Printed in the Kauai World

Archives, Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Sprouting Interestes: Students Visit Seed Plant
By Dennis Fujimoto

About a hundred students from ‘Ele‘ele School and Kekaha School had an opportunity for a close-up view of the seed industry late last week.

“This is an annual event,” said Doug Tiffany, the Kaua‘i manager for Syngenta, a parent seed processing facility in Kekaha. “We welcome the students to see what we do. It’s an opportunity for them to learn about what is involved in the production of seed, as well as learn about how seeds are formed.”

Mark Wall, the Syngenta Hawai‘i manager, rolled up his sleeves and joined the crew of volunteers who led the group of students who were broken down into nine groups.

Wall admitted that this was his first year to work with the students who visited the facility, but was happy for the opportunity.

Student teams were given labels that pertain to the seed production industry, and Wall was in charge of Team Ladybug while Tiffany led Team Tractor.

Each team rotated through the stations at 20-minute intervals with a snack break scheduled midway through the tour.

Jane Garma, the coordinator for Friday’s field trip, said this was part of the company’s community outreach program and welcomed the students, many of whom knew employees of the seed facility.

Garma pointed out that several of the visiting students played for the Westside Falcons, a soccer team that recently concluded its spring season. Additionally, Francis Kaohi, entering his fifth month as a Syngenta employee, was on a first-name basis with many of the students from ‘Ele‘ele School. Kaohi is a coach for some of the community basketball program.

In many of the stations, students had an opportunity to do hands-on work, donning special protective equipment before working to select unhusked corn under the direction of Robin Young, the parent seed agronomist at Syngenta.

“We try to get out to as many community events as we can,” Tiffany said. That community outreach has taken representatives to many career fairs at all the school levels as well as at the Kaua‘i County Farm Bureau Fair.

Garma said in addition to the field trips and the career day appearances, Syngenta also works with community organizations in some of the groups’ fund-raising.

“We produced the corn at the St. Theresa’s carnival,” Garma said. “Syngenta also helped with similar programs for Hokulele soccer, a few of the West Kaua‘i youth baseball teams, and Arthur Brun’s Babe Ruth baseball program.”

Nutritional benefits of corn and soybean products were explained at the products station, and followed up by students being able to sample some of the products derived from commercial corn and soybean production.

This was highlighted by the snack break when Noe Oligo, in charge of this section, asked, “Have you tried popcorn with cheese? It’s the latest thing.”

But cheese was just one of the garnishes available for the freshly-popped kernals that poured out of the popcorn machine.

Garma fished out bottles of furikake nori and other toppings for the popular, healthy snack that served as a preview for lunch under the shade of one of the spreading monkeypod trees following the tour.

“This is really one of the highlights of the year,” Garma said. “We look forward to doing this.”