Ag Tours Benefit Local Economy, Food Producers

Ag Tours Benefit Local Economy, Food Producers

Does chocolate really grow on trees? Is vanilla from an orchid? Find out these answers and more about our diverse Hawai‘i Island agricultural commodities on a fun and engaging ag tour.

It’s where both visitors and residents can get up close and personal with the folks producing our island-grown food products and taste and see what they’re all about. According to a 2022 Visitor Satisfaction and Activity Survey by the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, 20 percent of domestic visitors to Hawai‘i Island took a farm tour.

With the high cost of doing business in Hawai‘i, local farms rely on ag-tourism to help their bottom line. During guided, on-site tours, farmers have the opportunity to direct-sell their local fresh and value-added products while employing residents.

Pomai Weigert, ag business consultant with GoFarm Hawaii, says opportunities like ag tours, which connect local farmers with residents and visitors, are important as the tourism and ag industries have shifted.

“There is a labor shortage, a goods and housing crisis, and in Hawai‘i, we don’t have industries that can be siloed (left to work alone),” Weigert explains. “We need to try and weave more commerce into each industry because if we don’t, the people who do the tourism jobs will move away and the people who grow food won’t be as successful.”

OK Farms of Hilo offers a Rainbow Falls Farm Tour 15 times a week through Hawai‘i Eco. In addition to touring Waiānuenue (Rainbow)and Kaimukanaka Waterfalls, the 1.5-hour tour introduces visitors to an abundance of tropical and exotic crops like lychee, longan, heart of palm, cacao and spices. OK employs four tour guides who drive guests to different crop plantings. Guests see food under cultivation, learn how its harvested and processed, and sample three different seasonal fruits and mac nuts.

Ala Keolanui, assistant manager, who helps with tours as needed, says while a goal is for tours to be fun and educational, they also strive to enable guests to make a connection to the land and people of Hawai‘i.

“All of us giving the tours get great satisfaction from the feedback of our guests,” Keolanui details. “People are so grateful to learn about how food is grown.”

She cites how visitors marvel at how cinnamon comes from a tree. “It’s that one-on-one connection with the guests…they are blown away when seeing spices in their natural state. Guests view what we farm and get a feeling of a family operation.”

OK Farms, which is also a food hub, has an on-site farm store selling produce and value-added products like jams and jellies direct to guests. Keolanui adds the farm tour “is a growing process and so far we have been doing well with people wanting to see and learn about what we do here. We strive to do our best.” Book a tour at www.okfarmshawaii.com/tours-a.

Tea Hawaii and Company in Volcano offers a two-hour Tea Tasting and Farm Tour by demand. For over two decades, Eva Lee and Chiu Leong have been giving tours of their operation that produces white, green, oolong and black teas. Guests walk through over two acres of easy terrain and learn about growing tea, its processing, see any stages of production underway (depending on season) and hear about the history of tea agriculture in Hawai‘i.

Lee says she appreciates the interest of guests during visits as “it’s like sharing any other art form.” Leong adds, “The whole world comes to us; we get people from so many countries, so we learn about their cultural understanding or relationship to tea and that’s a big plus for us.”

The couple say they love sharing how tea is “good in so many ways.” That includes how a tea plant can live for 1,000 years and so communities are endeared to the plant itself.

“Something good to know is tea helps our climate and environment,” continues Lee. “It has a great integration with native forests. Fresh tea leaf is used in culinary as you can pair tea with leafy greens for a salad and it can be used in place of basil to make a great pesto. These are all drivers to keep us inspired.”

Plans are in the works at Tea Hawaii to launch a matcha tea by milling green tea into the fine powder needed for matcha. The company sells its tea after tours, online and through Hawai‘i Island food hubs: Ho‘ōla Farms and Adaptations. Lee notes the tours have enabled them to meet people involved in wholesale who want to sell their teas. Visits can be booked at http://teahawaii.com/about/tour/.

Starseed Ranch in Kapa‘au offers a Tropical Food Forest and Plant Medicine Tour twice a week with options for a farm-to-table meal, a seasonal fruit tasting or an ‘awa (drink made from the root of the Piper methysticum shrub) with pūpū (appetizers). Dash Kuhr is the lead tour guide and Erika Kuhr serves as the chef for culinary activities.

Guests tour Starseed Ranch and also visit the HIP Ag Farm as the main campus of The Hawaii Institute of Pacific Agriculture is at the ranch. HIP Ag is a community non-profit focused on regenerative ag education through farm-to-school field trips, farmer training and ecosystem restoration.

During the tour, Dash shares jokes and fun facts pointing out the pros and cons of vegetable row cropping and diverse agroforestry. Guests visit a tropical food forest and orchard planted with traditional Polynesian crops like kalo, plus a plant nursery, resident ducks and bees, and learn about the medicinal herbs at their feet.

The couple say Starseed’s ag-tourism activities provide an important revenue stream that helps pay the high cost of doing ag in Hawai‘i. Dash notes another benefit is he finds the tours rewarding, getting satisfaction at “the sense of awe” and level of enthusiasm shown by guests.

“I enjoy teaching guests about regenerative agriculture,” he continues. “We tell how we practice it by cover cropping, crop rotation, utilizing poultry for fertilization and minimizing tillage during planting.”

Kuhr feels hosting guests is important so they can see the bigger picture of building regional food systems and improving community health. He shares guests often comment positively on their experience, saying “it inspired them to cook more and go to their farmer’s market.” As an additional immersive experience, Starseed Ranch also hosts guests overnight in their Balinese-style hale, providing guests with an authentic farm-stay experience and a glimpse into “homestead life.”

Tour guests can purchase a mixed produce box at booking and herbal tinctures are sold at the on-site farm store and through the Kohala Food Hub. To book a tour, https://starseedranch.com/north-kohala-farm-tours/. School group tours can be arranged through HIP Ag, hipagriculture.org.

Summing up the importance of supporting local food producers, Weigert concludes, “If we don’t start to pay into the people who live here, they are going to move away because they can’t live here. When you buy from a local farmer they in turn can pay their land lease, buy what they need to live and ultimately continue growing food to increase our island’s food security.”

Find 38 Hawai‘i Island farm tours listed at www.hawaiifarmtrails.com/visit. Last updated in 2022, the directory will be updated in January 2024 per Kālisi Mausio, Hawai‘i Farm Trails co-founder, and can be used as a resource for locating tours. She suggests confirming tour times with the tour provider.

Sponsored by the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA), this Island of Hawai‘i Visitor Bureau (IHVB) communication initiative was created tosupport our Hawai‘i Island residents, farmers and hospitality industry employees, and to mālama ku‘u home (care for our beloved home).@hawaii_island_dmap  @hawaiihta