Sol Kahn
Photographer: Harneet Bajwa Photography
I don't know what tomorrow brings. What do I want? I want everyone to have access to quality, clean, healthy, organic locally produced food. I’d love it to all be locally sourced. I'd love for there to be more farms and school programs here that could teach the kids how to farm and why it’s important.
Sol Kahn is the proprietor of Rising Sun Organic Farms, a 22 acre organic farm in Moloaʻa, Kauai. Established in 2014, they have over 3,000 fruit trees including mango, avocado, lychee, soursop, coconut, banana as well as a two-acre market garden, plots of watermelons, squash, and white sugarloaf pineapples. Rising Sun Organic Farms implements permaculture, biodynamic, and Korean Natural Farming methods as they strive to create an environment for happy, healthy plants packed with nutrients, full of flavor and love.
We couldn’t quite catch up with the uber busy farmer ourselves, so we sent the lovely Fern Ānuenue Holland to track down her longtime friend and co-founder of 2014’s Kauai County Bill 2491, armed with her cellphone, to record his COVID experience on July 30, 2020.
How are you? Can you start with a quick picture of what life was like pre COVID
I'm doing good.
Life pre COVID was pretty normal. We had all our restaurant accounts and our health food store accounts and regular customers and vendors. Just normal life. We had our orders, our workers that came in, and we had a good workforce. We just got things done and took our business.
What changes have you made in your business, lifestyle and platform to adapt to COVID?
We've made a lot of changes. Losing the restaurant accounts has been a really big blow for us because we had a lot of restaurant accounts on our list. Now I'm condensing and consolidating the gardens to be more efficient. There's just so many changes I'm going through right now. One change is we started a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. We wanted to try to support the community and also figure out a way to keep the farm going, and that was through the CSA’s. We started making boxes of organic produce available for pickup in different locations around the entire Island, from the North side, all the way to the South side and West side too, so that people could still have access to fresh produce and avoid stores and high contact areas. We didn't know if barges we’re going to be shut down, as the restaurants, health, food stores, grocery stores, were all closing. We didn't know what was going on. Everything was day by day moment by moment in those initial weeks. We wanted to make sure that we had a means to get our produce out there, and keep the income coming in, so we could pay for the inputs that it takes to grow that produce and make sure our produce went to feeding our people
Photo: Harneet Bajwa Photography
You ain't getting rich off of this work at all. It's a labor of love and we do it to feed people in the community to make sure that good clean, healthy produce is available. If we're not supported by the community, then we just don't have the means to keep it going.
There were so many things that I noticed you had to do at different stages, like the masks of course.
We called up the mayor to make sure that we were doing it right because here we are selling the produce on the side of the road at pick up locations. We wanted it to make sure that we were doing it to the best ability and to take every precaution we could relating to COVID protocols. The Mayor let us know that as long as we had our masks on, we had gloves on, the money was put in plastic bags so there was no touching of the money at all, and the harvesting was all done with gloves on then everyone was really safe..
Here on your farm everyone was kind of ‘locked down’ during those initial few months right?
Yeah. No one was allowed to leave the farm and there were some people that were pissed about it. It was, it is, a hard-enough thing to try to tell your kids that they can't go somewhere and then try to tell adults they can't go somewhere is a whole other ball game. So yes, that was something that I just got thrown into. There's no rule book out for that one. It was difficult. But everyone did great for the most part and I’m proud of our team.
There's not enough food being grown here to feed the whole island the way it is now, but we could definitely do it. There are sustainable models from around the world that have proven it can work.
What food system vulnerabilities have been exposed throughout this crisis?
Obviously, the biggest vulnerability is if the barges stop and then we don’t get the cheaper produce that comes in from the continent or we have a shortage. I've noticed a lot of stores here are still bringing in cheaper produce to cut costs instead of buying what is grown on island, which is kind of a bummer for local farmers here. I understand they need to make a living and right now times are tough for a lot. So they have to make the most they can. But if the barges just stop, you know, we're all in a big mess. There's not enough food being grown here to feed the whole island now, but we can do it.
Local food production needs more support from the local community, people like you and others that really see that we need to support the local farmers to continue this model, so the local farmers have enough income and they can continue to grow things and expand. Often people don't realize as farmers, we don't make that much money growing organic veggies. The input and effort that goes into growing them is considerable. You ain't getting rich off of this work at all. It's a labor of love and we do it to feed people in the community to make sure that good clean, healthy produce is available. If we're not supported by the community, then we just don't have the means to keep it going.
We do have a lot of prime agricultural land here, and we have a growing season that doesn't ever end. It's just nonstop. I'd love to see more farms pop up in the future, and more County and State supported programs for local organic agriculture. More programs that teach people how to grow their own food.
What is your vision for the future? Are there changes occurring now that you want to see remain in place once COVID-19 is over? And if you were to look five years ahead from now, what do you want to see?
We want to increase the production of local organic agricultural products here, however we've had so much land poisoned, so we want to stay away from farming on those poisoned lands until they get bio-remediated and their soil is clean again. If you're farming on those lands, those toxins are just going straight up into that produce, and then you're feeding that to people. That isn’t ok. I think that the lands need to be rehabilitated first, the ‘GMO lands’, and all the lands that got poisoned for decades. We need to address this for a thriving future.
We do have a lot of prime agricultural land here, and we have a growing season that doesn't ever end. It's just nonstop. I'd love to see more farms pop up in the future, and more County and State supported programs for local organic agriculture. More programs that teach people how to grow their own food.
