A couple of interesting developments in the ongoing saga of returning rice into active cultivation on the Big Island....
Regarding the question about types of rice grown on Kauai in the 1980s and 1990s, the gal at UH Hilo wrote saying "Here is information from ...the Kauai Research Station. [The Kauai Research Station] suggests that you contact the California Rice Growers Association" and she forwarded a note from the Kauai Research Station, which stated "That was definitely propriety information. He would have to contact California Rice Growers Association."
Hmmm.... I am a bit surprised at this reply, since it seems as if information from taxpayer-funded agricultural research facilities would be available to the taxpayers, but maybe my perception and understanding of such matters is incomplete &/or naive. Indeed, perhaps this particular facility is not even taxpayer-supported, though according to a document I came across online it appears taxpayers quite substantially fund these institutions via the USDA, the Hawaii legislature, and other public moneys (see CTHAR Research News, Vol. 1, No. 3 -
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:sKamySrZ
LLoJ:www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/acad/research/Downloads/ResearchNews/CTAHR
_Research_News_Nov_05.pdf+CTAHR+Research+News+November+8,+2005&hl=en
&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a). If this is indeed the case, then someone who is sufficiently motivated and knows how to use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain information directly from government agencies via FOIA could sue to do so. I, myself, am not inclined to do so; it seems un-neighborly to force people into court and sue them if not absolutely necessary, not to mention tiresome and messy.
It can be a murky business when industry uses taxpayer-supported facilities and resources for doing its own R&D with the results declared “definitely propriety information” and off-limits to the same taxpayers who have maintained those facilities and staff for so very, very, long. There has been an increasing bunch of this sort of thing happening over the last few decades through Reagan’s Star Wars systems and the newer Homeland Security efforts, much of which is immune from Freedom of Information Act discovery through being cloaked as defense-related classified information. Disclosing the specific types of rice which have been identified as those growing best in Hawaii through research performed at a taxpayer-supported institution, though, would not seem as if it is a defense secret which needs to be kept classified from Hawaiians in the interest of national security, to my mind.
In any event, since micro-scale rice cultivation on the Big Island (whether for home subsistence use and/or for sale locally in farmer’s markets as a boutique crop) is no economic threat whatsoever to the huge California rice growers, I --perhaps naively-- do not anticipate reluctance on the California mega-scale rice growers' part to sharing both information and seed in a friendly and collegial manner. I'll ask my brother-in-law if he'll tap into his family contacts toward that end. If it turns out nobody who already knows which varieties of rice grow best in Hawaii is willing to share that information, then we can certainly figure it out for ourselves through direct experimentation.
While all the above was happening, back on Oahu the friendly fellow at APHIS had been busy. He wrote again, saying:
I called a colleague of mine -a PhD in agronomy who is a retired scientist of the Kauai, University of Hawaii Experiment Station. While there he did research on many subjects but also on Rice.
He said he is happy to talk to you if you wish to know about rice culture in Hawaii.... He also said he does not know of anyone growing rice commercially in Hawaii nor if there is anyone with rice as a crop. He recommends that you go ahead and use the rice seeds from California and get familiar with the crop. There are a lot of problems, water management and pest control (rice birds) are but two of them but do it to find out if this is really what you want to do...
Good advice, all. I telephoned the retired researcher on Kauai. He is an extremely well-informed and friendly fellow who is originally from the Philippines. Indeed, here in the US he used to train Peace Corps volunteers in rice cultivation methods before they shipped out for service overseas. The professor had several comments which I found interesting; paraphrased, they were:
Economics --not cultivation constraints-- extinguished rice cultivation in Hawaii. Hawaii used to export rice to California.
Lowland rice grows well in combination with taro; pretty much anywhere taro will grow lowland rice will grow in the same spot.
Lowland rice is easier to grow than upland rice.
Upland rice grows well pretty much anywhere sugar cane grows well, though not necessarily in combination with one another.
The professor also thinks it is a very good idea for folks on the Big Island to have viable seed stock on hand and know how to grow it, especially if the islands ever need to be self-sufficient in their own food production.
Delightfully enough, from his origins back in the Philippines the retired professor on Kauai recognized the distinctive purple rice I described from my time on Bali; he says in the Philippines it is called "Purple Rice" in the local language and is used for dessert dishes. Same stuff, I feel sure, as I myself originally ate it in sweet desserts on Bali as well (palm sugar and milk mixed together with the purple rice in a sort of porridge or custard). He suggested that if the USDA seed repositories in the USA do not already have the purple rice available then he could work with me and others interested in trialing small plots on the Big Island to obtain a couple pounds of purple rice and other types of rice seed from IRRI or direct from sources in SE Asia, legitimately, with all the necessary permits for a research trial. It would be most useful, he agreed, if a number of people were interested in cultivating small plots as then it could be tested at different elevations and in a diversity of local micro-climates.
The professor and I exchanged contact information, I am sending him the link to this online discussion (as I have with all those I've spoken with or corresponded to date), and I look forward to interacting more with him on this interesting project -especially once I am actually living on-island full time and can really play with planting and cultivating some test plots myself. He agrees there is significant potential for developing local rice production of "exotic" varieties for not only household consumption but also for barter and sale in local farmer's markets. Standard commercial white polished rice and sticky rice grown in Hawaii could not possibly compete with California-produced rice (grown in millions of tons as it is there the economics of scale favor importation over local production when it comes to price) ...but special long-grain and unpolished "boutique" rice varieties, locally grown in small plots, which simply would not be available for purchase should do very well. Worth exploring further, IMHO.
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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman
"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."
NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt
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