Hawaii

List of Sustainability-Focused Extension Programs

Program: Natural Farming Livestock Production

Institution: University of Hawaii- Manoa 

Category: Land, Air Quality/ Climate Change, Water

Range: Hawaii statewide

Description: The most critical issue facing Hawaii’s livestock and other small family operations nationwide is the development and implementation of cost effective pollution prevention technology. Our livestock producers, especially swine, continue to seek a best management practice (BMP) that is effective, economical, and practical, and in compliance with new US EPA laws. The Department of Health, Natural Resource Conservation Service, Hawaii Soil and Water Conservation Districts and the Cooperative Extension Service have been working diligently to address both federal and state waste management compliance needs of the local pork producer (Deenik and Hue, 2004). As a result, the industry currently implements effluent irrigation, composting, deep litter technology, lagoon storage and solid separation as possible solutions for on-farm nutrient management (Fukumoto, DuPonte and Lee, 2000). Unfortunately, due to new and revised EPA regulations, which now include nuisance odor and vector components, many of these strategies no longer meet federal criteria for BMPs.

In 2006, a system of waste management, with the potential to be implemented as a BMP under federal regulations, was discovered in Korea during a visit to the Janong Natural Farming Institution. The concepts of naturally collected micro-organisms, green waste deep litter, and a piggery design with strategic solar and wind positioning was being practiced in several countries in Asia and the Pacific Basin. Over the past six years, these concepts have been tested in Hawaiʻi to provide small swine farms with another BMP that is in compliance with current EPA regulations.

Program Offerings: Face-to-face trainings, Website, Information, Certification