2013-05-16 Leeward Exh B - Council Initiated Amend re Ag Tourism

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four major islands; we would be touring farms on every single island. And we so far have 100 people signed up from all around the world. Now, I’ve been in other countries and seen agri tourism as a major industry. And I’ve seen a large agri tourist business, like the Maui Plantation and, of course, we are all familiar with Napa Valley and what a success that’s been. So I’m very bullish on the industry, and I find it strange that for instance revenue would be limited relative to, you know, the sales of actual fruit or whatever you are growing on the thing; it just seems Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass type logic. But I think we can, we are working with a bunch of different problems. I wanted to talk about, oh, Janice’s mention of her neighbor bringing in busloads of people and what a problem it was; she didn’t mention that the chocolate operation just up the street from her has done very well, and been very low-key, very successful, and it has promoted a whole new industry for West Hawai‘i. Some of the other things I wanted to talk about were addressed by the two speakers ahead of me, so I’ll skip over those. And it really kind of boils down to a definition, or debate about what really ag is. Okay. Thank you. GIFFIN: You’re welcome. Any other comments or questions of the testifier? Did you want to add something? All right, Lani. WEIGERT: I wanted to add that it is really difficult to put a daily limit, too, on it. I understand that there is a cry out for a limit of some type. And a daily limit is really difficult; I’d rather go with a weekly, if we even had to do that, I mean, a monthly would be even preferred. But a daily, say, if you put a daily limit of 30 people, I mean, the farmer has gone through all this to get everything ready so that they can make sales from their farm and, they are, they are only going to make such a small percentage on their admission, if they even charge that. Most farmers don’t charge that; they just want you to come and, you know, buy their produce and their other value-add. And with 30 people, I mean, you are lucky, if you can pay your daughter to come to work. I mean, please really listen to the economic driver on it, too. I understand there’s concerns with regard to the nuisance. But really, just like the gentleman next to me said, the chocolate company up the street has done well and it has been very low-key. I’d have to say that’s probably the majority of the farmers; that’s what’s their impact’s going to be. So just really listen to this, because there are definitely these screwballs that come out and they make it bad for everybody, but it doesn’t mean that everybody is doing it incorrectly. Thank you. GIFFIN: Director. LEITHEAD TODD: Lani, are you familiar with the vanilla bean operation? Because I was surprised, because I thought that that was a fairly lucrative product, because I was being told something like $30,000 per acre. And then yet they came in and got a special use permit so they could serve meals, because they were saying that their bottom lime, even with the high value product, like vanilla beans. So I was wondering if you knew a little bit more about them. WEIGERT: Yes, I actually work with them. So this is something that’s really important for everybody to understand that the crop itself yields a very, very small return; when I say small return, it could be five percent or less. It’s the value-add that they bring in that actually sustains them and allows them to continue to do this thing that they love called farming. So that’s why people do ag tourism. It’s strongly driven by their value-add, which in the case of the vanilla farm they had to create other value-added products, as well as services, for them to survive. So that’s really critical in this. 17 EXHIBIT B