{"id":13576,"date":"2013-01-29T07:56:40","date_gmt":"2013-01-29T17:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=13576"},"modified":"2020-12-10T16:56:11","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T02:56:11","slug":"new-farmers-cultivated-by-gofarm-hawaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2013\/01\/29\/new-farmers-cultivated-by-gofarm-hawaii\/","title":{"rendered":"New farmers cultivated by GoFarm <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7G51ezy5HNw\" title=\"Youtube video player\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Eighty-five percent of all of the food consumed in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> is grown outside of the state. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Part of the reason why developments go in is, well, nobody really wants to farm,&rdquo; said local farmer <strong>Fred Reppun<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>A new program at the <a href=\"http:\/\/uhcc.hawaii.edu\/OVPCC\/index.php\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Community Colleges<\/a> is addressing that issue and others, like food security, by growing something extremely vital on this plot of land at Windward Community College&#8212;commercial farmers. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gofarmhawaii.org\/\">GoFarm <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span><\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The program is just one part of C3T <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, which stands for Community College, Career Training. It is funded by a $24.6 million workforce development grant from the U.S. Department of Labor. <\/p>\n<p>The <abbr>UH<\/abbr> community colleges are tasked to collaborate with industry partners to develop employer-driven programs. Program that best prepare individuals with the needed technical skills in three emerging areas of economic growth for our state: health, energy and agriculture, like GoFarm <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The goal is to get the people to actually get their general excise tax license so they can be commercial farmers,&rdquo; said Reppun, who is a farm coach for the program. <\/p>\n<p>There are 12 students in the first ever class, ranging in age from 21 to 60. <\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re each responsible for a 500 to a 1,000 square foot lot where they are expected to spend at least four hours a week tending to their crops and learning, first-hand, how to farm. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Today we are putting in carrots, putting in soybeans and just a little more prep here,&rdquo; said GoFarm <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> student <strong>Rob Hammond<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Oh, we are learning how to work a tiller, a hand tiller, which is actually kind of scary,&rdquo; said fellow student <strong><span aria-label=\"Hiilani\">Hi&#699;ilani<\/span> Shibata<\/strong>. &ldquo;It&#8217;s a piece of machine that can just go.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>They also have to attend science classes and business classes each week. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Business planning is a really big part of this course,&rdquo; said Reppun. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;That is actually one of the most awesomest thing; being able to have somebody look at your business plan,&rdquo; said Shibata. <\/p>\n<p>In the last part of the program, the students will get a quarter acre of land at the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M&#257;noa <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctahr.hawaii.edu\/site\/\">College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources<\/a> Research Center in Waim&#257;nalo, to put their newfound skills to the test. The program is free and lasts approximately 18 months. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It&#8217;s designed to sort of get more intense of an experience overtime,&rdquo; said Reppun. &ldquo;The idea, in the end, is to try and help them find land that they can start farming on their own.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It&#8217;s a mentorship program,&rdquo; said Hammond. &ldquo;I don&#8217;t think it really ends. They give you enough resources and everything to get you going and if you have a question two years down the road, three years down the road, it is lining you up for the future, creating a good network for everybody.&rdquo; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GoFarm <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, a new University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Community Colleges program, trains commercial farmers at Windward Community College.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12],"tags":[222,212,811,71,66],"class_list":["post-13576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","category-video","tag-agriculture","tag-college-of-tropical-agriculture-and-human-resilience","tag-gofarm-hawaii","tag-uh-community-colleges","tag-windward-community-college","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13576"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132358,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13576\/revisions\/132358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}