KCFA BOD Meeting Minutes
Oct.18, 2011
Yano Hall
Call to Order at 4:02 PM
Present: P.Uster, K. Wood, B. Corker, C. Wilson, T. Butler, ML Moss and C. Bondera.
100% Kona Coffee furnished by Paul Uster. Mahalo. Nov. is Jason Stith.
Acknowledgement of guests: Andrew Yamane bought Kona King Farm in Captain Cook.
Andrea Kawabata of CTAHR. Andrea is the new Assistant Extension Agent, specializing in coffee and fruit trees. Her telephone number and email address are 322-4894 and [email protected]
Pres. Bondera’s “Quote of the Month”: GI’s protect the farmer and benefits the consumer. It provides revenue and pride.
Review of Minutes for Sept. 2011: Motion by ML Moss to accept minutes was seconded by K. Wood. All in favor and motion carried.
Treasurer’s report: Motion to accept by ML. Moss was seconded by K. Wood. All in favor and motion carried.
Old Business
Bryce Decker, KCFA librarian presented the book “Labels of Origins For Food”, edited by E. Barham and B. Sylvander.
KCFA purchased the book for its library.
Committee Reports
Events: ML Moss- Cultural Festival dates – Nov. 5-13. Need volunteers. Need to show a presence in the community by supporting the festival events. There are 5 major events. If 5 board members took responsibility for just ONE of the 5 events, it would not be so overwhelming for me. It’s not hard, it’s just a lot of time (for 1) and a lot of coordinating times and places.
Saturday, Nov. 5 = Coffee & Art Stroll 8-3 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 9 – Keauhou Outrigger Cupping Contest 8-3 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 10 – Keauhou Outrigger Cupping Contest 8-2 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 11 – Grand Parade & event after parade 5-9 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 12 – Old Airport Pavilion – Heritage Days 9:30-3:30 p.m.
KCFA will have a booth Saturday, Nov. 5 in Holualoa for the Coffee and Art Stroll , and on Saturday, Nov.12 for the Festival of Artists and Ethnic Foods. Volunteers are needed for both events. The single parade will be on Friday night and Yoko Trygstad, who is KCFA’s representative, is looking for participants.
Legislature: B. Corker
1--Origin Disclosure Bill: Discussions with Sen. Josh Green continue regarding introduction and support for this bill. The bill requires labels to disclose the origin of the 90% non-Hawaii-grown coffee in 10% blends.
2--Emergency CBB Mitigation Funding: The Committee is studying proposals to fund an Emergency CBB Mitigation Program--including a tax on green coffee.
Membership: ML MOSS - Membership is at 311 members. Only 18 members have taken advantage of our Membership Special of 3 years for the price of 2. Believe me, we will still be around in 3 years – so spread the word. Better yet, be a good example and sign up yourself along with signing up your spouse too!
New thoughts on involving more associate/supporting memberships. Any ideas? Possibly having a form letter for members to send to their customers asking them to join if they support 100% Kona coffee. And, asking the restaurants that serve 100% Kona Coffee to become members.
(ML: I don’t think the following was discussed at the meeting. I am including it here for everyone’s benefit. Unless I missed it, it will be deleted from the final draft. Tom)
We need liability insurance to have the EXPO. The county is getting sticky about non-profits having liability insurance when they rent the Old Airport Pavilion. Should we get it for one event or get it for the year? Does anyone know a good insurance agency for this type of insurance?
I call Wm. F. Jones Agency and he said about $300 for one event – $750-1000 for annual fee to cover all events. We probably should have insurance when we sell coffee on Alii Drive.
Nomination/Elections Report
The committee consists of Clare Wilson and Christy Carrico with me as Chair. I sent emails to the 4 retiring Board Members. As we have no term limit policy, we asked the 4 - Kathy Wood, Tom Butler, Jason Stith and Mary Lou Moss to consider running again. Kathy has responded that after giving it careful thought, she will not be running for the Board again. She will be sincerely missed.
