On the hoof and into hydroponics
Advertiser Staff
These three operations give a glimpse of the accomplishments and challenges of running a ranch or farm on the North Shore:
North Shore Cattle Co.
• What it serves: frozen, vacuum-packed beef
• Where to find it: Local farmers' markets
• Contact: www.beefhawaii.com
North Shore Cattle Co.
For Calvin Lum and his wife, Kay, who grew up in Iowa cattle country, the North Shore Cattle Co. started out as a hobby and grew into a business. "I've always wanted to see if we could produce beef economically, naturally (on grass and without a lot of chemicals) and still have a cut of beef that tastes good," said Lum.
Calvin Lum and his wife, Kay, raise Angus cattle at their North Shore Cattle Co. ranch.
He had watched the meat industry here dwindle to nothing during his time as state veterinarian. "Sending 600,000 head of cattle to the Mainland every year and bringing back boxed meat didn't make a whole lot of sense to me," he said. Having lived on the Mainland for years, he recalled how cattlemen would reserve some "locker beef" for their own use, or to sell to neighbors, and how good that beef tasted.
Now, the 6-year-old business employs three of his four children, and they run up to 400 head of Angus and Angus-cross cattle. The cattle are slaughtered by the Hawai'i Livestock Cooperative, cut up by Wong's Meat Market, then vacuum-packed and frozen — everything from steaks and hamburger to roasts and sausages. The company takes orders on its Web site, with pickups at local farmers' markets. "This concept is relatively new to the industry," he said. "Most producers in the past, their involvement stopped at the farm gate, but we felt the product needed to be taken to market by us so we could explain what we were trying to do. Getting positioned in the market — that was a huge learning curve."
Grass-fed beef has been receiving a lot of positive attention for its leanness, its relatively high level of omega-3 fatty acids and its robust flavor.
Lum hopes to retire — again — sometime, but meanwhile, he loves his work. "The lifestyle is worth it. I don't leave the ranch unless I have to — it's just so peaceful, you work at your own pace, and if you don't get it done, there's always tomorrow," he said.
HPC Foods Inc.
• What it serves: Taro-brand chop-suey mix, bean sprouts, bakery items made of taro and poi
• Where to find it: Grocery stores
• Contact: www.hpcfoods.com
Ernest Tottori's grandfather founded HPC, then known as Honolulu Poi Co. Today it's a thriving, fourth-generation business that has diversified into fresh vegetable processing (the familiar Taro brand chop-suey mix plus other enterprises), production of bean sprouts, and a bakery division (all items — from muffins to mochi — made with taro or poi). These days, though Tottori is company president, his four children manage the operations in town, and he spends his time in overalls, tending taro lo'i (paddies) tucked under the bypass highway near Hale'iwa.
It's a little pocket of greenery, easily overlooked — the sun glinting off the water droplets on the verdant taro leaves, the sound of dripping water competing with the hum of traffic overhead. "People go by so fast, nobody knows we're here," he said.
But even as he and a helper drain fields and move mud around, plant taro and fret over pocket-rot fungus, Tottori is thinking about the place of agriculture in the Islands. "Fifteen years ago, there was a taro shortage already, so we had a board of directors' meeting about whether HPC would stay in the poi business or get out. The question is, 'Do we have to have poi in Hawai'i?' And we decided, if we lose the taro industry in Hawai'i, we're gonna lose something that makes us the place that we are," he recalled. So the company decided to invest in taro-planting and leased 35 acres, of which 22 are now in taro. The lo'i serves as a test site for growing techniques, too.
He still worries about the future of the plant that one Hawaiian creation story says is the parent of humans. There is a chronic shortage of taro and poi, he said, and even with the aid of modern equipment, few young people are interested in the hard work and limited financial return of kalo farming. The issues for farming in general include water, leasehold issues and investment in infrastructure. "We have to decide what is important, and if this is important, we have to make sure it's preserved," he said.
May's Wonder Garden
• What it serves: hydroponic lettuce
• Where to find it: Living Lettuce at Costco, Foodland
• Contact: www.mayslettuce.com
The hydroponic lettuce farm founded by Donald and Bernadette Lau is another hideaway business. It's behind locked gates, up a steep and winding old cane-haul road that's so rutted your car springs feel as though they'll never recover.
There's no electricity up this far, so the entire plant operates off generators, and water has to be pumped from an irrigation pond. This is one of the challenges for farmers in the area: the plantation infrastructure, including roads, auwai ditches and other structures, is degenerating, and maintenance is no one's job anymore.
It all began, Bernadette Lau said, when Donald got bored. They had sold their business, Palama Meat Market, and she was looking forward to a little R&R. But her husband soon tired of traveling; vacationing in Fiji, he happened to see a hydroponic farm, became intrigued and headed back to Hawai'i with a vision for dirtless agriculture.
Five years ago, he leased the land above Hale'iwa. It took a full year to clear it and build the equipment that sends gallons of nutrient-rich water flowing through perforated pipes to hundreds of lettuce plants, lined up like so many green and red bouquets. Pretty soon, Bernadette was coming in a couple of days a week to help with accounting. And then, last year, Donald suddenly died. Now May's (it's Bernadette's middle name) is a legacy she tends along with their son, Duane.
The lettuce seeds are injected into cubes of growing medium that resemble chocolate petit fours, and are nurtured in a protected area until they're showing a few tiny leaves. At that point, they're transferred to the ranks of growing tables that climb the hillside above the processing plant. Red oak, lola rosa, Bambi Jr., Manoa and butter lettuce are among the varieties.
At the farm one day, Bernadette Lau gently brushed the leaves of a shocking fuchsia-colored head of lettuce. "I love this one, it's called red coral and it really looks like red coral," she said. Recently, Foodland began marketing Living Lettuce, roots-on leaf lettuce from May's, said to have a longer shelf life.
Up the hill, Bernadette Lau shows off Donald Lau's unfinished vision: tanks of escargot, snails that happily consume all the green waste from the lettuce operation. It will be another couple of years before the company will be ready to sell them to restaurants, she said. She compares them to clams and says she made an escargot linguine recently that tasted great. Meanwhile, she said, pointing to red clusters of snail eggs, "all they do is eat and lay eggs."
