Sam Mangoba, one of Maui’s newest aspiring farmers!
Here on Maui, we prioritize doing what we love, therefore, you’ll never have to “work” a day in your life! As you know, we love featuring local business owners. This blog is special as we have a new farmer in town. Sam Mangoba, one of Maui’s newest aspiring farmers, featured in today’s article.
Sam Mangoba-one of Maui’s newest aspiring Farmer’s!
Mr. Mangoba comes from a long line of farmers in the Philippines. His grandfather supervised a very large farm called “hacienda”, where they practiced diversified farming of several agricultural products, such as, rice, mango, pineapple, etc. Sam is a doctor of Eastern and Western medicine; however, today he is self educating himself on how to create healthy soil through regenerative permaculture and organic farming techniques. Sam taught us about the art of lasagna farming, compost lasagna, and an ancient farming technique“Hugelkultur”, which is basically what the other two composting names are. With farming lasagna, the nitrogen comes from the green waste, ie: kitchen scraps, and the carbon from the wood chips and paper products. Thank you to Maui Times News for donating their recycled and old news papers to the farm!
What do you call a professional “composter”?! An “organic alchemist”. Thank you Gerry Ross from Kupa’a Farms! He is definitely the one writing the book on this, and has been an organic alchemist for decades on his farm while teaching other farmers too!
Earth Element Farm
Sam’s farm is private property and not open to the public. The Earth Element in Chinese philosophical thought is the energetic state between maximum movement (fire element) and non-movement (water element). Think of the Earth Element as the happy medium between the two extremes. It’s function is to transform and transport. This is such a profound ancient understanding of what the Earth / soil does. Modern scientific and agricultural thought are slowly beginning to accept and acknowledge it more and more.
You can see it well illustrated in how a compost pile works:
- Transform all things in it, including promoting and creating life.
- It will transport things in it on many levels (fungal, bacterial, animal, plant and mineral levels).
- It becomes the ultimate growing medium for all biological life, including humans.
Actions & contributions already taken toward Earth Element Farm
Jayce donated 6 gallon paint buckets from his painting company. This means less hard plastic in Maui’s landfill! Those buckets provide many functions for this little slice of heaven! Sam picks up the green waste from a small beach side eatery in Kihei, Beach Street Cafe. Mahalo you guys!
After picking up three to four days of green waste, he puts in the first layer of the compost.
Then the buckets are used again in watering certain parts of the farm. After this, he goes back for more green waste and they are actually rotated and left empty at the cafe for them to fill again!
The Beach Street Cafe also donated 3 gallon plastic food containers that were also spared being added to Maui’s bulging landfill. Sam uses these to make a water-filled bucket barricade around papaya or other seedlings threatened by the pigs that constantly disturb his farm and other farms on the island. The water grows an algae that is then dispersed around thirsty plants that have grass and wood chip mulch to also retain moisture.
Sam’s Overall Goal
Sam’s goal is to help heal the earth with small synergistic actions taken by individuals to create a healthier planet. Sam hopes to inspire and educate others, as a self taught farmer, on what he is learning and practicing in regenerative and permaculture farming. With synergistic actions and education, this could be a great thing which starts in everyone’s own backyard, lanai or any small space. Let’s begin by trying to heal Mother Maui, next a neighboring Hawaiian island, an American territory like American Samoa, the Philippines (where Sam would like to teach his homeland people), then the rest of the world. One small space and synergistic action at a time. Baby steps!
We hope you enjoyed reading about Sam Mangoba, one of Maui’s newest aspiring farmers! Check out our instagram at @mauichocolatecoffee for more information and photos!
