The island of Hawaii used to have many swine producers in the past. Currently most of them are not raising, and there are many barriers that need to be overcome. Small scale producers are interested in joining the co-op, and they are having monthly meeting on the 4th Tuesdays of the month.
It was organized in Nov 1st of 2025, and since then we are having a meeting monthly. The first meeting was about the update of the swine industry in Hawaii, which is lowest in its production. We also discussed the challanges and the opportunities of the industry, followed by discussion on co-op as one of the major part of solution. Dr Rajeev Mishra presented about the common
Second meeting was organized in December, where we discussed about co-op and its challanges. We had Jack Sprouce as well, who talked about the challanges of having a meat co-op. With these understanding, and our common aim we were able to decide to form a co-op. Kelly Teamy was great help in facilitating the meeting. There were some
We discussed about different sources of feed available and potential sources. The potential sources are ulu waste coming from the ulu co-op. After some documentation we might be able to use them as swine feed. It is not available yet, but if you want to know more please contact me through phone or email. Chrish Long was able to explain their progress in the corn, sunflower meal, and macademia meals. He offered price as well, which was ~35 cents per pound. Other than that cassava has been harvested recently to silage and feed them to pigs. In June 13th, 2026 we will be harvesting a lot of cassava, its free to grab, you can contact us for more information on the cassava as an animal feed.
We were able to get help from Rose, who will be helping in co-op formation. Members were able to decide to have next meeting on the following month.
Dr. Kim Kozuma as a state vet helped us understand various regulations enforced by USDA, State of Hawaii, DLNR, DOH, DAB, etc. It is recommended to know all of the regulations before you start to raise the pigs. Please watch the video to know the regulations.
Other than this the participants were divided in three groups were we learned various hawaiian words through word game, and also understood some cultural aspect of pig production in Hawaii. And we started working on the aim and goals of the co-op.
Dr. William Steiner helped us understand more about co-op formation and challanges. We progressed in determining the aim and goals of the co-op, and further started working in financial forecast.
Please contact us if you have any questions or if you want to join the co-op.
If you want to know more about these meetings please contact me. We are progressing in the formation of co-op.