The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded a $600,000 grant to prepare University of Hawaiʻi undergraduates to start farms or support existing farming operations, expanding local food production and reducing reliance on imports.
Eight students will be selected each year to participate in an eight-week training and research program at the college’s Center for Applied Research and Extension Services in Waimānalo, a news release said.
The first session begins next summer.
Participating undergraduates will receive a stipend of up to $3,000 per month to pay for housing and living expenses, plus a $500 bonus after program completion. Other grant funds will pay for flight travel for neighbor island students who travel to Oʻahu for the summer training.
The four-year project is intended to strengthen food security across the islands by expanding local food production and reducing reliance on imports. Poultry and egg production account for roughly 2% of the total distribution of farms by industry type in the state, according to the Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity.
“Our goal in four years is to train 32 undergraduate students who can start farms or support existing operations,” said project leader Birendra Mishra, an associate professor in the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience. “For cattle you need large land, and for pigs you need big structures, but people can raise chickens on small patches of land,”
Trainees will manage newly hatched chicks through a 35-day production cycle, learning bird husbandry, feed nutrition and health management. They also will conduct lab research on alternative feed ingredients from local agricultural by-products to reduce the need to import expensive feed.
Participants will work with faculty members to learn the business side of agriculture—marketing, leadership and farm management—and attend the national Poultry Science Association conference to meet industry leaders and researchers.
Recruitment is now underway. Undergraduates from all UH campuses, including community colleges, are eligible.
