That problem is multifaceted. One part is using farmland to minimize the urbanization of Waianae. Another facet is supporting healthy eating. But MA‘O’s primary mission is to end a cycle of poverty in which kids face extra challenges growing up in an economically disadvantaged community.

The effort to do this involves MA‘O paying the college tuition for young adults who work part time on the farm.

These interns put in 15 hours a week and also earn a stipend under what MA‘O calls its youth leadership training program. Many interns work two years while earning an associate’s degree, and an extended version is available for students pursuing a bachelor’s. MA‘O also hosts interns from high school for one week during summer and winter breaks.

To be eligible for the core internship, applicants must be 17 to 24 years old and have a high school diploma or equivalent. They also must carry a full college course load and maintain a minimum 2.0 GPA. The stipend is $525 a month, which can increase with performance on the farm and in school.

In MA‘O’s early years, internships were available only to youth from Waianae, and today most interns are from the area even though the restriction was removed.

About 120 interns a year have worked at MA‘O in recent years. With the expansion, annual internships are projected to reach about 300 in five years and 500 after almost 10 years when MA‘O expects to make the new acreage fully productive.

Additionally, MA‘O expects to grow its traditional paid staff by 75, from 15 employees to 90. Food production is projected to rise from 80 tons to 1,400 tons annually. And annual sales revenue is projected to soar from about $600,000 to $12 million.

Self-sufficiency goals

Another dramatic change expected is the farm shifting from its heavy reliance on charitable subsidies to near self-sufficiency.

Currently, MA‘O relies on $1 million a year in supplemental funding — mainly from government grants, private foundations and an annual fundraiser — that covers 64% of expenses. Raising $1 million a year is still part of MA‘O’s 10-year forecast, but with $12 million in sales, the farm would be 92% self-sufficient.

Claire Sullivan, MA‘O’s director of development and impact, explained that the farm relies on charitable support because interns are far less efficient than experienced employees, especially because part of the program is letting students figure out many things on their own. Also, part of the workday is spent helping students grow personally.

“A huge part of what we’re trying to focus on is the health and wellness of you,” Kukui Maunakea-Forth told farmhands at the end of a day’s work last week in a sharing session where everyone sits in a circle and collectively punctuates each person’s contribution with two hand claps and the mantra: “No panic. Organic.”

Kamuela Enos, the nonprofit’s director of social enterprise, said the farm MA‘O describes as “edu-preneurial” sometimes gets criticized as unfairly competing with for-profit farms. He rejects this.

“We’re not subsidized,” Enos said. “We’re compensated for the work we do. All the money is going back to the mission.”

Helping young adults earn college degrees generally helps them earn more money.

Waianae’s per capita income, or the average income per person divided by the population, was $18,944 a year from 2012 to 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. For Oahu, the figure was $33,776. Part of the discrepancy is due to fewer young adults attaining higher education that typically results in higher-paying jobs.

Only 10% of young adults in Waianae have bachelor’s degrees compared with 34% for Oahu, the Census shows. One reason is the cost of college.

Annual tuition for residents with a full course load is about $3,300 at Leeward Community College and $7,300 at the University of Hawaii-West Oahu.

Tiare Toetu’u-Aipa, a 19-year-old Waianae High School graduate who started interning with MA‘O last summer, said she wasn’t in a good position financially to go to college.

“I didn’t want to burden my family, so I did MA‘O,” she said.

Toetu’u-Aipa is studying for an associate’s degree at LCC and plans to transfer to Kapiolani Community College to earn a bachelor’s in radiology.

Student’s focus

The nonprofit also offers an apprentice program for young adults wanting to become farmers, but higher education is the focus.

“Maybe you’ll never work outside again,” Gary Maunakea-Forth told the group of farmhands. “Maybe you’ll be a web designer stuck in an air-conditioned, 8-by-10 cubicle the rest of your life. But you’ve worked outside and you understand your connection to these mountains and the soil.”

Workers do everything on the farm from weeding and harvesting to washing and packing produce.

MA‘O supplies customers that include Down to Earth, Kokua Market, Foodland, Whole Foods Market, Monkeypod Kitchen, MW Restaurant, town restaurant and Roy’s.

Crops include “sassy salad” greens, eggplant, kohlrabi, kale, leeks, celery, fennel, carrots, beets, radishes, dandelion, parsley, daikon, green onions and cilantro.

