Adam Asquith stands knee deep in water with his taro plants. He takes his time, looking for one worthy of Prince Kuhio Day for one of his customers. He holds a knife in his mouth to free his hands as he pulls the sacred plant from the murky waters.
He worked with every farmer who would let him to learn the trade. At first, he tried to take notes and learn everything he could about the staple of Hawaiian culture and food. He learned the only way to truly get the tricks of the trade are working in the field and to, “just shut up and work with the farmers.”
“It’s like a giant construction project,” Asquith says of the 100 acres he and 15 families farm. “It takes years and years and years. I’ve been here for 10 years and I’ve got 30 acres in. It takes a long long time.”
He quit his job with the government nearly 20 years ago and for the past 10 years, he has managed the Kealia Farm Market. He does it because it’s something that he loves. It’s something that he lives and breathes. In order to get there, he had to take a leap of faith and venture out of the realm of the reliable government paycheck into the world of long days and living with the land.
He’s found a corm that is perfect for Prince Kuhio Day. He brings it up onto the land out of the water and explains the finer details of the history of the plant that is so intertwined with the culture and antiquity.
Asquith has found taro farming has a unique relationship with the language and that many of the techniques for farming taro are within the language itself, passed down through the generations. The farm has its market on Monday and Fridays around pau hana. They specifically designed it around the local community and their needs, opening around 3 p.m.
Vehicles begin to fill the parking lot on a Friday afternoon as the vendors and customers begin their bi-weekly ritual of going to market. On most days, the farmers run out of what they are selling. It’s something that amazes Asquith as he never thinks the vendors can sell all of their produce, but he gets surprised every time with their consistent ability to sell off all of their produce.
Talking at the market, a man comes up and hands him two $20 bills. The man thanks Asquith and tells him that he went to a traditional store when he missed the Monday market and paid three times what the Kealia Farm Market charges for taro.
“Our market, it’s not a farmers market,” Asquith says with a smile. “It’s a venue for our family of farmers here.”
Asquith points out that every farmer has their own techniques when it comes to farming taro, or kalo as they like to call it sometimes, depending on whom he is talking to.
“I’ve spent most of my adult life in Hawaii as a biologist,” Asquith says. “I have a Ph.D. in biology and I worked for all the different government agencies from research to administrative stuff, conservation biology to managing the wildlife refuges for the Fish and Wildlife Service. That’s how I got into taro.”
Asquith was the biologist and assistant manager for the Hanalei Wildlife Refuge when he interacted with eight families that farm taro on the federal government land.
“They became my heroes,” he says with an air of authenticity. “And I just decided to make this my home. I wanted to throw my lot in with people that I respected and I felt I could contribute to my community. I gave up all my benefits and retirement.”
Asquith grew up on a farm in central Illinois. When he left Illinois as a young man, he never wanted to see a farm again. But as the years went along and his work with the government led him to the taro farmers in Hanalei, he was hooked. By that time, Asquith had fostered a growing love of his new home on Kauai and the communities at large.
“I had significant issues with government,” Asquith said. “It just made me want to emulate those people that I still believe live the culture and lifestyle that all the rest of us come here for. I felt that besides having a degree, I could find another way to give back to my community and that meant sacrificing a lot. Everything that I had worked for or thought that I wanted to accomplish.”
Asquith describes that for him, faith is what you know to be true.
“Even though it was a leap of faith, I knew that it was the right thing to do,” he says. “It’s real. That’s what drew me to it. This is what all the rest of us come here for.”
He believes the government was making the struggle harder for people and that he wanted to help the community and not be apart of the problem. It was that simple belief that started him on the path that he is on to this day, beginning a 20-year relationship with the land, the taro, and the people and culture that make it something tangible and real for those he affects every day with his salt of the earth approach.
Asquith and the 15 other families that have thrown their hats in with him are all tenant farmers, they do not live on the farm. It was something that hit them hard when the floods came last April. There were many losses both ecologically and quantitatively as some of the farmers were forced to leave the trade and the farm. It’s something, like many, that they are still recovering from to this very day as they approach the one-year anniversary of the devastating floods.
“I used to think I was tough,” he says with a bellowing laugh. “Not even close.”
He looks at the experience of the flood as something he was blessed to be around, despite its negative effects.
“Wow, I was here to see it and I know where I won’t put a house if we ever get an opportunity,” he said. “I’ve been able to move farmers around because some areas just took too long to recover. To me, everything is a learning experience and there is so much to learn from the land, from weather events and these individual farmers. I’m a lifelong student, whether it is in the classroom or life.”
There are only three full-time farmers on the Kealia Farm. All of the others work two or three full-time jobs, in addition to farming the taro. They all compete in the housing market and often times can be found working in the fields until 2 a.m. He doesn’t see farming as something that is dying, but actually sees it as a growing trade on Kauai.
“Three generations ago, everybody’s life was like this,” Asquith said. “Here on Kauai, we went through almost a generational hiatus.”
Asquith explains that in the generation there was almost no farming, the local demand has exploded, due to the change in demography.
“All of a sudden we’ve got not only rich people, we’ve got ultra-rich,” Asquith said. “It’s just gone nuts from a third world plantation society to where we have people come in and pay twice the price of Safeway for fresh produce. These people, they do all right. They are surviving, which is incredible. They have to get retail prices for their produce, but there is a retail market on Kauai.”
The parking lot back at the market is full now. Customers and vendors exchange smiles and produce as Asquith proudly hauls the corm he’s picked out special for Prince Kuhio Day. He hands it to the woman who has been waiting for him. She thanks him and he continues the routine that has become his life.
Another market day has started, most arriving before the official opening. The taro is selling almost as fast as it’s put out.
