Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 37, Number 12, 1 December 2020 — A Breadfruit Tree in Every Yard [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Breadfruit Tree in Every Yard

By Puanani Fernandez-Akamine "I ke alo 110 ka 'ulu a hala; The breadfruit was just in front and it was missed. " When most people think about traditional Hawaiian agriculture, they think about lo'i kalo. "There was a lot of lo'i restoration following the 'Hawaiian Renaissance' and to some extent, lo'i heeame synonymous with Hawaiian agriculture," explained Dr. Noa Kekuewa Lineoln, a breadfruit farmer and a professor and researcher at UH Mānoa's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR). However, lo'i cultivation comprised only a small percentage of Hawai'i's pre-contact agricultural production. "Hawaiians had vast, intensively cultivated field systems based on sweet potato and eane and kalo and mai'a (hanana). We also had different types of agroforestry systems that blanketed many of our lowland areas. With the exception of Kaua'i, lo'i systems were the minority." Born on Hawai'i Island and raised in upcountry Maui, Lineoln grew up with a strong grounding in and appreciation for the 'āina. After graduating from Yale University he was initially interested in conservation restoration and rare plants, but along the way he found himself increasingly drawn to agriculture, and traditional agriculture in particular. His doctoral research at Stanford University was on traditional agriculture in Kona, exploring the diverse dryland

Ulu farmer and UH Mānoa Professor and Researcher Dr. Noa Kekuewa Lineoln holds up an especially large breadfruit grown on his South Kona farm. farming systems of the region, in particular, the Kalu'ulu, a belt of breadfruit agroforestry that cut across the Kona landscape. In 2015, the Māla Kalu'ulu Cooperative, a group Lineoln co-founded, won Kamehameha Schools' Mahi'ai Match-Up competition. The group pitched a business plan centered on restoring the Kalu'ulu and was awarded a 4-acre parcel in the heart of Kona's ancient "breadfruit belt." "There weren't opportunities to study traditional agroforestry systems because there really weren't any more in the state," Lineoln said. "So, we are actively restoring and rebuilding this traditional system to demonstrate it and to tell the story." They now have about 150 breadfruit trees growing on

the parcel that are co-cropped in the canopy with things like kukui and ohi'a 'ai (mountain apple). Heirloom bananas, noni, 'awa and mamaki dominate the sub-canopy, while the ground cover includes crops like 'olena (turmeric) and awapuhi. Although they are farming, this is more than a farm. It is a re-creation of a type of agricultural system used for eenturies by our kūpuna. As such, it is also an eductional site that welcomes visiting groups, and a research site where Lineoln and others ean study things like nutrient cycling, water use efficiency, yields and labor. "Ka 'ai nānā i luna; The food that requires looking up to." While not considered a "staple" food in Hawai'i as it is elsewhere in the Paeihe, the humhle 'ulu is remarkably versatile and easy to cultivate. It is also one of the highest yielding food plants in the world; a mature 'ulu tree ean produce 300-500 lbs. of fruit per year. "If every home in Hawai'i had an 'ulu tree in their backyard, that would provide food security for those households should something happen," Lineoln said. 'Ulu ean provide substitutions for an astounding range of currently imported products. For exampe, 'ulu ean be roasted or used in stews as a potato substitute. It ean be milled into flour to make breads, pasta and desserts; an entire baking industry could develop around 'ulu flour. And the baby fruit ean be pickled. "From an import substitution and food security perspective, it's huge," noted Lineoln. "There are so many products you ean make." It ean also be grown almost anywhere in Hawai'i by anyone with a yard, no farming skills required. In addition to providing a nutritious and versatile food crop, the trees themselves contribute to carbon offset (reduction of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases), an important element in fighting climate change. It begs the question: as temperatures rise, why aren't tropical food crops getting more traction? "Governments and seed companies are spending billions of research dollars to make corn more adapted to warmer temperatures in anticipation of climate change," sighed Lineoln. "Billions to adapt a temperate crop, when many Indigenous crops are already adapted to tropical conditions. If we had a hillion dollars for breadfruit research, we could probably supplant corn in production." Leveraging Indigenous food crops like 'ulu to provide food security while supporting and diversifying our eeonomy makes good sense. With conversations in Hawai'i's government and private sectors increasingly focused on these issues, what will it take to reduce our dependency on imported foods? "'A 'ohe 'ulu e loa 'a i ka pōkole o ka lou; No breadfruit ean be reached when the picking stick is too short. " SEE 'ULU ON PAGE 21

'ULU Continued from page 16

Beautiful breadfruit trees help to reduce the greenhouse gases that eontribute to dimate change in addition to being the highest-yielding food plant in the world,- Photo: Courtesy Noa Kekuewa Lineoln

According to Lineoln, the solution isn't just about getting farmers on the land - although making land available to small and mid-scale farmers is a critical part of the equation, and sufficient agricultural lands exist to support this. But farming is just the first step in the series of activities necessary to get locally grown food from farm to table. "The mid-part of our food system value ehain has been ignored," said Lineoln. "We laek infrastructure - things like cold storage, certified kitchens for processing and product development, and machinery for canning or packaging. But we also laek organizational eapaeity; collaborative organizations, people or companies to handle the logistics of getting loeal food to market. The rapid proliferation and growth of loeal 'food hubs" are trying to fill some of these gaps." Part of the problem is funding - only about 0.4% of the state' s annual budget goes to the Department of Agriculture. While investing in infrastructure and product development are key, Lineoln believes that, more than anything, Hawai'i needs strong leadership and the organizational capacity to help connect the dots within the food systems. "We don't need one-time, one-off programs that are singularly focused on one part of the system. We need strategic and systematic long-term investment into our entire food system. I really don't think there's any other solution." A strategic, coordinated agricultural system for Hawai'i would need to focus on starchy food plants like 'ulu. While Hawai'i farmers produce a fair bit of the fruits (about 60%) and vegetables (about 30%) eonsumed in the state, half of our daily calories eome from starches and, according to Lineoln, Hawai'i produces less than 0.5% of the starches we consume. Assuming substantial and sustained investment is made in all sectors of Hawai'i's food systems, Lineoln believes that it will still take 10 to 20 years to achieve 50% loeal food production - not a quick fix, but still a significant improvement from our current food production rate of 10-15%. Hawai'i's dependence on imported food did not happen all at onee; regaining our food sovereignty will take time too. In the meantime, if you have a yard, consider planting an 'ulu tree. ■

■Mi ■ M 9 \ Noa Lincoln's son, To, enjoys his perch on an enormous crate of 'ulu. - Photos: Courtesy Noa Kekuewa Lincoln