Maunakea-Forth said demand exceeds supply, so the farm expansion will provide more produce for existing customers and maybe some new ones. MA‘O also envisions building farm worker housing on part of the site, which is on the other side of the valley from most of the existing farm.

The expansion area was once planted in sugarcane and later truck crops, but had been fallow since the 1980s after a Japan-based developer unsuccessfully tried to build an 18-hole golf course. In 2005, local developers operating as Tropic Land LLC bought the site for $3 million and pursued plans for an industrial park that generated both community support and opposition.

In 2011 Tropic Land failed to win state Land Use Commission approval to urbanize the agricultural land for its project. MA‘O bought the site from Tropic Land for $3.2 million, which was made possible because Kamehameha Schools guaranteed its loan from Central Pacific Bank.

Kamehameha Schools said it backed MA’O because of the work the farm does to uplift Waianae and Native Hawaiians.

“This collaboration with MA‘O is part of KS’ strategic approach to improve Hawaii’s educational ecosystem by looking at innovative ways to empower community champions who are doing game-changing work deep in our communities,” Kamuela Cobb-Adams, senior director of community engagement and resources for the trust on Oahu, said in a statement.MA‘O said 38% of its interns have earned an associate’s degree while 10% earned a bachelor’s.

It’s important to hold politicians accountable for campaign pledges after they’re in office, but sometimes I forget those pages are there as a resource. Luckily, chef Ed Kenney, of Town and Downtown restaurant fame and a local food advocate, didn’t forget.

He was at Kapolei Hale yesterday, testifying against the “purple spot” of industrial zoning in Lualualei Valley. Last night, he sent a tweet to his Council member, Stanley Chang, who was among the six members who voted to keep the purple spot in the Waianae Sustainable Communities Plan:

Council member Stanley Chang. You said this to @CivilBeat m.civilbeat.com/topics/stanley… (Read #8) and got my vote because of it. HYPOCRITE! #86’d

— Ed Kenney (@edstown) February 16, 2012

Does “86’d” mean Chang can’t eat at Kenney’s restaurants anymore, or that Kenney won’t vote for him in the 2014 election? While you ponder that, here’s the real question in question. We asked candidates: “Where do you stand when it comes to the use of agricultural land on Oahu? Should the council tighten zoning regulations, or loosen them?”

Here are responses from the four members elected in November 2010:

Chang: Our food security and our environmental sustainability depends on the conservation of agricultural land. East Honolulu’s remaining agricultural lands, like the back of Kamilo Nui Valley, should be preserved in their current use. The Council should uphold past decisions to restrict growth in East Honolulu and instead direct growth to central and leeward Oahu. In general, development should be dense and transit oriented—“up, not out”—to reduce the pressure of sprawl on agricultural land.

Chair Ernie Martin (voted in favor of purple spot): We already have in place a law to preserve and protect our important agricultural lands, so we need to ensure that it is implemented first. I believe rail transit will reduce encroachment on agricultural lands by focusing development along the urban core and specifically along the rail line. Although we sacrifice some agricultural lands in Kapolei, I believe in the long run it is a necessary compromise to providing affordable housing and supporting the targeted growth strategy that the community chose for that area. Our biggest problem will be the proliferation of “fake” farms. Our farming community is aging and fewer children are interested assuming the family farming operations. We must address the potential sale of those agricultural lands to wealthy investors interested only in building million-dollar vacation and retirement homes. I believe building and permitting processes – not zoning – can address the concerns.

Tulsi Gabbard (voted against purple spot): The preservation of prime agricultural lands is critical to the sustainability of our islands, and building partnerships with local farmers to promote the purchase of local produce is very important. At the same time, affordable housing is needed for our growing population and young families. We have to keep the long-term sustainable vision in mind, and find the right balance between these competing demands. The City Council needs to exercise great care in considering zoning issues and regulations, in order to achieve this balance.

Breene Harimoto (voted against purple spot): Sustainability should be more than just a buzz word. We all need to demonstrate our commitment to preserve agriculture lands. We need to encourage farming to reduce our dependence upon imported food from the mainland. However, it is a balancing act between preserving ag lands and allowing reasonable planned developments. Certainly, it would be unreasonable to preserve all ag lands because we must provide housing for our residents. If we want to preserve ag lands, part of the trade-off is that we must increase densities in the urban areas, preferably along the planned rail line (see #3 regarding TOD).

Do you agree with Kenney that Chang didn’t do what he said he’d do? Or did Chang make good on his statement that development should be directed to central and leeward Oahu?

