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67 producers through their online platform . Hawai ʻi Farm Trails is a social enterprise platform 68 that connects the public to Hawai ʻi ’s farms. The online platform offers a directory to visitor 69 experiences, a marketplace to shop for farm products, and a food planting project. 70 For reference see the Hawai ʻ i Farm Trails website 71 Ms. Mausio shared that she and her sister spent the last three years collecting information 72 on farms that had experiences and connected with farmers, first from Hawai ʻi County, then 73 statewide. They saw that there was a gap in information for visitors to find farms to v isit i n 74 one place. Ms. Mausio created the interactive online platform and her sister conducted the 75 agritourism baseline study for Hawai ʻi C ounty. The experience side of the platform showed a 76 directory of farms, markets , and events that were agriculture related. She informed that they 77 were able to acquire grants and funding to expand the application state wide. 78 Ms. Mausio informed that she took over Low Store, located on the scenic route in Onomea 79 Bay. As the online platform grew to be statewide and significant to t heir agricultural 80 community, Ms. Mausio felt that the store would allow them to hold and sell farmer’ s 81 products locally as well as offer employment opportunities for the community. 82 Ms. Mausio shared their two main goals , which were to address limited farmer capacity to 83 leverage agritourism and to create points of purchase to sustain their social enterprise and 84 bring the consumers directly to the farmers . She planned to conduct a feas ibility study with 85 the help of the H āmākua Institute to look into ways to create farm trails throughout 86 H āmākua that would showcase their farms and agricultural history in the area. Through the 87 baseline study, they saw that despite agritourism being seen a s a sustainable or alternative 88 approach to the conventional tourism model, many of the farms engaged with tourism were 89 farms that had a lot of capacity and did not directly contribute to food security in terms of 90 providing fresh food. Ms. Mausio wanted to address this through the feasibility study and 91 look at ways to build farmer capacity through engagement and training on how to become 92 legitimate agritourism operations. She would help farmers understand their challenges and 93 develop innovative ways to grow food while still being able to engage in tourism. She 94 informed that the farm trail system would be a way to engage with the farms and allow them 95 to incorporate their food tree planting project. They would provide visitors with positive 96 experiences like tr ee planting and help them to understand and connect with Hawa i ʻi on a 97 meaningful level. 98 Chair Kurokawa asked if the farm trail system would be a series of trails that connect the 99 farms , or if there would be van tours. 100 Ms. Mausio informed that that would be a part of the feasibility study to help figure out 101 whether the trail system would be one type or several types. She shared that on the 102 minimum level, there would be a curated itinerary on a downloadable PDF with a suggested 103 experience for the day. She suggested the possibility of themed experiences such as trails to 104 a certain type of farm or waterfall, driving tour s with GPS instructions, or working with tour 105 companies to run the different tours with their p rovided suggestions. She shared that their 106 highest level of effort would be for Hawa i ʻi Farm Trails to provide the touring experiences by www.planning.hawaiicounty.gov/ CDP@hawaiicounty.gov Page 3