Organic farming in West Kauai
With reference to a letter, TGI March 10, I would like to take issue with Ms Linda Bothe’s statement: “There is no edible food being grown on the Westside, it’s all about experimenting with toxic chemicals.”
In fact, there is an abundant supply of organic food, being produced next to the Historic Gullick-Rowell missionary home in Waimea. These food products supply The Koke’e Lodge Restaurant on a daily basis. Mr. James Ballantine, owner of the Gullick-Rowell home, and also manager of the Koke’e Restaurant, oversees his ag lands adjacent to the G-R Home. Jimmie also hires part-time students, with a nominal stipend.
“There is a huge business potential in organic farming,” he says.
Jimmie adds that there are numerous individual food growers around former Kekhaha Sugar Cane lands.
For the past two years, I have been working with a “team” of experts, concerning remediation of contaminated soil on our Kikiaola Land Co. former sugar cane land. There are approximately 400 acres of our former sugar cane lands under cultivation of seed corn by Syngenta; now Hartung Brothers. The toxic sprays used to control weeds have made the soils unusable for organic farming.
Our ultimate goal is the remediation of the 400 acres, to the point where organic farming will be feasible. The future work force of Kaua’i farmers may well be happily satisfied with organic farming.
Tourists may come, and tourists may go, but in the event of a loss in the tourism business, there will always be our local farmers with a satisfying job.
Alan Fayé, Princeville
Better bus stops would help ease traffic
As a regular visitor to Kauai for the last 20 years I have followed the continuing discussions about the growing traffic. I would like to recommend one possible aid to this problem; why not give Poipu and Koloa decent bus benches and signs?
Every year I send photos to friends showing me sitting in some ratty chair waiting at a bus stop. Tourists on the South Shore could easily be encouraged to bus to Lihue and the east shore if the hotels and condos supported better info on the bus and there were decent places to sit and wait.
Nancy Anderson, Currently in Koloa
