Hawaii firm taps Pacific Ocean to help Marshalls, other islands

By Craig DeSilva

For Saipan Tribune

Honolulu (Pacific Islands Report/PINA Nius Online) –- Trekking through dusty soil and fly-covered manure in a small fruit and vegetable garden on the Big Island of Hawaii, Kessai Note looks more like a farmer than the president of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

But Note is proud to brave the 90-degree temperature in his aloha shirt and leather shoes to witness first hand the fruits produced by the labor of the Common Heritage Corporation and a piece of earth from the Marshall Islands.

The Hawaii-based company earlier this year transported a cubic yard of Marshall Islands soil to its facilities at Keahole Point to grow an array of crops on an experimental farm.

Note bends down to touch a piece of his home. Flanked by a delegation of about a dozen Marshall Islands officials, Note clutches a handful of cool soil from his homeland and rubs it with his fingers to feel the moist texture. The small plot is bursting with celery and other crops.

“We always thought our soil was barren and useless,” Note said, wiping the beads of sweat from his brow. “That’s how ignorant we can be. This is valuable soil that is tied to our culture. When used with the right technology, it can be useful to a small, resource-limited country like the Marshall Islands.”

Common Heritage has developed a partnership with the Marshall Islands to demonstrate that its technique of using cold ocean water to grow crops can successfully be duplicated in the republic, which is plagued by poor soil, a humid climate and lack of water that make farming conditions difficult. A lack of rainfall to adequately water crops is another obstacle. As a result, the Marshalls import most of their produce. Local farms are only big enough to feed individual families.

At Common Heritage’s facility at The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii (NELHA), cold ocean water one mile off shore and 2,000 feet deep is pumped through pipes located underneath the crops. The condensation produced when the cold pipes converge with the tropical climate is used to water the crops’ roots. The farm is abundant with grapes, peppers, tomatoes, cotton, orchids, herbs, and other produce.

For every 20,000 gallons of seawater pumped per minute, the “Deep Ocean Water System” produces 1,000 gallons of fresh water per minute for the garden.

Other tenants at NELHA use the cold ocean water temperatures for aquaculture ventures, such as lobster, seaweed and fish.

Common Heritage’s founder and president, Dr. John Craven, said a similar technique could be applied in the Marshalls, which has the same ocean temperatures at depths much closer to shore.

“It will transfer the Marshall Islands from a barren isolated atoll into a lush green productive set of islands with grass, flowers, agriculture and aquaculture,” Craven said.

Craven, who visited the Marshalls several years ago to propose the idea, said his company has spent 10 years perfecting its agricultural technique.

Craven said the method is cost-effective because it uses a quarter less water than traditional farms. It’s also environmentally friendly, he added, because not as many pesticides and herbicides are used.

While traditional farms use 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of water per acre, Craven said his method uses 1,000 to 1,500 gallons of water per acre. He said it costs about eight cents (US$ 0.08) to chill 1,000 gallons of water.

“It’s an excellent demonstration of how technology can be used,” Note said. “I’m hoping Dr. Craven can improve the resources for the Marshall Islands. It’s going to require substantive initial capital but it will lead to a lot of savings in the long run.”

Craven said his technology would cost the Marshalls between $5 million to $10 million per 100 acres of farmland. He said the Marshall Islands would like to begin using the technology with an initial 200 acres of farmland in Majuro.

The first step will be to secure funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce and possibly the Asian Development Bank. Craven said he has approached other Pacific Islands to promote his agriculture technology.

He said his cold ocean technology could be used in Fiji, Samoa, Palau and Kiribati’s Christmas Island.