And welcome to Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Kili Iakina, your host and president of the Grass Root Institute of Hawaii. Hawaii is the center of agriculture, yet we don't always think about that. A lot of times we are unaware of our agriculture capacity and our needs as we go into the future. Hawaii's culture is very deep in its roots in terms of farming and ranching and fishing. There's a push going on now to rejuvenate our agricultural industry. But it's facing a lot of challenges. Today we're going to discuss some of the barriers and some of the possible sources with our special guests today. Joining me is Brian Miyamoto. He's the executive director of the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation. Brian, Aloha. Welcome to Hawaii Together. Aloha, Dr. Iakina. Thank you for inviting the Hawaii Farm Bureau back on Think Tech. Really appreciate the invitation and a chance to talk about agriculture here in Hawaii. Well, it's always great to talk with you. In fact, I really appreciate the work your organization does. Would you tell our viewers a little bit about what you do? Absolutely. The Hawaii Farm Bureau is the largest general agriculture organization here in the state of Hawaii. We're filled with the American Farm Bureau, which is located in Washington, D.C. There are 50 farm bureaus across the state and essentially our role is to advocate for farmers and ranchers. In the voice of agriculture, we're the trade group for farmers and ranchers who are busy out producing our food, feed, fiber, fuel and floor culture. They're a little bit busy out on the farms and ranches. So the Farm Bureau advocates here in Hawaii, at the Hawaii Farm Bureau, we advocate state level, meaning we spend a lot of time with our state legislature and policymakers, the administration, the state departments, advocating and pushing policies, positive policies for farmers and ranchers. Our American Farm Bureau does that in D.C. and we have 11 county chapters across the state, and they will advocate at the county level with the county mayors and the county councils again for the benefit and well-being of farmers and ranchers here in Hawaii. Now we run into you all over the place in policy settings at the state capitol and special events. Recently I saw you folks at the convention center. You're not a government agency and you're not a private business. What kind of organization are you? We are not for profit. We're a 501C5, but we also have a 501C3, our Farm Bureau foundation. And again, the C5 designation allows us to advocate at the legislature. Well, Brian, let's start with a very big broad perspective right now. How is Hawaii's agriculture doing? A former governor had said that when he started, and that was over eight years ago, he wanted to see agriculture output doubled in our state. That didn't happen under his tenure and I'm not pointing the finger at anyone. I just wonder what your thought is as to how we're doing in terms of agriculture as the 50th state. Well, that was an ambitious goal, but it was at least a goal to double our food production. So it wasn't necessarily agriculture. Governor Iggy had set a goal to double food production. Unfortunately, the date wasn't necessarily set. It changed a couple of times, but we didn't know what we're doubling from. And I think that was because of the lack of data. So in general, agriculture has gone down. What has gone up, we saw the last census of agriculture is actually the number of farms. A little over 7,300, we're waiting for the next census of ag to come up to see to give us a better snapshot of where we are today. That was a pleasant surprise to see that the farm numbers have gone up. However, majority of those farms are small farms. The farm gate value had actually gone down. I think we're about 550 million right now. So we are very small as far as the economy are a contribution to the economy here in Hawaii. And that's something that we'd like to work on, something that we'd like to grow. We'd like to grow the industry as such a small part of Hawaii's economy right now. Agriculture as an industry as a sector has opportunity for true growth and that's what we like to see. So agriculture isn't where we want it to be. We want to grow it. We don't want to just survive. We want to thrive. We are kind of working towards that right now to build our agriculture sector. Well, Brian, that's exciting to hear. And yet as we look over the history of Hawaii, especially in the 20th century, we see a major decline in the role of agriculture here in our state. What are some of the reasons that you can attribute to that? I think on a grand scale, we've seen the shift out of some of the mega agricultural industries, pineapple, sugar, and so forth. But beyond that, in terms of subsistence farming and farming that meets our needs here, what has been the largest reason? What are some of the reasons why they've seen a decline in agriculture? So thank you for bringing it up, Dr. Ken. I think everyone's familiar with the shift that we've gone from plantation agriculture to a more diversified agriculture. In fact, I believe the last sugar plantation closed around 2016 and we've diversified to a lot more diversification and diversified crops. The cost of doing business, production costs in Hawaii is one of the biggest hurdles for our farmers and ranchers across the state. We need to increase yields while reducing the cost to produce those goods. We all know the numbers. We're 2,500 miles away from the mainland. We import 90% of our food, but we import almost everything else. All of the inputs or majority of the inputs that it takes for farmers and ranchers, we also have to ship in. So just the cost of doing business itself is one of the high costs for farmers, the cost of our land, the cost of water, labor costs, the lack of labor. Energy costs, fuel to run your tractors and your refrigerators and everything