WAIANAE—A cluster of industrial proposals on agricultural lands in Lualualei Valley, including an industrial park and the development of a new landfill, has ignited the community’s concern that, once again, big development is encroaching on Oahu’s ag land.

The Concerned Elders of Waianae, together with KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, will be hosting a sign-waving event along Farrington Highway today at 1:30 p.m. to raise public awareness about the proposed industrialization of farmland in Lualualei Valley. Sign-waving will take place at the corner of Lualualei Naval Road and Hakimo Road, and coincides with an official site visit by the Hawaii Land Use Commission (LUC).

The industrial park proposed by developer Tropic Land, LLC, called the “Nanakuli Community Baseyard,” is the first of these proposals to come before the LUC. The project would require the LUC to reclassify 96 acres in Lualualei Valley from agricultural to urban.

Residents are concerned about the increase in traffic and air pollution, as well as the loss of agricultural lands and the desecration of the cultural landscape that the proposed industrial park will cause.

“Contrary to what Tropic says, this land is good farmland. I know this is because I have family who worked on the farm there not long ago,” said lifelong Maili resident Walterbea Aldeguar. “I believe the land can be productive, if we just have the chance to farm it.”

“Most importantly,” Aldeguar adds, “Lualualei is the repository of our Waianae moolelo, our cultural identity, especially for the stories of the demigod Maui.”

“Taro farms feed people. You definitely can’t eat concrete.”

The developer’s promises of jobs is met with skepticism by many residents. “Jobs?  What jobs?” asked former Hakimo Road resident Alice Greenwood.  “These developers aren’t making new jobs, they are just moving the old ones around. If you want to talk about a lot of jobs, go look at a taro farm—now that’s full employment and taro farms don’t make workers sick. Taro farms feed people. You definitely can’t eat concrete.”

Lualualei Valley is one of only three agricultural districts on Oahu. Development in this area is governed by the Waianae Sustainable Communities Plan, which calls for all industrial land uses to be focused along Farrington Highway. Today, several existing industrial baseyards along Farrington Highway are vacant.

The Waianae Coast, and Lualualei Valley, in particular has been burdened by several incompatible industrial uses that were retroactively permitted by the State to operate on agricultural land. This includes the landfill now owned and operated by PVT, Inc. and the quarry now operated by Pineridge, Inc. and West Oahu Aggregate.  For this industrial park, Tropic estimates over 500 vehicles per hour cutting through Lualualei Valley.

“I fear for the well-being of my neighbors,” said Lori Nordlum, a Princess Kahanu Estates resident. “There is a preschool right here, and farms right there. This is not the place to have 500 heavy-duty trucks every hour whizzing by. This is a rural, farming community, not an industrial zone.”

Currently, the only access to the proposed industrial park is along Hakimo Road, an unimproved country lane that passes a preschool and many functioning farms. Though, as many residents know, truck-drivers avoid the difficult turn at Hakimo Road by cutting through the nearby tranquil subdivision known as Princess Kahanu Estates on Hawaiian Homelands. The developers have told residents that they will use the Navy’s road to access the industrial park, but have so far failed to broker a deal for permission to use that road.

“The proponents of this industrial park have not really done their homework,” added Nordlum.  “We need to look past the promises to see the ramifications of this project. We are talking about the health of our community; our quality of life. Even a million dollars is not worth giving up that.”

“The writing is on the wall,” Greenwood added. “These developers are in the trash business. There would be no reason to put an industrial park all the way at the back of Lualualei Valley, unless you are banking on the next landfill being right next door at Nanakuli B.”

From Miwa:

Last night, Marti and I attended a community meeting in Nanakuli, along with over 100 community members who had come to make their voices heard on the latest draft of the Wai`anae Sustainable Community Plan. In this latest draft, the City/County has opted in favor of a “purple spot” proposal put forward by a land developer seeking to push through a “purple spot” industrial zone on agricultural lands in Lualualei Valley.

The public comments were overwhelmingly in favor of removing the purple spot, and keeping Lualualei as an intact, green agricultural zone.

To a person, every individual who gave testimony or comments, expressed their support of agriculture and the rural character of Wai`anae.

Said one Aunty, “I live on Hakimo Road, and I raise pigs. This is one of the last places where you can have pigs. I don’t want to see agriculture die in Wai`anae. I don’t see how we can continue to lose farmland, and continue on.”

