{"id":18378,"date":"2013-07-16T15:28:50","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T01:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=18378"},"modified":"2020-09-04T15:08:59","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T01:08:59","slug":"taro-day-brings-together-diverse-points-of-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2013\/07\/16\/taro-day-brings-together-diverse-points-of-view\/","title":{"rendered":"Taro Day brings together diverse points of view"},"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\/DL4Ii9Pkevw\" title=\"Youtube video player\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Taro, or kalo, is sacred to many Native Hawaiians, some of whom revere it as an ancestor. Made into poi, taro was a critical part of the diet of early Hawaiians and is still popular today. Thousands of varieties of taro grow around the world, but only select plants were brought to <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> by Polynesian settlers.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;If you&#8217;re carrying taro in your canoe, you can only bring your most treasured varieties,&rdquo; explains <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctahr.hawaii.edu\/site\/\">College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources<\/a> agronomist Susan Miyasaka. &ldquo;So it has been shown that the genetic diversity of Hawaiian taro varieties in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> are very low.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Today, there are less than 60 Hawaiian taro varieties in existence and they are susceptible to certain diseases and pests.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The worst case scenario is you could lose your Hawaiian taro varieties without breeding for increased resistance to these diseases and pests,&rdquo; says Miyasaka.<\/p>\n<p>Not everyone agrees that it should be hybridized, or interbred, with foreign varieties.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I believe that it&#8217;s very important that we keep Native Hawaiian varieties of kalo separate from other varieties, so that everybody can be able to identify what is a Hawaiian variety. Then we&#8217;re safe, then we can move on,&rdquo; says Nahulu Maioho, a <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo graduate student in <a href=\"http:\/\/hilo.hawaii.edu\/catalog\/ma_ilce.html\">indigenous language and culture education<\/a> and assistant director at <a href=\"http:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/hshk\/index.php\/site\/acad_kanewai\/en\/\">Ka Papa <span aria-label=\"Loi\">Lo&#699;i<\/span> O K&#257;newai<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M&#257;noa<\/a> College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources supports both approaches with its collection of sustainable and organic taro varieties growing at the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctahr.hawaii.edu\/site\/locationdetails.aspx?id=ER-OWAIM\">Waim&#257;nalo Research Station<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of Hawaiian taro varieties are part of the collection, as are Chinese, Japanese, Palauan and Samoan varieties, plus hybrids and others contributed by commercial taro farmers and community organizations.<\/p>\n<p>The college recently hosted a Taro Field Day that brought together about two hundred taro experts and enthusiasts like eighth-generation taro farmer Jerry Konanui, who spoke about taro identification, and others who addressed issues of bio security and the latest practical solutions to meet new threats to <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>&#8217;s taro industry.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Every year, as we import and export food, new things and new problems pop up,&rdquo; says Jari Sugano, an extension agent at the college who liaisons between academics, farmers and the community. &ldquo;Our role at the college is try and mitigate some of those issues through research, education and innovation. But also being respectful to the cultures and the traditions here in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Being respectful of those traditions is why the university has an indefinite moratorium on genetic engineering research with Hawaiian taro varieties and has relinquished all patent rights to new hybrids.<\/p>\n<p>Even those who disagree with the direction of some of the research, see the value of the college&#8217;s outreach work. &ldquo;Today&#8217;s field day is very important to the community,&rdquo; according to Maioho. &ldquo;It is a way for <abbr>UH<\/abbr> to reach out to the community in distributing the Hawaiian varieties, educating about the Hawaiian varieties and also educating the community about the insects, the viruses that affect kalo production.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8212;By Jeela Ongley<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Protecting the Hawaiian taro industry is a priority for University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> scientists, farmers and community members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,12],"tags":[222,212,33,9],"class_list":["post-18378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-video","tag-agriculture","tag-college-of-tropical-agriculture-and-human-resilience","tag-hawaiian","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18378","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=18378"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126564,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18378\/revisions\/126564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}