Our By-laws indicate we only need a max of 5 Board members. The Committee will meet and discuss having fewer Board Members as opposed to filling the current 11 slots.
Respectfully submitted,
Cecelia Smith
Pest and Disease: B. Smith Requested Budget: $1000 for time and expenses on two items:
1.Development of educational videos on CBB
Purpose: Kona farmers are desperate for more information on CBB. KCFA has been the leading organization in the fight against the pest. We must continue to be the voice for the farmers. Videos provide 24-7 access to information and can highlight information that might not be understood otherwise.
Film 3 separate videos on CBB management for farmers.
1) Spraying of fungus, field sanitation and IPM
2) Pest management for the small mill
3) Spanish language version combining both.
Time will be spent on scripting, research, staging, and filming. Video will be a Yu Tube presentation.
2.Drafting of B. Bassiana Federal Exemption
Purpose: a large barrier to CBB management is the price of commercialized B bassiana. It is standard practice in most countries to have the local Extension agent provide “fungal isolates” for the farmer to grown and spray on the farm. This is currently illegal. To change the law would require a Federal exemption to the FIFRA pesticide act.
Draft Federal legislation legalizing the culture and dissemination of native B. bassiana for use on Hawaiian farms. Work with Sen. Inouye staff to see introduction into the US Senate.
B. Corker motioned that KCFA redirect the $1000.00 KCFA put aside for the “Task Force” for this project instead. Motion was seconded by C. Wilson. All were in favor and motion passed.
Public Relations
Don Girvan, the general manager of Sam Choy’s Kai Lanai restaurant and I met and discussed the advantage of including 100% Kona coffee on their menu. He stated that he and Sam had discussed featuring an estate coffee on a monthly basis. Of course that would be great, and I told him the restaurant would then be included in KCFA’s Honor Roll List to be featured in the WHT special section for the Kona Coffee Festival. The calls I made to get confirmation from Girvan were never returned and so they won’t be in the current Honor Roll but perhaps we will see estate coffee served in the restaurant in the future.
Worked with Cea to get the Restaurant Honor Roll ad submitted to WHT. There are 36 restaurants on the list.
Congratulations to Colehour. A press release about Colehour’s appointment to oriGIn VP for North America was prepared and submitted to 6 newspapers.
Chamber of Commerce: C. Wilson - This month's after hours event is being held at the Four Seasons on Wed. Oct 19th and Bruce Corker is attending. Last month's event was attended by Christy and her husband at HPA.
Web site: C. Smith
Spent time updating all the Membership pages to reflect changes, and also entering the data for the 3 years for price of two Renewals, putting the various Cupping Competition information pages up, etc. and sending out all requested emails.
Updating WhatIsKonaWorth. Been quite busy. (Encouraging Membership Renewals at the earliest possible time because there is more effort involved this year and this our busy time, which is just going to get busier. Please don’t hesitate.)
B. Corker encouraged all to keep Cea (and our web site) informed of all changes in coffee prices as the market is volatile and going up.
AOP/International Committee Report – C. Bondera
National Efforts continue with the American Origin Products endeavors, with hopes to hold a conference in late 2012.
oriGIn
The V General Assembly of oriGIn occurred on September 29-30, 2011 in Guadalajara, Mexico, where Colehour Bondera represented the Kona Coffee Farmers Association as a continuing member. The host of the event was the Consejo Regulador del Tequila (the Tequila Regulatory Council), and they made it very personable by including plenty of interaction time, various locations, and constantly serving too much tequila!
The first day included a gathering where members were updated about the organizational shifts. The Statutes (By Laws) of oriGIn were reviewed, and some changes were considered, discussed and accepted.
The oriGIn “Bodies” (representative positions) were due for renewals, and people were either re-elected or designated/accepted to serve the two-year role. The position of North American Vice President was in need of a new position-holder, and Colehour Bondera so accepted. This designation was granted at the meeting, and that evening before the dinner was formally announced and recorded by the television reporters present.
