Ho Farms maintains an industry-recognized food safety certification. It means that our farm has been certified to have specific measures in place to ensure safe agricultural practices and protect our customers from food-borne illnesses. We do this by ensuring a clean work environment, maintaining good records, and practicing safe handling and packaging practices. In addition to our commitment to food safety as defined by this certification, we purposefully minimize our use of pesticides and chemicals.

Unfortunately, many growers are not Food Safety Certified (and Certified Organic does not imply Food Safety by the way) and we are encouraging other farmers to adopt the food safety practices and get certified for the sake of our neighbors’ health and the reputation of Hawai’i agriculture.

Thanks for caring! Supporting local agriculture reduces our state’s dependence on imports (along with the carbon impact of transporting these imports), helps preserve our island’s green spaces, and keeps more money in our local economy. Of course, buying local agricultural products also means you are getting fresher, tastier, and healthier* food!

* Produce picked earlier to accommodate long shipping times have less nutrients and produce often lose nutrients over time.

The easiest way to tell if you are purchasing locally-grown produce is to look for the Hawai’i Seal of Quality sticker. Beside the guarantee that products with this sticker are grown or made in Hawai’i, products with the Hawai’i Seal of Quality sticker indicate that this product is considered “premium” by the Hawai’i Department of Agriculture.

Another way is to ask your produce market manager. They should know whether the produce is local or imported into the state. If you want more locally-grown food, inform your local grocer.

We sincerely respect Hawaii’s delicate eco-system and are making great strides in minimizing our environmental impact. Working with agencies such as Oahu R C & D, NRCS and CTAHR we have been able to implement Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Composting green waste, Crop rotation and even erosion prevention. Our farm planning takes to consideration that our land and resources would be available for future farming generation.