, the food system changed dramatically. More and more people got pulled away from the land, to support themselves for these new monetary needs.

The more that happened, the more people became disconnected, and the more our food system changed. We started relying on grocery stores that needed to hit price points and wanted to sell only a small variety of products because of this a lot of varieties of fruits and veggies disappeared from our daily lives and some even lost forever. The majority of this has really only happened over a period of a few generations. Now people are not even aware of how many varieties of avocados exist, they only know of Hass avocados, one or two kinds of lemons or limes and that goes for so many other types of riots and veggies too. We've lost a lot of heirloom varieties and a lot of native varieties of plants and trees. The commercialization of our food systems has been a huge disservice to our agricultural sectors and environments. As we move forward into this new reality we really need to look at more responsible ways to continue commercialization in agriculture to make sure that the hidden costs do not outweigh the benefits.

Pictured: Barbara Barry Photographer: Cadencia Photography — Pictured: Barbara Barry
Photographer: Cadencia Photography

One of the hidden costs of the current system has been that we don’t have the support in place for small scale farms to really compete with larger-scale farms on their price points. Due to the fact that the majority of government support goes to larger scale farms, we don't have the infrastructure put in place for these smaller farms to thrive. For example, these larger commercial farmers have administrative teams to help them navigate the rules and regulation and go through the sometimes exhausting grants process. While the smaller farms are doing everything with very small teams and sometimes just their families. Even when they manage to grow, market and maintain the resources needed to grow, there really is no processing and distribution facilities available for them to utilize so that another thing they have to navigate on their own.

These are aspects that farmers didn't have to deal with a long time ago. A lot of this is new and our small farmers are trying to take it on all on their own. .

They say that a farmer used to be able to spend the majority of his time growing and then would simply take it to the local market to sell it. Now they say that farmers are spending about 80% of their time jumping through hoops to get their product to market. That's a huge change on top of all of the other things that have been working against our farmers, such increases in costs of land and living

There's a lot of things working against the food system right now that I think have come about from a comfort aspect. It's more about comfort and ease rather than sustainability and functionality.

I recognize that you're a proponent of the ugly produce movement, do you want to talk about that for a second? 

It's unrealistic that people expect our produce to fit models of perfection. People have a certain image of what a tomato or lemon or lime should look like, and if it doesn't look like that, we put it down. The amount of waste that's happening because of these ridiculous standards for our produce is just mind-boggling. There's nothing wrong with produce if it has some blemishes or bruises or it's not the prettiest shape. There have been studies conducted that show if a fruit has been bitten by bugs and then scabbed over, it can actually have more nutrients. It's a stronger fruit, and can actually be better for you.

It's one thing like I've been guilty of my whole life too, it’s like we’ve been brainwashed to need picture perfect produce. Farmers are having to literally throw away tons of food that's completely edible, just because it doesn't fit the mold of perfection. On top of that, we have lost many different varieties of fruits and vegetables, and medicinal herbs and trees that we may never get back and we are destroying our soil and losing lots of land to perpetuate these ridiculous standards. The need for perfect food for the ease of shipping, marketing, and distributing has had a horrible effect on biodiversity and the planet.

Are there changes that are occurring right now that you hope will stay in place as we move through this period?

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the biggest things that I've seen is the community effort, the community banding together to support local farms and local businesses. Local farmers trying to modify their businesses as best they can to support the actual consumers rather than the bigger businesses. That kind of community collaboration has been breathtaking to watch. It's been humbling and I'm so thankful to be a part of that. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. Also seeing the local government in action here has been pretty amazing during this response, it’s refreshing to see them start looking at our agricultural system seriously.

This year, Council member Keani Rawlins-Fernandez introduced $2.5 million in micro grants to farmers and that's the first time that's ever been done here. I really hope that that type of thing will continue. I think that our County really needs to support agriculture on Maui, Lanai and Molokai. We are very vulnerable to economic crises, for our jobs and for our food system. I think this was the wake up call that a lot of people needed. Not just in the community but also in the government. Our County Council has really taken a hard look at that and is trying really hard to be supportive of that change.

How important was it for that funding to be in the form of grants as opposed to the loans that are being offered to farmers?

