HI everyone, I had a question the other day about the Hawaii Awa Council and what it was and what they do. In this article I will tell you folks all about it and show you all some history of the Hawaii Awa Council.
First of all there was not always the Hawaii Awa Council (HAC), before the HAC there was the Association for Hawaiian Awa, this association still exists till today.
The problem was that back in the 1990's there were a lot of kava farms popping up and they all looked to the Association for Hawaiian Awa (AHA) for guidance and to help solve there problems with farming 'Awa
Since AHA was not made to take care of these thing, the HAC was created.
AHA was great and did so much for the awa community and they still do, in fact they are more active than HAC, they even made newsletters like this one-------
Inside the newsletters they would have a full color picture of a Hawaiian awa like this one--------------
I always looked forward to that, they were great photos and the newsletters had a lot of great information but there was a need for a larger organization, so there was a meeting to decide certain things and vote for officers and this picture shows the results.-----------------
I was voted in as a 2 year Director at large and I did not even know it till a few days later. I was not able to make the meeting and I was happy to help as a director at large.
Out of all of this it was decided that this newly formed organization would be called the Hawaii Awa Council. The HAC made flyers to promote the newly formed origination and Hawaiian Awa.------
HAC also had meetings and made By Laws------
It was not long at all before I was voted in as President of the HAC------
Part of the goals of the HAC was education, and to that end we sponsored several International Awa Conference's. -------
Experts in the field came and gave a lot of great information and help for the farmers, experts like Dr Lebot, Chris Kilham and many scientist from UH and other institutions came to give there help and talk about new research.
I also took part in education of growing and processing awa and other aspects of awa. I tought at the Hawaiian immersion school in Keaau called "Ke Kula ‘o Nāwahīokalani‘ōpu‘u Iki"
In this school they speak only the Hawaiian language. I tought the kids about Hawaiian Awa and how to identify each variety and how to grow and process the kava. One of the experiments that we did at that school was to grow awa hydroponically and it took several tries but eventually the students found a way to do it. Here is a picture of the kids taking measurements and other information with the Hydroponic experiment.--------
Here I am talking to the kids about processing the awa into powder--------
I also would go into the forests and valleys to find new varieties of Hawaiian Awa.
There was a point in time where there was a lot of the Hawaiian awa in the wild that was being stolen and poached in massive amounts. Because of this problem HAC started a Task Force to try to stop the problem, we had numerous meetings and we finally implemented the idea of putting microchips into the wild awa, see the minutes of the meeting here------
This approach to the problem worked very well and the poaching stopped almost completely.
Not too long after this is when the world had the so called Kava scare and this is when the kava ban started. Once the kava ban started the poaching stopped all together and for the most part so did the awa market in Hawaii, we saw prices go down and contracts broken and suddenly there was no demand for kava. Farmers who once grew kava moved to other crops. There were only a few kava farmers that kept going, among them are Puu O Hoku Ranch, Maui Kava (recently retired) me and a few others.
Since there was no real need or interest in the HAC it became defunct, I was still president when this happened and I still provide educational information and farm help when needed, I do this as the President of HAC and if the need ever comes back then the HAC will be fully functioning again.
This is just a summery and it is not detailed at all but I figured it will answer any questions about the HAC.
Aloha.
Chris
First of all there was not always the Hawaii Awa Council (HAC), before the HAC there was the Association for Hawaiian Awa, this association still exists till today.
The problem was that back in the 1990's there were a lot of kava farms popping up and they all looked to the Association for Hawaiian Awa (AHA) for guidance and to help solve there problems with farming 'Awa
Since AHA was not made to take care of these thing, the HAC was created.
AHA was great and did so much for the awa community and they still do, in fact they are more active than HAC, they even made newsletters like this one-------
Inside the newsletters they would have a full color picture of a Hawaiian awa like this one--------------
I always looked forward to that, they were great photos and the newsletters had a lot of great information but there was a need for a larger organization, so there was a meeting to decide certain things and vote for officers and this picture shows the results.-----------------
I was voted in as a 2 year Director at large and I did not even know it till a few days later. I was not able to make the meeting and I was happy to help as a director at large.
Out of all of this it was decided that this newly formed organization would be called the Hawaii Awa Council. The HAC made flyers to promote the newly formed origination and Hawaiian Awa.------
HAC also had meetings and made By Laws------
It was not long at all before I was voted in as President of the HAC------
Part of the goals of the HAC was education, and to that end we sponsored several International Awa Conference's. -------
Experts in the field came and gave a lot of great information and help for the farmers, experts like Dr Lebot, Chris Kilham and many scientist from UH and other institutions came to give there help and talk about new research.
I also took part in education of growing and processing awa and other aspects of awa. I tought at the Hawaiian immersion school in Keaau called "Ke Kula ‘o Nāwahīokalani‘ōpu‘u Iki"
In this school they speak only the Hawaiian language. I tought the kids about Hawaiian Awa and how to identify each variety and how to grow and process the kava. One of the experiments that we did at that school was to grow awa hydroponically and it took several tries but eventually the students found a way to do it. Here is a picture of the kids taking measurements and other information with the Hydroponic experiment.--------
Here I am talking to the kids about processing the awa into powder--------
I also would go into the forests and valleys to find new varieties of Hawaiian Awa.
There was a point in time where there was a lot of the Hawaiian awa in the wild that was being stolen and poached in massive amounts. Because of this problem HAC started a Task Force to try to stop the problem, we had numerous meetings and we finally implemented the idea of putting microchips into the wild awa, see the minutes of the meeting here------
This approach to the problem worked very well and the poaching stopped almost completely.
Not too long after this is when the world had the so called Kava scare and this is when the kava ban started. Once the kava ban started the poaching stopped all together and for the most part so did the awa market in Hawaii, we saw prices go down and contracts broken and suddenly there was no demand for kava. Farmers who once grew kava moved to other crops. There were only a few kava farmers that kept going, among them are Puu O Hoku Ranch, Maui Kava (recently retired) me and a few others.
Since there was no real need or interest in the HAC it became defunct, I was still president when this happened and I still provide educational information and farm help when needed, I do this as the President of HAC and if the need ever comes back then the HAC will be fully functioning again.
This is just a summery and it is not detailed at all but I figured it will answer any questions about the HAC.
Aloha.
Chris
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