NEWS and REPORT
from the Spring Festival 2001

Hanami Party
March 31, 2001
by MaryAnne Maigret and Ken Love

This year's events truly reflected the power of advertising!

The kick-off Hanami Party at Doutor Farm brought a wide assortment of visitors throughout the day who enjoyed the excellent food, drink and music. More than 400 people attended, including guests from the Mainland, Japan, and Holland, and all enjoyed the food, music and various activities.

As with the events last year, there seemed to be a nice mix of local residents and visitors. Ed Kaneko's hat-weaving demonstration was very popular, as were the "farm market" items: chutneys, jams, jellies made locally from exotic fruits.

Cold Water Ag Day at Common Heritage
April 13, 2001
The gathering at Common Heritage had an altogether different emphasis. Here, the visitors were focused on learning about the emerging technologies practiced by Common Heritage and looking at the potential for economic growth in Kona that is linked to NELHA supported businesses. The demonstration garden at Common Heritage is a lush oasis of fruits and vegetables made possible by subsurface soil cooling and condensation, using frigid deep ocean water brought up by the NELHA "pipe". Possibly the most significant development is the area of turfgrasses, which Common Heritage is hoping will be used for recreational development in coastal areas once thought too hot and arid.

The Kona Agtourism map, "Gifts from the Land"
The Kona Agtourism map "Gifts from the Land" has a new look and has been updated to reflect changes and additions to information on Agtourism destinations. The map serves as a link between the variety of Agtourism destinations, and an extremely useful tool for marketing the services and products of the attractions. Most importantly, though, it emphasizes the cohesiveness of the region and the sense of community shared by people in the Kona agricultural lands. We hope that the map serves as a stimulus for development of Agtourism awareness Statewide.

Mahalo
The Kona Spring Blossom Festival Committee would like to thank those who attended the festival's second annual Hanami Party at Doutor Farm near Holualoa . The event was made possible by the generosity of our sponsors, such as Kona Young Farmers, Kona Brewing Company, Takara Sake USA, MacFarms of Hawaii, KTA Superstores, Kona Hongwanji Mission, West Hawaii Today, HTA, County of Hawaii R&D, UH Manoa and the Kupuna Ukulele Lehulehu.

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March 31, 2001 OPENING EVENT
3rd Annual Hanami Party
10am - 3pm
Doutor Farm
75-5476 Mamalahoa Highway, Holualoa
(Approximately 4 miles South from the Palani Road junction on the mauka road)

Hanami means flower viewing in Japanese and is celebrated annually there under the cherry blossoms. Early coffee farmers in Kona held these parties under the coffee flowers before World War II because the coffee flowers reminded them of the cherry blossoms in Japan.
This year's event features:

• Free sake and beer tasting
• A plate lunch of barbeque beef or Chinese chicken saladd
• Selected products from Kona farmers
• Karaoke, poetry reading, lauhala demonstrations and farm tours
• Selected products

April 13
Cold Water Field Day at Common Heritage and NELHA
April 13th from 3:00 to 4:30 pm
at the Natural Energy Laboratory
With Dr. John Craven (UH Manoa)
Includes refreshments

An overview of the whole NELH facility will also be presented the same day from 2:30 to 3:00 pm at the NELH visitor center.

At 3 pm Dr. Craven will give a tour of the remarkable discoveries from the Common Heritage cold water ag. experiments. Afterwards he will talk about his just published book describing his exciting experiences directing the US effort to track Soviet submarines during the Cold War. He will make explicit comparisons between submarine technology and sustainable agriculture systems.

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