Why They Came: Seven Voices from the Symposium

0:00 Timothy Tweets: Sorry, yeah, this is Mr. Tweets and Mr. Drake. Oh, you want the authentic, oh, you want my voice signature, correct?

0:09 Drake Weinert: I don't know.

0:10 Timothy Tweets: Well, sorry, how do I do a nasal twang? G'day. It's Tim here at the, where are we? Where are we? What is this? We're here, we're here and we're having a great time. This guy has got a red-haired body double called Johnny One Tree out there making ferments, making his microbes. I'm too busy enjoying the mango, it's too beautiful. You're just shining your pearly white biochar teeth.

0:51 Drake Weinert: Yeah, that's what they came up with.

0:55 Timothy Tweets: Sounds good.

1:03 Drake Weinert: You had a question?

1:05 Timothy Tweets: For you? Oh gosh, can I think about it? Before the camera goes on, sorry.

1:11 Drake Weinert: No, you watch my TV show Farm Life, right?

1:15 Timothy Tweets: I've got a question. Sorry?

1:17 Drake Weinert: Have you seen my TV show Farm Life?

1:19 Timothy Tweets: Farm life.

1:20 Drake Weinert: Farm life?

1:21 Timothy Tweets: No.

1:22 Drake Weinert: You've seen my YouTube.

1:23 Timothy Tweets: No, no. I've seen.

1:25 Drake Weinert: You call yourself Mr. Twitter. You must be on Twitter.

1:27 Timothy Tweets: No, no. No, I'm not. No, no, no. I'm not Mr. Twitter. It's Mr. Tweets. Mr. Tweets. That's it. Direction.

1:35 Unidentified voice: Are we doing a selfie?

1:36 Drake Weinert: Oh, no. We're just taking a video. We're doing a video!

1:40 Vincent Mina: Well, you know what? I want to let folks know that this guy right here, yesterday he busted me because I was falling asleep. You know what? I woke him up. He changed his whole dynamic. He embraced his microbial dynamic and really rocked it. He did a great job. I'm still recovering from being on the mainland. I'm kind of decompressing. Wow, look at this. It's so beautiful. Look at this. This is something, man. This is beyond what I imagined it would be.

2:14 Unidentified voice: We're talking breakfast [unclear], this is pretty legit. That's legit [unclear]. That's what I... You just do a real... Are you recording? Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. All right. A little bit. Everybody's recording.

2:31 Gene Tamashiro: It's going? Yeah. Okay. Good morning. I'm Gene Tamashiro. I'm a musician. I'm a Hawaiian national. Although we don't have our de jure government yet, we're working on that. And I'm here today to speak about protecting ourselves in Hawaii from the Monsanto GMO Protection Act that the corporate empire have been foisting upon all the states in the union and upon the world if they can.

3:06 We in Hawaii have a unique opportunity and right and responsibility to protect ourselves very effectively from Monsanto and corporate harm that could happen to ourselves and the ʻāina because the Hawaiian kingdom never ended. And what's very interesting, I think if people would look into it beyond the first glance thought, is that the U.S. Constitution, like the Hawaiian Kingdom Constitution, are based on natural law, natural or common or universal law. And these are laws that actually five-year-olds know.

3:51 And they are basically this. It's not always easy to apply, but these are the laws. And hopefully it resonates in you. Be truthful, do no harm, and honor your agreements. And that's pretty much it. So if human beings can remember that and start to apply that and hold each other accountable in truth with aloha, I believe remedy is possible and we hold the key to our freedom and our prosperity, not just in terms of cash, but real wealth in the abundance of life that is Hawaiʻi nei. Thank you.

4:30 Timothy Tweets: Hi, my name is Timothy Tweets. I came here from Australia, a peculiar part of Australia which is otherwise known as Byron Bay, Nimbin. Not that peculiar. But look, I'm really, really happy to be at the symposium here. One, because we're here with the brothers and sisters that are sharing the knowledge. But probably more importantly, I'm going to take some of the seeds of the ideas of this symposium and we'll plant them over there on the other side of the Pacific in Australia. There is a lot to learn, probably too much to learn, so it's

5:05 obviously a revisit opportunity and I'm having a great time meeting the locals and the food is absolutely spectacular. I have to say that when I came over to the conference I didn't realise Drake had a doppelganger over there in Nimbin. He's called Johnny One Tree. So Johnny One Tree also makes microbes and soil essence and plays around with soil health. So there you go Drake, you got your body double over there in Nimbin, Australia.

5:37 Stella: Aloha, my name is Stella. I work for the Kohala Center and I am super stoked to be here for so many reasons but absolutely for me it's to gain a deeper hands-on practical understanding of Korean natural farming as well as being amazing like-minded people that are actually doing it and are excited about doing it and wanting to collaborate to make this a bigger movement. So I'm just really privileged and happy to be here.

6:13 J.R. Waikiki: Hello, my name is J.R. Waikiki from the island of Molokaʻi. Currently visiting the Big Island at this symposium to better educate myself about the agricultural industry and the cattle, meat, and just the whole aspect of it, just the general knowledge. Coming here was to, I thought, learn a little bit more about farming, but I gained a lot of knowledge about statistics, and a lot of viewpoints are pushed aside and/or blemished, if you will. I feel [unclear]. But everything else about the symposium, as far as Dr. Park,

7:02 Mr. Cho's practice in Korea, is absolutely amazing. I made a lot of connections with a lot of great people and farmers at the same time.

7:11 Panelist (name not said): As which most of us in Hawaii don't have, hands down. We don't, we can't, as young farmers we can't afford to buy tractors. Most of us can't afford to buy farmland that has soil on it. And so we don't have volume. And if you don't have volume, you have to get the retail price. Have to. Bottom line. For me.

7:38 James Cipriciano: Hi, aloha. My name is James Cipriciano. I'm from Maui. I'm the Mauna Kahālāwai Chapter, the Vice President. I'm very impressed with what I've seen in our conference here here at the Hawaii Natural Farming Symposium and hope we can bring this to Maui. And I thank the speakers, Dr. Hoon Park, Mike DuPonte, and Vince Mina for putting this all together. I believe we have a chance in creating a sustainable Hawaii with the synergistic energy that's provided on each island.

8:12 And I think we're getting really close to being all natural by showing that we all can do our part and voice our strengths. And we just move forward and show that we can live the vitality of living natural.

8:28 Keahi Tajon: How's it? I'm Keahi Tajon. I'm super stoked to just be farming and whatever I can do to produce more food and feed more people is what I'm going to be doing and on that note I've created a Facebook page called Left Foot Step In that's all about farming and feeding people.

8:51 Unidentified voice: You gotta redo this.

8:53 Keahi Tajon: I just want to send a big mahalo to everybody who's been helping support what we've been doing with Left Foot Step In. Check us out on the Facebook page, Left Foot Step In. It's all about treating people, trying to get the gardens in the ground, trying to get people free off of having to buy food, basically. Not too much free food. Cheers!