Food or Famine?

SUBHEAD: You may discover that getting smart about growing food is better than getting hungry. Image above: Glenn Hontz at the Saturday noon KCC Farmer's Market he helped establish. Photo by Juan Wilson. By Glenn Hontz on 16 August 2010 in The Garden Island - (http://thegardenisland.com/lifestyles/food-and-cooking/article_de44f588-a9c4-11df-bfec-001cc4c03286.html)

Aloha fellow islanders.

We have a serious debate happening here on Kaua‘i. It relates to food self-sufficiency and what we should be doing about it.

Critics say that the world’s food crisis is already out of control and predict that thousands more will starve as the situation grows worse. The optimists say, not to worry, the scientists will soon find a solution. Meanwhile, the practical ones are planting a garden, and the really smart ones are learning the right way to grow food.

These “really smart ones,” know that simply planting a garden, without doing it right, may be a good exercise but its not always a successful solution to growing food. The smart ones have learned that the really effective methods of gardening and farming are usually learned in courses focused on sustainable organic systems.

As the head of the Food Industry Training Program at Kaua‘i Community College, I’m trying to help the ones that want to get smart about growing food.

So, we are offering a new 15-week comprehensive training program in the principles and practices of organic food production. It starts Sept. 9 and will be taught on Thursdays from 1 to 6 p.m. It combines classroom instruction with hands-on practical experience in gardens on campus and in farms around the island.

The course is called “Sustainable Gardening and Farming.” Instruction is provided by experienced farmers and specialists in the fields of food and agriculture.

The state-of-the art methods used in this program are drawn from professional training programs and research findings provided by the University of Hawai‘i’s College of Tropical Agriculture, the University of California at Santa Cruz and from several of the leading sustainable agriculture research centers worldwide. These methods were used and proven successful in a pilot training programs conducted at Kaua‘i Community College in 2009 and 2010.

Graduates of these programs are now starting home gardens and developing community gardens and farms as part of an expanding Kaua‘i network contributing to food self-sufficiency.

After completing the program, the graduates qualify to receive advanced training and on-going technical support to insure their continued success.

The major goal of this program is to create a sufficient number of gardeners and farmers to achieve a sustainable level of food self-sufficiency for the island.

As more locally grown food is produced and the island’s current 90 percent dependence on imported food is reduced, the economy will prosper as food dollars remain on island and new jobs are created for the emerging locally based food industry.

So if you want to get smart about growing food, you can enroll by calling KCC at 245-8318. The registration fee is $350 and can be paid via credit card. Payment plans are also available. Enrollment is limited to 35 applicants.

You might just discover that getting smart about growing food is better than getting hungry.

For more information, you can contact Paul Massey at 652-4118 or paul.massey@ribg.org or myself, Glenn Hontz, at 246-4859 or hontz@hawaii.edu.

So, give us a call.

• Glenn Hontz is a Koloa resident and Kaua‘i Community College instructor.