Intertwining different species is the defining characteristic of Common Ground Kauai. From the chickens providing nutrients for trees, which return the favor. To another area where an ʻulu tree acts like a trellis for the vines of a vanilla plant.
Located on the North Shore of Kauaʻi, the organization’s great connector is food, as the organization’s director of agro-ecology, John Parziale, puts it.
"We're trying to foster experiences for both visitors and locals alike to really experience what that is,” he told HPR on a tour of the 63-acre farm.
Parziale went on to show “where the real action is” – the dirt!
“I try to get down and get in the dirt here a little bit when we're talking about these things, because oftentimes everybody wants to see what's above the ground.”
He explained that agriculture is the most destructive human activity worldwide, making it the biggest threat to biodiversity.
“Being part of a global sort of community of farmers, we need to do better. We have to do better, and I really believe that this type of agriculture is that, ” he said. ”How long are we going to really get away with destroying ecosystems and have that not be on anybody's balance sheet essentially?”
He's referring to agroforestry, a “farm as an ecosystem.”
“There's a lot of research and development still happening here, and it's happening in real time and we're noticing the interactions between different plants and different spaces with levels of shade, and, you know, how the animals are interacting.”
He shared an explanation of that type of interaction with a ʻulu tree growing at the farm.
“How about the fact that we have vanilla beans trellised on the low branches of this breadfruit tree? So in essence, if we looked at the number of breadfruits and we price it out per pound of what this tree is producing in breadfruit — the vanilla that's growing on the tree, that takes nothing away from the tree, is probably rivaling in the financial yield of this square footage.”
Common Ground Kauai also welcomes visitors every day with various experiences, including a farm-to-food experience, dinner service and lei workshops. The farm-to-food dinner experience includes an hour walk through the organization's regenerative agriculture areas and then a four to five-course dinner, which is 100% locally produced.
“We're designing the systems of production here to try to make it so everything stays. Everything that we grow goes 200 feet away. And our chefs and our valued people who are doing value-added things, take everything that we grow and then make it delicious and put it on plates for us.”
Parziale said that he thinks there are approximately 200,000 to 300,000 acres of agricultural land in Hawaiʻi that could support agroforestry systems.
“There's efficiencies of scale that would help a system like this, yet we also want to keep that ecosystem approach because those are difficult things to quantify, right? Like this idea that you have chickens feeding trees and trees feeding chickens, and out of the deal we get eggs and breadfruit.”
He shared that the main goal of Common Ground Kauai is to “not be an island” but to be a part of the local food system.
“I feel deeply connected to the space that I'm designing and that we're cultivating, and really that we're learning from all the time. Making mistakes along the way, but also seeing beautiful successes too.”
This story aired on The Conversation on Dec. 10, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Tori DeJournett adapted this story for the web.