else that goes along with farming, you know, energy to pump your water or if you were doing indoor farming, all of these costs, the cost to combat invasive species. So the cost of production is very prohibitive for agriculture. So that's why we do need some scale, at least some level of scale to reduce what this economy is a scale that costs to the individual farmers and ranchers. Well, in 2020, the Department of Agriculture did a survey here and it showed that the profit margins of our farmers in Hawaii are amongst the lowest in the nation. And that would certainly reflect what you said about the costs. How hard is it to be a farmer here in Hawaii? And maybe we have to kind of define what it means to be a farmer. You talked about scaling operations and there are certainly a large number of farmers out there who are not at the level at which they're scaling. And then, of course, there's large agricultural business, but just in general, why is it so hard for farmers to make a go farming here? You know, it brings me to one of the famous quotes from our farmer, one of our farmers, Richard Hoppe, a farmer makes money. I think you've heard that many times, Dr. Keene, I say that quite a bit. Even on former Naga Farms owner, Dean Okimoto used to say, you know, farming is first and foremost a business. Again, just doing business in Hawaii, as we know, is very difficult. So the farmer, it's taking a risk. You know, the upfront capital, the cost of land, I mean, we start a lot of times with land, the cost of the lease. If the farmer doesn't own their land, the cost of the water, all of these things, again, a lot of it depends on external costs. All of these production costs make it very difficult. The cost to produce something on the mainland, say California, maybe 40% less than Hawaii, even with those transportation costs ultimately bring the good sear. So just a sheer cost of everything it takes for a farmer to farm makes it very difficult for farmers. The last sense of ag, I think I said we have about 7,300 farms. The last sense of ag reflected that 25% of those farms have $1,000 of sales annually. So because of the cost of doing business, difficult in farming, many of them have to have other jobs in order to support their farming endeavor. So what you're telling me is that a large portion of our farms are not really making a living for the farmers. In some instances, they're almost like hobbies for people, not necessarily out of intention, but because of the challenge of being able to keep a business going in that field. Absolutely. I mean, you know, many of these, if not all want to be full time farmers, they love farming. They love getting their hands in the soil, working with their livestock or working outdoors, but it's very difficult to make a profit. Farming isn't very profitable. We all talk about razor thin margins, if any, you reference the survey. Many farmers operate at a loss. So, you know, we need to find ways to lower their cost of production to assist the farmers. We're not looking for handouts, just handups to help farming be successful. And when I say successful, meaning be profitable, there needs to be income, positive income in order to keep farming. I don't know any business that can survive without profit. Absolutely. And in the classic business school model, land, labor and capital. Certainly in farming, you're challenged on all levels, but particularly in Hawaii on labor today. How easy is it to attract new labor into the farming industry today? What about our young people? Are they moving toward agriculture or moving away from agriculture? I would say the latter. I know there's interest, there are ag education programs, and I think we're doing a little bit better today than we're doing 5, 10 years ago. But we don't see a lot of folks, a lot of our Kiki wanting to get into farming. You know, there's some programs out there they're really doing well and educating them or giving our Kiki a foundation in agriculture, but we're not seeing them ultimately become farmers. Labor is extremely difficult. Farming is a tough job and farm laborers, they work outdoors, they work in all types of weather in the rain, they work in the hot sun. It's out in the rural area, lots of times, some of the folks don't have public transportation. I mean, they don't have their own transportation, so they rely on public transportation. But for example, I'm here in Kunia where there's a lot of farms. I don't see the city bus run, I don't see public transportation. So it's very difficult. Most of our farms are in the rural areas. And our farmers, again, with the razor thin margins, if any, find it difficult to pay these higher wages that other industries can pay. So you put all that together, you know, you have someone, again, I'll use the example, but being out here in Kunia, having a farm out here and maybe being of pay $13 an hour, which is very difficult for our farmers these days. For someone who is in Kanyohi that maybe is going to take 2 hours, hour and a half each way to get out here and work out in hot sun versus McDonald's right down the road, pay the same amount or even a little bit more working in an air conditioned establishment indoor restaurant might be a little bit more attractive. So just in itself working out in a farm is hard work. Farmers have difficulty paying higher wages to attract the labor force. So that's why, you know, looking at technology and more mechanization is something that we really need to look at. Because of our aging farming population, because our lack of a farm workforce, these are things that the Hawaii Farm Bureau looks at when we go to the legislature or we look at our partners in the federal government to assist our industry here in Hawaii. Well, I want to go back just a step before we start talking about technology but I'm so glad that you have raised that. There is this ideal. Now, that's being popularized about