Kanalani Ohana Farm | Honaunau, HI

Organic Producer | January, 2011 – January, 2016

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

He is currently the President of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association after seven 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. He is a frequent speaker in the community about organic farming and gardening. He continues to advocate for small-scale farmers at the Hawaii state level. He was a Slow Food Hawaii Terra Madre delegate to Turin, Italy in 2010.

Colehour grew up on a family dairy farm in Oregon with 10 siblings. He studied International Studies with a focus in Latin American rural community development with a political science minor 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 has 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.