Despite its location along a busy thoroughfare in Kakaako, most people passed by the forlorn, grassy strip fronting the former CompUSA building without giving it notice.
Until now.
Amid the asphalt and concrete trappings of the urban neighborhood, a nonprofit group called Urban Farm Hawaii is growing a plot of taro along Ala Moana Boulevard.
The vision: several rows of taro, with their heart-shaped leaves, sprouting from the narrow strip to beautify the city setting while producing food.
"Right now the seeds are being planted in Kakaako," said Andrew Dedrick, founder of Urban Farm Hawaii. "We hope it moves across the city. This is the first farm, the first stage and the first planting of an urban agriculture movement. It’s where produce meets pavement."
Dedrick is also the owner of Geobunga garden stores, which opened a pop-up shop in the former Comp-USA parking lot in November. He says Urban Farm Hawaii is a separate entity.
With permission from landowner Kamehameha Schools, Dedrick, Mitchell Loo and Nate Ortiz — fellow tropical plant majors at the University of Hawaii at Manoa — used a sod cutter to get the soil ready as traffic whizzed by.
Over the weekend the team, with the help of volunteers, planted more than 500 donated dryland taro plants along the strip, which measures about 400 feet long by 10 feet wide.
It’s a short-term project since the site, currently home to Auto Mart USA, is slated for redevelopment by A&B Properties into a residential high-rise. But Urban Farm Hawaii expects the crop to yield luau leaves and at least one harvest of taro for poi production after a six-month period.
Ortiz, who’s also involved with a student organic farm at UH, jumped at the opportunity to practice urban farming. "It’s changing the paradigm of how people think about farming and how it’s done," he said.
The planting of taro — kalo in Hawaiian — is also symbolic of returning Kakaako to its agricultural and cultural roots.
"This symbolizes us putting our hand back into the ground," Loo said.
The soil has been conditioned with "zoo doo," a unique mix of manure compliments of the Honolulu Zoo, along with fish bone meal rich in nitrogen. An automated drip irrigation system will be installed at a cost of about $1,500.
The taro will be grown using organic practices, without herbicides.
To demonstrate how little space is needed to produce food, Dedrick planted five apple banana trees and taro on a 6-foot-long median strip in the parking lot.
Already, the banana trees are producing new shoots, or keiki, that could be replanted.
Urban Farm Hawaii hopes to offer workshops to the surrounding community on how to grow an edible garden.
"Urban Farm Hawaii is just as much about growing relationships and community as it is about growing food," Dedrick said.
Eventually, it will look at growing vegetables and greens in the Kakaako corridor, exploring other techniques, including hydroponics.
Dedrick said he’s already talking with Kamehameha Schools about other potential urban sites — parking lots, abandoned lots and rooftops — that could grow food.
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ON THE NET:
www.urbanfarmhawaii.com
