The Hawaiian food forest started on the edges of the native 'ohi'a forest (Metrosideros) where they found resources such as medicine and building materials.

Breadfruit and bananas were planted in large tracts for everyone to use.

In a village sweet potatoes were the main crop, and taro (the favorite), although taro (kalo) needed lots of care.

Yams were grown on the outskirts, and ti (Cordyline tubers) and ape (Alocasia) for when times got tough.

Everybody fished. A traditional method was to string a net across a bay, then walk it in, taking most of the catch.

Chickens and pigs (in rock pens) were raised in the community and taken as needed. Dogs were pets, but also a food resource if needed. Rats were also food at times.

In a good year everyone had plenty. During hard times, the family pet might have to be dinner.

So the medical plants were collected from the native forest and not grown deliberately? They were all wild plants?

Were there a variety of chickens or just a few local breeds?

Back home both cows and pigs were allowed out into the fields to graze. The pigs were problematical--one giant pig thought it was fun to chase me. Waited for me to come out of the house and then it was run, run, run, until I could get a fence or something else between me and him. Usely I don't think pigs are that aggressive though. Were Hawaiian pigs allowed free reign r were they kept in pens. Oh. You said they were in rock pens--pens built with rock walls?

Oh. I meant to ask also, what is the soil like? PH or texture? I would guess some of it is volcanic in origin.

I recently read where GMOs have been outlawed for Hawaii. There must be a lot of environmentally conscientious people there to accomplish that.

The chickens are referred today as "Jungle Fowl".

Medicinal plants today are collected from homegrown material and native forest.

Pigs were raised in rock pens, much smaller than the feral European pig found today.

Chickens & dogs roamed free till needed. Rats were eaten during hard times.

The soil in Puna is histosol, rotted plant material.

GMO's are not outlawed on the Big Island, but have to be described in a grocery store. You can't sell a mutated vegetable variety, without telling folks that it is mutated from the original species.

Well that is much further than we have got here. Do people buy products that they know are genetically modified?

Thanks for all your answers. You might try to open a new forum on tropical gardening and see if there is any traffic.

I noticed in Cubits that you wrote about aloe as a medicinal plant. I imagine there are hundreds.

I grew up myself in Northern Michigan in a Northern temperate forest zone forest: Beeches, Maples, pines, amelanchier (Juneberry), and birches. We tapped the maple trees for syrup, but otherwise in the winter the woods was for hunting and trapping. (Not me, Ive been a vegetarian most of my life!) In spring there are berries (raspberries, wintergreen berries, black berries, and mushrooms -- especially morels about Late Spring. These were mostly flood plain forests developed along the old flood terraces of the Manistee River. (Glacial alkaline soils) I can't imagine what a tropical rain forest would be like. Monkeys?

Somewhere I have heard that the Hawaiin papaya crop was in danger because of some disease.
And they brought papaya back to production through a GMO method?

I wonder if the crop failure was not due to leaving the old historical methods,
and then planting monocultures of only one species?

Hi Caroline. I tried to find pros and cons on that argument.

This article does present the history of the papaya crop in Hawaii: http://www.foodproductdesign.c...

This is an early (2006) paper on some of the results of the introduction of GMO papaya seed in 1998.

http://www.hawaiiseed.org/reso...

One of the arguments in support of the GMO papaya seed is that it would allow the papaya virus to be contained, and then organically grown papayas could be grown elsewhere on the islands.
http://nwrage.org/content/wide...

In these articles you will see that the virus was attributed to use of monocroping techniques.

I am interested if permaculture techniques (essentially a return of original farming methods) can find solutions to the problems here. It would be a sad day if the bananas we buy at the store, are no longer the bananas that we have depended on for solid nutrition--and a dash of sweet that didn't need any refined sugar!

Most folks don't seem to care about their food sources, and thanks to Monsanto, most foods are GMO.

It is comforting to know that food can be purchased which is labeled Non-GMO.

The Rainbow Papaya (GMO) has been a big issue in Puna. It is supposed to be resistant to the Papaya virus, but what is happening is it's creating a very aggressive Papaya virus.

In my opinion the big problem is the monocropping of Papaya. When Papaya is raised in a mixed food forest, it doesn't have the problems that the monocrop has.

I raise the old time non-hybrid Papaya. It has male & female plants, gets very large, and lasts for many years. It has been found that the old-time plants contain more betacarotene than the modern hybrids.
Seems to me that the modern hybrids are based more on looking good than being good for you.

I think people DO care about their food sources, they just have no idea how detrimental altered food is to their health. And also they don't have an idea of how extensively our food supply has been modified.

This is one explanation of the GMO problem: a presentation by Dr. Russell Blaylock. [I would skip the hype at the front of this presentation--Dr. Blaylock's speech begins at 6:50 minutes.]

https://w3.blaylockwellness.co...

We are finding so much more about this problem with the recent studies of epigenetics. If you don't feed a dog species appropriate food, the dog will get sick and not live his normal life span. The same is true for humans. If they don't eat a species appropriate diet, our genetic mechanisms are thrown way off track, and the population cannot live a normal lifespan. Our own genes work with the genetic information in the food that we eat. When that information is scrambled, our genes can't work at all to keep us healthy.

