Project Overview
Commodities
- Agronomic: corn, potatoes
- Fruits: melons, bananas, grapes, pineapples, berries (strawberries)
- Vegetables: sweet potatoes, asparagus, beans, beets, broccoli, carrots, eggplant, greens (leafy), onions, peas (culinary), sweet corn, tomatoes, turnips
- Additional Plants: herbs, ornamentals, trees
- Animals: swine, fish
Practices
- Animal Production: housing, manure management
- Crop Production: agroforestry, biological inoculants, cover crops, double cropping, intercropping, multiple cropping, nutrient cycling, organic fertilizers, application rate management, relay cropping, strip tillage, stubble mulching, tissue analysis, conservation tillage, terraces
- Education and Training: extension, farmer to farmer, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research
- Farm Business Management: new enterprise development, budgets/cost and returns, feasibility study, agricultural finance, market study, risk management, value added
- Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, wildlife
- Pest Management: allelopathy, biological control, biorational pesticides, botanical pesticides, compost extracts, field monitoring/scouting, flame, genetic resistance, integrated pest management, mulches - killed, mulches - living, mating disruption, physical control, row covers (for pests), sanitation, smother crops, soil solarization, trap crops, traps, mulching - vegetative, weeder geese/poultry
- Production Systems: agroecosystems, permaculture, transitioning to organic, integrated crop and livestock systems
- Soil Management: earthworms, green manures, organic matter, soil analysis, composting, nutrient mineralization, soil quality/health
- Sustainable Communities: new business opportunities, urban/rural integration, sustainability measures
Abstract:
This completion report is accompanied by 8 videos featuring sustainable agriculture practices for the Pacific Region. In producing these videos, the project leaders determined the important topics to be covered and identified and used farmers and other professionals in the area as resource personnel. These people and farm sites filmed are identified in the respective videos and in the list of cooperators presented earlier.
The dissemination of findings from the video series will be continuous now that these resource materials are available for Pacific based extension agents to share with clients through one on one consultations, workshops, and public access television series. The Core SA video group has developed professional links with other SA resource personnel and farmers in the region that continues to reinforce the need for extension personnel to bridge the link between traditional "chemical" farmers and sustainable farmers employing more natural techniques. Additionally, production of the video series heightened the awareness that sustainable farming practices are being implemented in both small and large scale commercial farms in Hawaii.
The five videos produced by CHC (Hawaii) have been aired a number of times on TV on the Big Island of Hawaii. Positive feedback from the viewing audience has been reported. Copies of the CHC videos will be provided to other Pacific islands states on request.
Plans are underway to air the videos at the four other public access television stations throughout the State of Hawaii. CHC is currently negotiating to determine if the three videos produced by Guam, Saipan, and Pohnpei can be shown on Hawaii public access stations to target Micronesian populations residing in Hawaii. Copies of the Guam and Saipan videos are being distributed to extension clients, local middle and high schools, libraries and other government agencies. Plans include also distribution through the video rental stores on island. The Pohnpei video will be distributed to agencies dealing with tile environment and the ecosystem, and animal and plant production, the local TV channel for airing and to schools.
Project objectives:
The Common Heritage Corporation, Guam Cooperative Extension Service, and the Federated States of Micronesia Cooperative Extension Service looked to this video grant as serving two purposes:
1. To develop sustainable agriculture (SA) video training tapes, emphasizing hands on applications of SA practices, for dissemination to extension agents, agricultural professionals, and farmers in the Pacific Island Region.
2. To identify and develop local expertise in video production during the taping of specific SA topics in Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Micronesia, and Hawaii.