Maui Farmers Union United September Meeting

Maui Farmers Union United Meeting (Advocating for the rights of our small farmers)

Tavares Center Pool Room Sept. 27th

Tuesday nite doors open 6:00pm

Dinner 6:30 pm

Our State President and NFU facilitator will be present.

The Maui Farmers Union United meetings are a LocaVore Potluck & Produce Swap

Share the Maui Abundance of what you prepare and grow!!!

Sign up for membership and get a free meal* tonight!

$15-Individual Non Voting Member

$30- Individual Voting Member

$75- Ohana Membership up to 4 Voting Members 

*Normally there is a $10 charge for non members and $5 for members if unable to bring food and want to eat. It's potluck, so bring a dish to the meetings and you eat like royalty for free. Where else can you get a huge variety of locally grown and produced foods, prepared with the love and passion that Maui's farmer's, gardeners and people put into these meals. It's all about the food, so while you can pay, sharing your food with neighbors is always so much better. 

Please bring a locavore dish exhibiting to our mainland guest on how we value our locally grown food.

Helping the Maui Farmers Union United through their generous and consistent giving back to Maui are the following merchants and people. Support them when ever you can. 

Support the Maui Farmers Union United tonight and you may go home with some of the following goodies: 

Gift cards from DTE & Hawaiian Moons

Basket of local produce. Mana Foods, Whole Foods!

Basket of produce from Greenleaf Farm Marta & Bill

Feather Meal- Crop Production Service

Bio Char- Maui Bio Char

Large Jackfruit- Whispering Winds Bamboo

This is a trash free event please bring your own eating and drinking vessels.

Meeting Agenda
6:30pm-7:00pm- LocaVore Potluck Great meals!!! Be creative and

add to the abundance,your the event!!!

"Its all about growing, sharing and being nourished by our food"

6:45pm-7:00pm Evening Agenda-Vincent Mina - www.MauiGrown.com
7:00pm-7:10pm Chefs Corner-Chef Jason Skandunas - Maui MacroBiotics-(Jan. 2011 article on MauiTime)

7:10pm-7:20pm Produce Scoop-Ryan Eareheart - Mana Foods

7:20pm-7:30pm Astronomy in Agriculture- HarrietteWitt -

www.passengerplanet.com/

7:30pm-7:45pm Education- Jenna Tallman - Making Bokashi

7:45pm-8:00pm State of the State HFU - State Board of Directors

Report on our Strategic Planning session on Kauai

8:00pm-8:10pm MFU Website- Lehua VanderVelde

http://mauifarmersunionunited.weebly.com/

8:10pm-8:40pm Member Breakout Groups - Legislation, Education

and Cooperation.

8:40-9pm Meeting Pau

PRODUCE SWAP:

Bring your home grown farm produce, seeds or plant starts to share and swap with others.

"Remember its all about celebrating our communities food"

I thought this presentation by Charlie Price on aquaponics was a good place to start this page. He runs through all the aspects and thoughts around an aquaponics system.

Water, Cool Clear Water.

I was reminded of the song from a commercial or Disney show or something that the words were "Water, cool clean water". With a meeting that the DLNR is holding tomorrow to take input on a company that wants to take water from wells on it's Wailea property and ship some to Japan or at least off Maui, I tend to wonder why Maui doesn't ever seem to have a plan that is comprehensive and looks at all the angles.
Issues about having water for Mauians is one thing, but the issues extend into the depletion of the aquifer and the infiltration of the brackish salt water. This process could destroy a system that has taken lifetimes to achieve in nature.
In addition, we have only a few wetlands left that are part of the natural water filtration systems that make water available to Maui.
Granted not all of them are as obvious as the rain forest, but marshlands like Kealia Pond, Waihee, the areas behind Longs in Kihei, Olomalu, what was once Lahaina and Kanaha pond are examples that have been disturbed, destroyed and have further plans under way to alter.
The Kanaha Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected area under the national wildlife protection. For some reason a medical building seem to be a good choice to build in an industrial tsunami zone that would require the removal and disturbing of the Kanaha Wetlands, but they plan to put work into the Waihee wetlands to make up for it.
That doesn't seem right to take one away for any reason.

I spent time documenting the water run-off canals from their beginning in the Kahului industrial park, all the way to the edge of Kanaha Pond and on into the ocean.
Combinations of various tilapia, mosquito fish and a lot of snails abound. Today I even caught a foot long algae eater that obviously was released from someones aquarium.

If nothing else, I will have dozens of pictures before it changes to an after.

The are many good movies with dire warnings out and all good movies that should be watched. I thought this old 1953 movie on water was pretty interesting and between the music and the narration it was classic. It's a bout 10 minutes long and easy watching. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Mahalo.

Evan Ryan, Maui Farmers Union Does Compost Tea Demo

Evan Ryan, is also a great landscape gardener/farmer and member of the Maui Farmers Union board. For the August meeting, Evan did a detailed demo on making Aerated Compost Tea. There are some open question points around the inputs required and how they can be more locally sourced. Maybe an opportunity for someone on Maui. Please leave comments if there are any points around making or using compost tea on your plants. Video testimonial would be great, submit what you have and I can approve it to display. Or if you have a youtube or video site with more, please let us know.
Mahalo & Aloha.

Jim Hall

P.S. Evan Ryan puts on edible landscape and other workshops pretty often. Check him out on Facebook.

Maui Farmers Union Discussing Composting and Food Safety.

The topic of Food Safety and how the waste system through the sewage finds it's way into the compost, along with medical wastes and everything else from the dump was discussed at the August Maui Farmers Union Meeting. School gardens, edible landscapes and concerns around the composting involved also came up.

Maui Farmers Union has a regular feature they call the "Produce Scoop". Ryan Eareheart, the produce manager of Mana Foods in Paia did a great job, as usual, for the August meeting. As a farmer himself, he is very knowledgeable and can help the Maui farmers figure out the best crops to grow and sell to Mana Foods, as well as the best foods for the consumer. I just saw on Mana Foods Facebook page they are hiring a dynamic produce person to help Ryan.