A breeze ruffling the tops of dozens of tents set up in a hollow just off Mamalahoa Highway in Honokaa sent smells of Thai spices and sounds of relaxed guitar music through the air. On most Sundays, the area is a quiet bustle as people browse the wares of the Hamakua Harvest farmers market.
Once a year, the market grows into the Farm Festival.
Everything from the regular Sunday market is still there — the vendors, the educational workshops, the entertainment and the keiki activities. But instead of 15 vendors, there were more than 40. One educational workshop became five. The usual crowd of 400 people swelled to 1,700.
“It’s really a celebration of agriculture in the community,” said Lori Beach, Hamakua Harvest administrative director. The annual Farm Festival is now in its second year and kicking off Honokaa Western Week.
“I think we’ve got a good model going,” Beach said of organizing the festival. More than 75 people volunteer time to help out with everything from parking duty to tea-making.
The Hamakua Harvest initiative was in the works for years before kicking off in 2015 with the farmers market. Its long-term goal is creating a full agricultural teaching hub down in the hollow and, in doing so, help boost the local rural farming economy and community.
The farmers market was the first major step taken toward that end. An outdoor classroom for keiki was another early addition; Hamakua Harvest partners with the Hamakua Youth Foundation for activities.
“This year’s expanded a little,” said former Hamakua Harvestboard member Katie Schwind. “The demonstration orchard was planted, the keiki learning garden is bigger.”
In the learning garden on Sunday, keiki gathered to learn about taro planting, stopping first to visit the pigs in a small Korean natural farming pen.
The trees in the 3-acre demonstration orchard are kids themselves, small saplings planted in distinct plots over the past 6 months. Each plot spotlights a different planting technique, Schwind said, such as traditional Hawaiian agroforestry.
By the time the next farm festival rolls around, there will also be a commercial nursery on the grounds.
Hamakua Harvest is comprised of both a nonprofit and a for-profit arm.
Plans are in the works for building a value-added processing facility to help local farmers with the simple (washing and cutting produce) to the complex (canning and baking), as well as a farm store.
Honokaa Western Week continues through May 29. Portuguese Paniolo Night, featuring Portuguese bean soup and sweet bread contests, takes place from 5-8 p.m. Tuesday at the North Hawaii Education and Research Center. The Honokaa People’s Theater hosts line dancing from 5-9 p.m. on Wednesday.
See Thursday’s Island Beat for an additional story on Honokaa Western Week activities.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