Young people came out in force, and several gave personal testimony about the Wai`anae that they hoped for, for their future. “I came out today because I heard the words, ‘Sustainable Community Plan,’ and I thought we would be talking about how we are going to get more of our people growing food, building aquaponics, feeding people. What does an industrial purple spot, have to do with sustainability?” said Sydney, a college student and homesteader.

“I want to ask our youth, sitting here tonight, how many of them would farm today–right now–if they could,” queried Kamuela, a Makaha-born second-generation farmer. More than a dozen local youth raised their hands. Crazy inspiring.

Many had questions about why this particular “purple spot” plan was being proposed.

“Because we (the consultants) did feel the community to be so divided on this issue, we submitted two alternative maps to the County [one with the purple spot and one without]” said Harmonee, from consulting firm Townscape. “I’m not sure what process they used to decide that the [the purple spot map] would be the final map.”

What struck me most, is the basic idea that it is really some guy somewhere in offices in Honolulu, choosing the map–making this tremendously weighty decision for this community. I mean, someone who wasn’t even in that crowded meeting room last night. Can you have a community plan, without a community? How does that make sense?

Next steps:  This draft of the plan goes before the City County Planning Commission, and then on to the City Council.  We’ll be there, and we’ll keep you updated!

You can show your solidarity with this community today, by signing their petition at: http://bit.ly/purplespotaction.

Mahalo to Ilihia Gionson for the photo of the meeting!

The first preliminary hearing in the whole purple spot saga was held on May 20th before the Land Use Commission.  The Land Use Commission met to decide whether the Environmental Impact Statement is complete for Tropic Land’s proposal to turn 96 acres of fertile farm land into an industrial park at the back of Lualualei Valley (the industrial park is the purple spot).

All six commissioners present agreed that the EIS is complete, but some of them made clear that based on the public testimony presented they had serious concerns about the proposal itself.

Testimony presented to the Land Use Commission alleged that Tropic Land, LLC  is operating an unauthorized truck baseyard on agricultural land and has illegally mined pohaku from a known ancient Hawaiian cultural site.

“At least 85% of the farmland has been covered with asphalt,” said one eye-witness.

Activities like storage of trucks, and vehicle repair and maintenance are not allowed on land zoned for agricultural use.  Waianae Coast residents said they filed complaints with both the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Enforcement Branch and the City and County of Honolulu.

Tropic Land, LLC has been cited on at least three other occasions for engaging in activities on the Lualualei property that were not consistent with its agricultural classification.

Pictures also documented the mining of stones on preservation land adjoining the Tropic Land parcel.  Cultural surveys conducted on the parcel in the 1990’s confirm that this stones comprised a substantial, culturally significant platform.

A Nanakuli resident testified that ¾ of the substantial stone platform had been removed and some of the stones were used to make a sacred place to reinter Hawaiian burials exhumed by Wal-Mart on Keaaumoku Street.  Tropic Land, LLC did not have authorization from the State Historic Preservation Division to remove stones from this site.

Tropic Land, LLC was before the Land Use Commission to change the classification of their Lualualei Valley property from agricultural to urban, in order to allow them to construct an industrial park on the property.

The Land Use Commission accepted Tropic Land, LLC’s final environmental impact statement for the industrial park proposal, but not before voicing concerns about the testimony presented by the public.

Holding up a picture of trucks parked behind a fence on the Tropic Land parcel, Commissioner Contrades  asked Tropic Land’s attorney William Yuen, “is this correct?”  Mr. Yuen said he had not seen the photograph, but that the property is not paved and trucks are not being stored on the property at this time.

Commissioner Wong asked Yuen a series of questions to clarify that acceptance of the EIS did not in anyway demonstrate support for or ensure approval of the project.

Commissioner Teves requested that the Commission perform a site visit to “see the so-called commercial use of the property in its present form, to see if it is true or not.”

What does this mean for the future of the purple spot?

It means that the formal one-year process to decide whether to rezone this part of Lualualei Valley from ag to urban has started.  The hearing on the actual rezoning decision will be held on September 9, 2010 at 9:30 before the Land Use Commission.

It also means that the developer will have a very hard time arguing that this industrial park proposal is consistent with Waianae’s Community Sustainability Plan, since the current has no purple spot allowing for industrialization of this area… and the amended one with the purple spot has not been adopted by the Honolulu City Council.  In fact, staff at the city said they don’t expect the Waianae Community Sustainability Plan to come before the Council the Fall of 2010.