Local students participate in Agriculture Awareness Day

By: Paolo DiGiovanni

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Over 600 elementary students left their classrooms on Friday to participate in Oahu's Agriculture and Environmental Awareness Day. The event was hosted by UH Manoa's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) and took place at UH's Urban Garden in Pearl City.

The purpose of the event was to help educate keiki about the importance of agriculture and sustainability.

"The first thing we want to do is make students, 5th graders during the most formative time of their years, more aware of the depth and breadth of agriculture natural resource management in Hawaii and worldwide," said Charles Kinoshita of CTAHR.

Kinoshita hopes the experience will inspire kids to consider agriculture as a possible career choice. He also stressed the importance of Hawaii reducing its dependence on imported food.

Food security is a big issue but as the population increases, so does the carbon footprint that is created from transporting all of the supplies to Hawaii.

"So all of (the exhibits) are trying to pitch to the youth, the importance of sustainability for Hawaii and as I said, we only produce 10-20% of our food," said Kinoshita. "If we can produce more of it in the state, number one we will become more food secure."

Exhibits include artificial insemination, compost-creating earth worms and an invasive species-sniffing beagle.

The public is invited to attend the second day of the CTAHR event on Saturday, March 9 from 9:00 a.m until 12:00 p.m.