Kanalani Ohana Farm | Honaunau, HI

Organic Producer | January, 2011 – January, 2016

Colehour Bondera is a farmer on his five-acre farm in Honaunau, Hawaii. He grows certified organic 100% Kona coffee and cacao below the overstory of avocado and tropical fruits trees with an understory of vegetables, root crops and herbs. He direct markets at local farmers markets, from his farm website, and to restaurants. He value-adds fruit jams, roasted coffee, and mead. He focuses on building healthy soil and developing ground-cover as part of this steep hillside agriculture on the edge of the Mauna Loa volcano.

He is President emeritus of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association (KCFA), with nearly ten years of work with coffee farmers groups. He has focused on farmer educational workshops and legislative protection for the Origin Identity of 100% Kona coffee. To that end, he serves as Chair of the KCFA Geographical Identity Committee; as a Board member of American Origin Products (www.aopcentral.us) at the national level; and as North American Vice President of oriGIn (www.origin-gi.com) which is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a frequent speaker in the community about organic farming and tropical gardening. He continues to advocate for small-scale farmers at the Hawaii state level. In 2013 he is one of the nine members of a state-wide Organic Industry Advisory Group analyzing for barriers and solutions to the growth of organic production for the State of Hawaii. He was a Slow Food Hawaii Terra Madre delegate to Turin, Italy in 2010.

Colehour grew up on his family dairy farm in Oregon with 10 siblings. He studied International Studies with a focus in Latin American rural community development and political science at the University of Oregon. He holds two degrees from University of California at Davis in both International Agriculture Development (MSc.) and Adult Education (MEd.) He worked at the Rodale Institute in PA as International Projects Manager, and in Tulelake, CA on a Wetland/ Cropland Rotation agro-ecology research project.

He hopes to bring a strong grounding in whole systems organic farming on the small-scale to the table, and to make sure that the organic standards continue to support this level of food production around the country, as well as certified organic micro-farmers in developing countries.