Metrosideros, what are Hawaiians doing now to try to protect the genome of the basic foods traditionally grown from contamination by the GMO crops? Does permaculture have any impact there to try to re-introduce traditional farming methods?

The Permaculture enthusiasts here tend to have a try anything that works attitude, rather than growing traditional crops. There are a few locals that maintain Hawaiian style gardens in the area.

There has been some oppositions to the University of Hawai'i introducing GMO taro varieties, and opposition to GMO crop testing here. That is relatively new though.
The University of Hawai'i, along with other companies, has been growing GMO corn, and many other crops for decades.

I suspect down the road, any food labeled "certified non-gmo" will be a best seller. But environmental clean up will be the next major hurdle.

I think the deterioration of basic permaculture principles has been an international problem. From reading Mollison's original works, I understand permaculture to be a re-institution of the basic ecology of any given area. In the end that's what will work, and looking at traditional food production methods is really the only way to do permaculture. Monocropping with herbicides/pesticides clearly does not produce healthy food.

Has "slash and burn" ever been used in traditional Hawaiian farming? I know in SE asia it is one of the most misunderstood techniques, and has been phased out in some areas to make room for monocrops. The key to slash and burn, though, is takes a lot of land to rotate through the fallowing cycles.

I did find this discussion about traditional farming in Hawaii, but it only discusses the land division system.

http://cms.kohoia.org/course/v...

This article describes culture history from the perspective of three archaeological sites on the west coast.
http://www.donch.com/LULH/cult...

In this section the authors do mention the importance of slash and burn [swidden],

Quote: Several other dry land crops were also important food items. They were cultivated by means of swiddening — clearing vegetation by cutting and burning, followed by alternate periods of planting and leaving the land fallow. Sweet potatoes comprised the main crop where insufficient water occurred to grow taro. Breadfruit trees were planted in groves in sheltered areas with fertile soil and little wind. Numerous varieties of bananas grew in clumps around taro patches and in gulches. Yams were raised to some extent in the early days, but because of their mealy texture were not a favorite food. Later they were grown to sell to sea captains because they spoiled less quickly than taro or sweet potatoes. Other vegetables in the Hawaiian diet included coconuts, sugarcane, arrowroot, and seaweeds. Other plants extensively cultivated were the paper mulberry for manufacturing barkcloth (kapa), the 'awa for use as a narcotic, bottle gourds used for containers and musical instruments, screwpine (pandanus) used in making mats, and a variety of other useful plants. End Quote.

The pond farms (aquaculture) are also interesting.

Slash & burn was a common field method in Hawai'i in precontact times.

On the Hamakua Coast, Kukui (Aleurites moluccana) trees were used to forest an area. When the trees got to size, they were felled, then burned, then the area was planted with a crop such as Taro (Colocasia esculenta).

In the South Point (Ka'u) area, fields were burned off to grow Pili Grass (Heteropogon contortus). The Pili Grass was used for thatching for a roof.

There has been a lot of misunderstanding of the sustainability of slash and burn. In some areas governments have outlawed the practice. But apparently it is a good way to manage farming in a tropical forest. I have read studies which analyzed soils that have been under slash and burn management for centuries compared to western farming practices. The slash and burn soils were intact, while as we all know western farming destroys soil in just a few decades.

I am hoping to find Organic papayas from Hawaii in our local stores soon! We do even have coconuts, now. And Im sure there will be an expanding market for those, since they are now presented as the number one healthiest source of fat. Dump out the Crisco and bring on the coconut oil!

I talked today with an elderly local gentleman, who happened to mention that he owned 3 acres on Puna. I asked him if he would like some none GMO papayas planted on his property. He said no.

Tropical Permaculture -- The Movie.

Permaculture in Northern Thailand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

JUST RAN ACROSS THIS: Farming Tools of Ancient Hawaii.

https://prezi.com/delblsr6zq2r...

Thanks for the link Hazel,

There were many agricultural tools used by the Hawaiians.

The 'o'o bar a commonly known one was used for digging. They were sharpened with an adze or in some archaeological sites one can find places where there are a number of several inch long ruts in rock surfaces; these were used to sharpen the 'o'o.

A very common but not so evident tool was the Hawaiian knife. Simply a flake from a chunk of obsidian, placed between the thumb and index finger, used to cut sweet potato vines for planting, or to make taro starts. The farmer (mahi'ai) would keep an obsidian corestone (or basalt) and hammerstone (rounded basalt rock) with them while working a farm (mahi). When ever a knife was needed, a flake would be struck off the corestone.

I once taught a class (as a teaching assistant) in primitive tool making. I still have my digging stick made from ash--it still has the bark on it, and I use it quite often. The most impressive tool we made was a spear thrower. It fits over then end of the throwing end of the spear, and the power facilitated by this device is amazing. The spear blade was made from flaking off a core. And the knife blades were made the same way.

I also found an article about traditional Hawaiian musical instruments. bamboo flutes and trumpets. Several made from shell and stone. There were also percussion instruments--split bamboo (drumsticks?).

I was amused by Sayer Ji's article for today, on the health benefits of drumming.


http://www.greenmedinfo.com/bl...

I remember in the Trobriand Islands, the natives played music to the yams to make them happier and grow better.

Help for tropical permaculture project.

http://permaculturenews.org/20...