(L-R): MA’O Organic Farm Co-Founder Kukui Maunakea-Forth and Farm Operations Director Cheryse Kauikeolani Sana. – Courtesy Photos
An unfamiliar vine had appeared on one of the field areas at MAʻO Organic Farms and it excited the director of farm operations, Cheryse Kauikeolani Sana.
“It’s a beautiful plant and it started being our ground cover and helping with weed suppression,” said Sana.
The vine was later identified as pāʻūohiʻiaka. It is said to have grown to protect the goddess Hiʻiaka from the sun.
“It was like wow, it just makes so much sense, because Hiʻiaka actually came in through Lualualei in the story of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele.”
At that moment, Sana realized that what was long ago is still showing itself. Specifically, the moʻolelo of Hiʻiaka traveling through Waiʻanae and Mākaha on her journey to retrieve Lohiʻau (Pele’s paramour) from Kauaʻi.
“It’s not gone; all the ʻike. Maybe we’ve lost some ʻike, but it’s not truly lost because it was always learned through the practice of kilo,” she said.
Kilo, keen observation, has always been a primary resource in the educational work that defines MAʻO.
Twenty-five years ago, Kukui Maunakea-Forth and her husband, Gary, founded MAʻO in Lualualei Valley as a farm enterprise where youth are trained and mentored as interns and apprentices to become entrepreneurial community leaders. MAʻO stands for Mala ʻAi ʻŌpio, which translates to “youth food garden.”
“Our youth programs were essentially workforce development programs,” Maunakea-Forth said.
The youth cohorts co-manage the farm, growing and processing more than 50 different organic vegetables and fruits that are sold at farmer’s markets, grocers, restaurants, and through a community-supported agriculture (CSA) subscription service.
With MAʻO’s support, cohort graduates go on to achieve certifications or degrees. To date, MAʻO has had 19.5 cohorts, and 511 interns participate in its Youth Leadership Training Program. MAʻO also offers high school and workforce development internships, educational programs, and serves as a catalyst to higher education.
After graduating from Waiʻanae High School, Sana joined the second cohort of MAʻO’s Youth Leadership Training Program. She received a certificate in Sustainable Community Food Systems from Leeward Community College and went on to graduate from UH Mānoa with a degree in Hawaiian Studies.
Today, she is one of the farm’s 37 employees and a key mentor who leads the farm operations. Sana has witnessed the farm’s growth from 5 to 281 acres, as well as the expansion of its educational programs.
At minimum, MAʻO produces a ton of food a week. The average age of their farmers is 28 years old – 30 years younger than the average age of farm producers across the continent, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.
A majority of MAʻO’s interns and employees have grown up in or around Waiʻanae with little to no knowledge about the historical agricultural landscape of their moku (district). Over half the interns and staff are Kānaka.
“[Working on the farm] is what got me more interested in understanding how we manage our resources and [to] train our people to care for those resources to come back and to be refilled,” said Sana.
Maunakea-Forth describes it as fostering “pilina with soil.”
“Our mission is really about growing young people to have a relationship with their ʻāina,” explained Maunakea-Forth. “What we know, essentially, is that we are bringing relationship of people to the soil through aloha ʻāina.”
For decades, land in Waiʻanae and Lualualei Valley was used for some mixed farming but much of the land was uncultivated.
“It was an unsustainable system of agriculture that was so far removed from ʻike, the values, that our kūpuna had,” said Maunakea-Forth. “So, we have had the privilege of being able to reimagine and do exactly as our kūpuna have done. We’re taking care of crops; we’re taking care of the community.”
Anyone involved with MAʻO, whether as an intern, employee or board member, accepts the kuleana to care for ʻāina and people for the long-term. It is one of the reasons MAʻO was chosen to steward an additional 249 acres in Mākaha – a mix of agricultural and residential zoned land that was recently gifted to the farm from The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.
Over the next decade, their vision for the allotted acreage will take shape, including plans for housing.
Having more land to manage presents an opportunity for community redevelopment. Land surveys are currently underway to inform on its condition. However, what’s ultimately to come will be determined through kilo, establishing pilina with ʻāina, listening to the community, and being flexible.
“We need to be impactful in the systems and places where our young people go,” Maunakea-Forth said using water as an analogy. “You can take care of water in one place but it’s still going to go somewhere [else]. So, you want to be able to go to that other place and nourish the other parts of our landscape.”
These places and systems include food, education, health, workforce, and housing. MAʻO’s ability to shift these systems are evident by its influence in movements such as farm-to-school, organic gardening, food-systems curriculums, and more. MAʻO has also incorporated Indigenous agroforestry and biocultural restoration into its framework with the intent to build a workforce in these professional fields.
“It’s not about doing things from scratch – it’s about amplifying the voice of ʻāina,” said Sana. “It is highlighting the abundance of knowledge and excellence that our kūpuna understood and tying that into how it will work with the resources and technologies that we have today.”
As MAʻO continues to nurture connections between people and ʻāina, it will be inspiring to see how ʻike kūpuna and moʻolelo unfold to help shape the decade ahead.