I think that when you're dealing with retail or something where your product is not perishable or susceptible to issues like crop failures, I think loans are more acceptable. However when you're talking about farms, grants are ultimately what really need to happen. We don't need to loan our farmers money. A lot of farmers are already in debt. The cost of land is extremely high here. Housing costs are extremely high here. All the factors that go into farming here are extremely expensive, so to ask our farmers to go further into debt to help with the response of COVID-19 is not okay. We don't need them to go into any more debt, we need to support them. I think our community members support their tax dollars being used to support local farmers that are growing food for the community.

How do you see this time period being talked about in the history books of the future?

Oh wow. This is such a crazy time that we're living in. I think it's really hard for people to grasp how this will really affect our global community for so many years to come. I really feel like right now is our chance for a soft reset. I think that we've been living, as a society, in such an unsustainable way. We’ve become materialistic, disconnected from our resources and have forgotten that we are part of nature not separate from it. Compared to what could have happened this was a very soft wake up call, for us to start making the changes that we need to so we can start living more in harmony with our natural environment and be sustainable. If we don’t do that and continue with the status quo we are possibly looking at a continuation of mass extinctions for our natural environments and probably the human race as well.

It is amazing to be living in this time because there have been many generations that have never experienced something like this. I'm curious to see how it'll play out in the history books. I do think it will be a pivotal moment for humankind. I just try to keep it light and pray we take the best path forward and that we're not talking about this from some spaceship on Mars because we had to leave the planet in 50 years.

“If you have a yard, plant food.'“

What can people in the community do to help, either through your organization, or just in general to help build this resilience food system today?

The first thing is to take a look at how you spend your dollars. That piece requires little to no effort, just making a change with what you're purchasing and purchasing local as much as possible. Locally made goods, clothing, crafts, home supplies, anything you can get local, purchase local because we really need to focus on our own economy and supporting the people that live here.

The second is seeing how you can shorten your supply chain for your food. How can you purchase more directly from farmers? Going to farmer's markets or purchasing CSA boxes is a great way to support local farms. This also helps cut our carbon emissions by minimizing the transportation of food. If our farmers have the support they need to grow more and be able to process more, they can slowly start to cut their price points too. Like with any business, when you're producing a smaller amount, it's going to be more expensive than if you're able to scale up and get a larger amount out.

Additionally everybody should plant varieties of things and share. I think that community is the only way we get through anything. If you have a deck, grow herbs, container zucchinis, cucumber, tomatoes, things like that. If you have a yard, plant a garden and throw in some trees too. There are so many options you can plant medicinals and native plants that help provide habitat for birds and pollinators and they provide things that people can utilize as well.

Who are your food heroes?

I could list probably 30 farmers right now, Ryan Earnhart, Bobby Pahia, Evan Ryan, Manu Vinciguerra and so many others. Farmers in general are my food heroes, they work so hard and are so dedicated, I really admire them. A lot of these farmers have had no help during this crisis and are killing it! They are doubling and tripling their production as well as changing their business models literally overnight to survive. It’s incredible.

Also Council member Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, has been a local leader that has really been supporting our small farmers. I work with her and she really cares about her community. She's pushing some really progressive legislation and support forward for our communities and taken some hard blows on it. She just keeps fighting for our community. She will just get hammered by people, not from here or by supporters of large corporations for some of the legislation she's proposing. Sometimes she receives hundreds of emails personally attacking her by people that don’t even live here and she lets it roll off her back to keep fighting for the community. It’s admirable to say the least.

Thank you so much for your time and for all your work in the agricultural community.

“We want to show that if we actually helped people plant more and had more people to go out and harvest, that it really could have a huge impact on our food system.”

“We're trying to fill in the gaps within the agricultural sector while catering to the needs of these landowners in order to provide more locally-grown food which in turn promotes wealth distribution and prevents gentrification.”

“The gleaning program had a goal for 10,000 pounds for the entire year and w”e're reached over 9,000 pounds at just five months in.”

“I think that our food system has been so homogenized that we don't even realize that there are other kinds of produce that can be turned into flours and grains to make these kinds of products or starches that can supplement the types of dry goods that we're purchasing.

“There's a lot of things working against the food system right now that I think have come about from a comfort aspect. It's more about comfort and ease rather than sustainability and functionality.”

“If you have a yard, plant food.'“

Rudy Balala

Bobby Pahia

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