Vandalism, Theft, and Gnarly Weather

Since Monday, record amounts of rain have pummeled the Windward side of Oahu and both of our farms have experienced 10+ inches of rain. The last time it rained this bad was in 2006! Once the rain subsides we predict over 50% of the crops in our field will have perished. It will be months of work to clean up the field and re-plant, but to be honest Matt and I are somewhat relieved. Mother Nature is forcing us to step on the brakes, and we welcome the reset. What has really gutted us though, is what happened yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon at 1:30pm I went to the farm at the Waimanalo Research Station to start some seedlings in the nursery. When I turned the water on I noticed the nozzle was missing. Then, I noticed one of our fans were missing. And then the panic hit. I opened up our storage containers and realized more and more items were missing. Batteries, tools, supplies. I called Matt. “What do I do??” (Matt was in WA for a personal matter.) Matt is my rock and not having him there with me was ROUGH. He’s also the calm one. Meanwhile I’m like a chicken running around with no head.

I frantically darted around the farm. Bins were open, items tossed about. I noticed some empty bins underneath our delivery van. I swung open the doors and saw someone drilled into the steering wheel in an attempt to steal the van. I opened the back of the van and a slight sense of relief came over me, some of the missing supplies were in the back. The thief/thieves must've loaded up the van thinking they could drive off but were unsuccessful getting the van started. But there were still items missing, including two carts which they must’ve used to transport the stolen goods.

My heart was racing, I was sobbing, shaking, I didn’t know what to do. “Breathe, Haley. Call James, call your dad, and call the police. They will help you,” said Matt. In just a couple minutes James showed up, the police arrived shortly after, and then my dad.

This was my first experience interacting with police by myself and it was not great. Three police officers showed up. “Is this farm just open?” asked one officer. “No,” I respond. “It’s private property, there is a front gate that is locked and signs saying no trespassing.” (Fun Fact #1: When our Mahiku farm was robbed last year the police said we couldn’t press charges because we had no signs saying “no trespassing”. Ironically we did have a sign but it was stolen.) Another officer chimes in, “What was stolen? Do you have the serial numbers, estimated value?” “No,” I respond. “There are so many items. I don’t think I can find serial numbers.” (Fun Fact #2: We had $1500+ of items stolen from our Mahiku farm and since none of the items had serial numbers or means of identification the police told us that even if they found our items they couldn’t prove the items were stolen…even though we had the whole burglary on video too. Fun Fact #3: You can have video footage of a burglary but you can’t prosecute unless the police are present when the theft is in progress. So having security cameras is futile unless you can notify the police and they show up before the thieves are gone.)

Throughout all the questioning, my heart is racing, I can barely breathe and not one officer shows empathy towards me. Comments like “Is that all that was stolen?” or “There aren’t any doors on the buildings, looks like it’s just a theft, not a burglary” made me feel small and unimportant. Sure, $1000 worth of stolen items and a damaged vehicle is a drop in the bucket to some, but for a small farmer it’s significant.

Some good news: While I was speaking with the police James drove around the Research Station looking for areas in the fence where someone may have broke in. James found a hole in the fence along with most of our stolen items. I haven’t gone through the items yet but I think we got most of it back. I stayed up all night thinking about what happened. I feel shaky while writing this newsletter. I feel violated. I feel gross. I feel unsafe. They went through all of our possessions and they know where everything is. They couldn’t get the van, they ditched the stolen items, so will they come back? They actually did come back. We secured our valuables but unless we break down our whole farm we can’t put everything away. When I arrived at the farm this morning I found food trash in our wash station along with a bin loaded up with tums, sink drains, and paper towel rolls in the road. At this point it seems whoever is trespassing is just messing around. Matt will be home tonight and we will brainstorm what to do next.

I couldn't pinpoint why I’ve been so emotional until a friend wrote us, "I do not think there is much worse than feeling unsafe in a place that you love and put your heart and soul into." She’s right. Matt and I have been stewarding the land in this spot for 5 years with no issues or feelings of insecurity. We’ve dedicated our lives to restoring this ‘aina and have grown over 50,000 pounds of food for our community. We were planning to move off the Waimanalo Research Station at the end of this year when our new farm is ready but after this event do we just pack everything up and go now? (If we do this we won’t have income for 6 months.)

Everyone is asking how to help. As you can see from my “fun facts” above, the system is broken. Agricultural theft has always been swept aside and not taken seriously. As farmers we’ve become jaded because we know reporting is futile. There are TONS of incidents that aren’t reported. I knew as soon as I called the police they wouldn’t be able to help but at least with a police report I could file an insurance claim for our van. The best way to help us is to help shine light on the “forgotten farmer”. Please share our story with the community so we can all “remember” where our food comes from.