MEDIA RELEASE

Community invited to celebrate North Hawaii’s ‘Ag Country Roots’ With Senator Dan Inouye and local food producers

Senator Dan Inouye

U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, who as the senior senator in the United States Congress now travels with a retinue of sometimes eight security staff, will bring this entourage and several other VIP leaders to Honoka’a High School from 3-6 p.m., Sat., Oct. 16, 2010 to join North Hawai’i residents in celebrating their community’s “Ag Country Roots.”

The entire community is invited to this free celebration that will spotlight many of the hard-working food producers of the region and include samplings of grilled grass-fed beef and a new sausage of Kahua mutton, Hamakua mushrooms and other foods grown or produced in Hamakua, Waimea and Kohala. Informational exhibits also will feature in-school programs to grow the next generation of farmers and introduce the benefits of fresh, locally grown foods from farms and ranches in the region as well as backyard gardens.

The program also will acknowledge the 40-year contribution to Hawai’i Island agriculture by Milton Yamasaki, who has managed the University of Hawai’i College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources’s Mealani Research Station, which includes two sites in Waimea, one in Hamakua and two in Kona. Yamasaki’s years of dedicated public service to Hawai’i Island’s ag community includes helping to found Taste of the Hawaiian Range – a highly successful and popular educational program to comprehensively approach developing new local markets for healthy local beef and other meat products. Yamasaki is also credited with helping to initiate extensive research on Hawaiian tea and blueberries in pursuit of developing new high value ag products and opportunities for upcountry farmers on Hawai’i Island.

Yamasaki, who was born and raised in Waimea and graduated from Honoka’a High School, formally retired from CTAHR’s Mealani Research Station Sept. 30, 2010.

Other VIP leaders at the gathering will include Congresswoman Mazie Hirono, Gubernatorial candidate Neil Abercrombie, Lt. Gov. candidate Brian Schatz, Sen. Dwight Takamine and Rep. Mark Nakashima.

The program will include free stew, rice and pupu, and entertainment by the Hamakua seniors and Waimea’s Beamer-Solomon Halau o Po’ohala. Potluck desserts are welcome.

The Honoka’a “Ag Country Roots!” celebration is paid for and authorized by the Democratic Party of Hawaii. For more information, contact Romel Dela Cruz (775-0768) or Malama Solomon (885-3553).