0ctober 27, 2023: Tokabago Farm ACC Matching Grant Project

Tokabago Farm started operation in December 2022 on 1/8 acre of land as part of the GoFarm Hawaii AgIncubator program. Our goal to build a profitable business based on sustainable regenerative farming practices on a small scale. On a macro scale it is cheaper to import food than grow it here, which is why Hawaiʻi imports around 80% of it's food. But on a micro scale it's more competitive at the local level. At least that's the idea. The challenge for small farmers /market gardeners are clean water, power, land access, processing, and cold storage, not necessarily in that order. So those critical infrastructure challenges are barriers to growth and profits. Markets have not been a barrier, as long as the price is relatively competitive with the macro scale producers.

We are not certified organic yet but follow an organic regenerative methodology of crop rotations, mechanical barriers in the form of shade and screen houses, and target use of certified organic pesticides when necessary (talking peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, and cabbage here).

We're a market garden enterprise so our main purpose is providing direct to customer access to produce in our local area, but we also supply local food businesses including the Mālama Kauaʻi Food hub with honey products and produce.

We currently have 16 hives, and follow the same organic regenerative pathway for maintaining our bee colonies.

Our focus is the local population, not tourists especially, though visitors are also an important source of revenue that we certainly appreciate. So, for instance we make a "carry-on" size honey jar. Little things like addressing micro markets in the community are important for success.

As this blog starts we are about a year into the market garden business and we haveet the limits of our production and so income with the limited infrastructure we have. We have no clean water, no power, access to a wash station and semi-cold room about a quarter mile away, and access to borrowed tiller and a tractor with at present no tiller. We are exhausted! However,  Tokabago Farm won a microgrant for $5000 from GoFarm Hawaiʻi  and a matching grant for $8000 from American AgCredit and CoBank (also in conjunction with GoFarm) to help us add power, clean water, a wash station and cold room on site. This project hopes to lower the barriers to building a sustainable regenerative farm market business with a small carbon footprint and industry standard food safety and storage practices. Clean water is where it starts, but to do that we need those solar panels.  Up next, groundwork and much assembling of stuff.