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The complaints about driveways and things like that, it’s required that you have access, ingress and
<br />egress, to your property; if you don’t have that, then that’s consideration for what the Planning
<br />Department takes into consideration whether they are going to approve the permit or not. So I think
<br />that’s already included in some of the prefacing.
<br />
<br />As far as ATV and horse rides and Zipline, that’s another thing the special use permit you can go
<br />and do that anywhere; that’s not what we stand for an agricultural tourism. But I just want people
<br />to understand that it’s out there. Also, I have a farm that uses an ATV to be able to transport ADA
<br />people around our agricultural tours. So please remember that not everybody is using an ATV to
<br />have fun with. We actually do that because once the person is out of the bus, we are on a farm and
<br />it’s an uneven surface; if they can’t walk or they are ADA, we have the ability to take them on a
<br />golf cart or an ATV vehicle and take them around. So for us that’s just helping the disabled people.
<br />
<br />And I do think we already have rules in place about what major and minor ag is. If I’m incorrect in
<br />all of this, please correct me at the end. And then, like I said, for us if we don’t allow people onto
<br />these farms, where are our future farmers going to come from? If we cannot entice a young farmer
<br />to get excited about seeing something growing, or what is a dragon fruit – and they come up and
<br />they go, “Oh my gosh, what is that thing,” and you can tell them how it got there and how it has to
<br />be hand-pollinated and it actually comes from this cactus plant and – if it entices them to become a
<br />farmer, we need to continue to do this. We have to be sustainable. We have to feed ourselves. We
<br />are the most isolated archipelago in the world. We cannot continue to depend on this fruit and these
<br />vegetables coming in from other areas, and we have to encourage people to become farmers. Thank
<br />you very much.
<br />
<br />GIFFIN: You’re welcome. Commissioners, any questions? Hearing none, thank you very much.
<br />Lani Weigert? Please begin your testimony.
<br />
<br />WEIGERT: Aloha. My name is Lani Weigert, and I am the executive director of the Hawai‘i Agri
<br />Tourism Association, which is a statewide non-profit organization, which was created back in 2007;
<br />actually, it was initiated here out of Kealakekua. I’m here to testify that I am in complete support of
<br />Bill 25, and I want to bring out that in listening to a lot of the issues here, obviously they are very
<br />real for the people who bring them forward because it has happened to them specifically. The issue
<br />for ag tourism with regard to our non-profit organization is it’s an economic issue. So if we cannot,
<br />let me explain that further, many farmers do ag tourism just to support their habit of farming, to
<br />support their love and need to farm, and many, with the rising cost of fertilizer and all these other
<br />expenses, it’s just impossible for them to continue to do this. The other thing is we are very lucky
<br />to have multi-generational farms where the farmer doesn’t have anything else to pass on to his
<br />college-educated son and daughter other than an ag tourism part of their business, which can
<br />continue to excel through technology and many other educational avenues. Economic sustainability
<br />is huge with regard to ag tourism, and to have comments that may sit across the board on, well, this
<br />is a nuisance and that’s a nuisance, sadly, communication, open communication, respect and
<br />responsibility has not been addressed. And coming from the organization in which I represent, I
<br />offer today, as well as any day after this, to have our organization collaborate and be open to
<br />discussions to be a vehicle in trying to bridge some of these issues of nuisance, because it’s really
<br />difficult to tell a farmer, “Well, I don’t like the noise and the dust that you are doing because it’s
<br />inconvenient and a nuisance to me, however I really don’t care if you feed your family,” you know,
<br />I mean it really does come down to that as well. So I do appreciate people coming forward and
<br />saying, you know, “this is a nuisance to me,” etc. because it’s obviously happening to them. But
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