I’ve been thinking about all these gardens that are popping up in people's homes during the stay at home order. I’d like to see this continue even after COVID passes. People are realizing that they’ve got to have their own home gardens. I think that’s beautiful. If I go out of business because everyone has their own home gardens, I'm fine with that. I love that. I think that's wonderful. If people can grow their own food and feed their families, that's number one.
People are realizing that they’ve got to have their own home gardens. I think that’s beautiful. If I go out of business because everyone has their own home gardens, I'm fine with that. I love that.
Are there changes you have made which you feel should be retained as we move forward?
We could continue the CSA with committed, loyal support… if there is a good committed customer base.
I think people are so used to having such a wide array of produce and food available. However, there's only so much you can grow; you can't grow everything here that people want. They want all the different things. So, we can grow the basics and we can grow a few other things, expanding off of those basics too. But you know, having a CSA program is basically the people supporting the farm, while the farm tries to support the people. It would be great if this continued.
Learn to adapt to what is available. This is how we're all going to get by, you know, Costco isn't going to be around forever. It might stop one day. Safeway might stop one day. I know everyone's going to be looking to the local farmers and you’re going to need to know how to use what we can grow.
With a traditional CSA model, you support what we grow for you and we're going to do our best to provide a good selection and expand what we grow for you. We grow things seasonally. Although most things grow year-round here, some things don't. So just bear with your local farmers and learn to cook differently, learn to adapt to what is available. This is how we're all going to get by, you know, Costco isn't going to be around forever. It might stop one day. Safeway might stop one day. I know everyone's going to be looking to the local farmers and you’re going to need to know how to use what we can grow.
I just want to reiterate that the vision I see, it's organic obviously, because I'm an organic farmer, and passionate about organic farming being the solution to feed the world. Sure, conventional farming does serve its place, but we don't want to abuse it.
We've definitely learned a lot from COVID. I'm hopeful that in five years’ time we will have a local organic food system that is more resilient that it is today.
I don't know what tomorrow brings. What do I want? I want everyone to have access quality, clean, healthy, organic locally produced food. I’d love it to all be locally sourced. I'd love for there to be more farms and school programs here that could teach the kids how to farm and why it’s important. Even just to grow gardens in their backyards for their families and to share. That's how I learned, with gardens in my backyard. I used to take salads I made from my garden to our Friday night poker games at a buddies house, at first everyone was like, “salad???”, But then they missed it if I ever didn’t bring it.
In five years, one of the things that I hope for is a decrease in imported goods. That’s a good way to judge it. If we were to have a decrease in imported goods, it would show that we're being more self-sufficient and that would be a great goal.
For your farm, do you intend on expanding or growing?
I don't want to ward people away from organic farming but it takes so much love and dedication, you really need to be in it for the right reasons. There's so many things going against you in this, you have to really be all in. You have to make things really efficient. If people can learn how to farm very efficiently and practically, then it's really doable, especially here
It's opened our eyes to so many different things. We've seen that the roads have opened up again. We've seen what's important in life.
How do you see this crisis being described in the history books in the future? Like, Oh wow.
I hate the negative things that have happened to people. There's been loss of life, even close friends of mine have lost family members, it’s tragic. People have lost their homes, jobs, stability and this is a scary time for many. I mean, obviously, you never wish that upon anyone. But this has also brought so many things to light. This is our test. If something really bad happens, this is our test for it. What are we going to do? How are we going to get through it? How do we support each other?
So now we can see all the faults, we see all the things that could possibly go wrong that we could prepare for. If another major catastrophe does happen here, we would be prepared for it because this is our drill. It's opened our eyes to so many different things. We've seen that the roads have opened up again. We've seen what's important in life. What's not important. How important it is to have locally sourced food. All the family time is amazing. Spending that time with your kids again is so crucial and wow, what a blessing we got to do that.
So your version of what happened, the history book might say this was a great experience in some ways and a trial run for another disaster.
Yeah. The struggling has made us think and nothing else would have made us think like we're thinking now. We almost needed something like this to happen. Yeah, my business has taken a huge hit from it, sure it’s been hard, but we as a society and as an island community needed it. We needed something like this and I hope people aren’t mad at me for saying that..
I actually think a lot of people can see the silver linings.
What can the community do to help build resiliency and increase food security?
Support your local farmers, learn how to grow your own food. You can grow a lot of food in small spaces, very efficiently. Spend more time with your kids. Teach this to your kids.
Who are your local food heroes?
My local food heroes are everyone that's at home starting their own gardens. I think that's just amazing. I love that. There's amazing farmers out here on Kauai too, that are just incredible with passion and dedication. Dylan Strong is phenomenal. He's a great organic farmer with a wealth of knowledge. Him and his wife, Shayla Strong, they do a great job and they're very passionate.
Moloa`a Organica`a. Ned & Marta Whitlock are incredible farmers with dedication and they've dedicated their whole life to it. Along with their daughter Saisha who helps run the farm they're just amazing people. Their farm is always glowing and they've just produced so much good food for people.
There's also Dimi and Chris Kobayashi, organic taro farmers. They do a fantastic job growing some of the best taro in the islands, if not the world. It's so delicious. There's a lot of farmers around here that are just incredible and I’m sorry for any names I missed. It's a labor of love and dedication and I love learning from them. I'm humbled by everyone that does it.
My local food heroes are everyone that's at home starting their own gardens. I think that's just amazing. I love that.
I also want to shout out to Hoku Foods Natural Market in Kapa’a. They always support us and local agriculture here on Kauai and try to buy as much local organic produce as possible. They are definitely a local food hero. Most of my food is distributed from them, they keep their prices as low as possible and they try to get as much local produce as possible. During this whole thing, they've been awesome