As a result of a legal case (“Beaufort v. Mac Donald”), the Syndicat du Beaufort (a French GI group for beaufort cheese) received a 50,000 Euro settlement which they formally presented as a donation to oriGIn to pursue its battles for a more effective protection of GIs at the global level.
We then reviewed the financial progress and plans for oriGIn, during which we decide to change the official currency from Euros to Swiss Francs. This is in part since oriGIn is based in Switzerland, but more-so due to the notable fluctuations in value in recent years between Swiss Francs and Euros.
The second day was a series of presentations and discussion regarding experiences in Mexico, but also around the world with geographical indications (GI’s). Important general thoughts included the observation that Gi’s are about, ‘protecting the traditions’ and that for GI’s to flourish there is the need for a ‘bottom up approach’.
Success stories emphasized that, “union makes the strength” and further that a national level association is critical for surviving. One important observation made was that the denominations of origin is a methodology and NOT a good. In other words, designating the place of origin of a product does not create the product, but rather is a way of wrapping it for better receipt…
Several times the speakers brought up that for success one of the necessary conditions is to involve the producers fully!
From experiences within North America, Pat Kole of Idaho Potatoes moderated a session where the director of the GI experience in Quebec pointed out that we need to work together (the US and Canada) on addressing our shared governmental obstacles to protecting GI’s.
Upon review of this session, Massimo Vitori (oriGIn Managing Director) pointed out that it all comes down to the question of, “Who has the right to use a name?” He reiterated his strong feeling that a North American organization needs to be formed.
Finally, we considered the GI global impacts around the world regarding innovations and sustainable development.
Experiences were shared from China and Kenya. Branding was discussed as experienced in Panama. The head of communications and marketing for Colombian coffee gave a brief history of their efforts to protect Colombia coffee, while emphasizing that it began with producer to consumer relations within Colombia and then moved more broadly.
Also, in Colombia they were able to start with a national GI designation, which they have then brought down to the regional/varietal levels. One of the methods that the Colombian coffee federation is using is to use “virtual trips to origin” via video tours to farms so that people can see where coffee is coming from without actually visiting…
The days session was later brought to a close by a gala dinner held at a large city cultural institute where a threat of rain had us sitting at tables under the covered walkways around a massive center courtyard, where opera-style singers had joined the tables before slowly becoming integrated into singing that went on for some time, followed by mariachi music that continued until after 2:00am (which we were held captive for since the buses did not leave until then to return us to our hotel).
The next day a large portion of the meeting attendees joined a tour of agave farms and then of a tequila factory (Jose Cuervo). We divided into three different language groups and toured through all the steps of the process of making tequila, which is allowed to be either 100% agave based, or a non-pure formulation can still use the tequila designation if no less than 51% of the sugar comes from the agave plant.
The extra farm and tour trip ended with an extensive late lunch, which also included live music and much tequila to drink for those who could so continue!
Colehour reported he was able to discourse with several representatives of coffee producing countries on their experience with La Broca (CBB)
Branding Report
The Branding committee has decided to create a Policy statement indicating heritage Kona coffee which is included in our KCFA Mission Statement, is Kona v. typica. Donald Schoenholt, founding member of the SCAA and a long time KCFA member wrote when asked: “September 22, 2011---The heritage coffee of the Kona coast is Coffee Arabica V. Typica, and it is fair and reasonable that the Kona Farmers Association say that. It is also true that other cultivars grown in Kona, by virtue of their Kona birth-right are also Kona coffee, just not ‘Heritage Kona’". Policy will be ready for review at November’s meeting.
Education Committee: About a dozen and a half people attended the October Coffee Talk on NRCS programs given by Mary Robblee and Jessica Sternfals of the Kealakekua USDA office. Some attendees made appointments to sign up for the programs.
November’s Coffee talk will feature Company 6 Captain Cook Fire Department discussing farm and fire safety.
On Sat. Oct. 29th Mountain Thunder Coffee Co. will have a KCFA open house to celebrate the opening of their new mill in Kainaliu.
Adjourned at 5:40 PM
Minutes by T. Butler