farming or about sustainable agriculture. I've been on a great number of visits to farms across the islands to tours that take me to low e patches and other places where local food is being grown by locals. And there's certainly this ideal that whenever I'm out there I feel so I'd love to devote my time and energy to growing my food for my home, my ohana, and so forth. And yet when I put that together with what's going on economically in terms of the survival of the industry, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between this ideal image and the actual reality you described of the hard work and difficulty and low margins. For doing actual farming. Do you sense that too sometimes this disconnect and do you have any ideas as to how to craft a realistic vision of what it is to enter the agriculture industry today, one that will attract people. Again, make farming profitable. Some of these programs or there's room for all type of farming. So the farms that you visit or going up to low are absolutely critical. We need all types of farming in order for us to be successful. Will we ever be 100% food sustainable? Probably not. We should focus on what we can grow and what we can grow well and what we can grow competitively. At the end of the day from the Hawaii farm bill stamp, but we believe food needs to be affordable. So we need to be able to grow food so our residents here in Hawaii can afford the food. So we need all types of agriculture we need all sizes of farms, but we do need some level scale for going to achieve some of these goals that we want. As you referenced when we first started the former governor had a goal of doubling food production. We want to see agriculture production as a whole, not just food, food, feed, fiber, fuel, flour culture. We've got some vibrant nursery industry here. So we need to support all of agriculture and we think by doing that we will see increase in production and increase in production of food. But we do need all types of agriculture we need as more the more people involved in farming. I think the better we will be. The less we will import I don't know if we'll ever get to 100% those are goals that that absolutely I think everybody would love to see and love to achieve. But we just need to establish some realistic goals and really grow the industry. But in order to do that we need a broader investment investment. Meaning as you said capital investment from our local residents asking for local ag, making sure that they buy local ag when they can. And again, the only way we're going to be able to do that really in any significant amount is with price parity. We understand families are struggling, you know, if the local product is a lot more than than the imported. We know they're going to buy the imported product so let's focus on what we can grow what we can grow well what we can grow competitively and import replacement is something that we've talked about for a number of years. Since you we know we're growing every day we know what customers are consumers are buying can we grow that can we grow competitively there's absolutely room for knit products for other high end products. But import replacement is something that recently, you know, has been a discussion point and something that we're really looking at, and also exports and value added again any opportunity to increase the farmers profitability should ensure that the farmer contingent of farming continues to grow the things that we want, especially the food that we want here in Hawaii. You talk about replacing what we import as well as what we export and adding value to it, but that's going to take some organization of the industry. And you've described a diverse membership in this industry from large farming operations to small mom and pop operations to operations where people have to have other full time jobs. How does this industry get organized so that the supply and demand are met so that we're actually operating efficiently in terms of discovering niche markets and fulfilling them. I think one way is getting involved with the Hawaii Farm Bureau, he references Hawaii Farm Bureau we represent all farmers from large farmers and medium farmers to small farmers. All commodities from from produce to livestock aquaculture to our nursery industry to see court industry, all farming practices organic conventional biotech. So we try to bring together a farming community and the farming industry together to find common ground to see how we can help agriculture there are many others in the space and you know COVID being being as challenging and difficult as it was, or still is, you know did bring a lot of folks it did help elevate the importance of local agriculture. We've lost someone that momentum we want to get it back because that's what it's going to take it's going to take everybody it's going to take all of us working together to try to find solutions to support agriculture and just support again we want it to thrive I mean there's opportunity for growth. There's so much interest in local agriculture we see it from CSAs of farmers markets to you know our culinary industry industry to you know our hospitality industry so much egg egg touches almost every sector we believe. But we just want to see more of an investment in agriculture you hear all the time doctor. Akina Department of Agriculture gets less than half a percent of the state budget, you know, I did a real quick rundown I believe it's our current our current budget for 2023 and you see go back historically previous years. You know agriculture is maybe number five, you know lieutenant governor I think governor human resources dole tax and then agriculture. You know if we're really serious about food sustainability about growing agriculture I think we need to see a bigger investment. That's not to see our elected officials aren't supportive I've got a list of policies that they've passed over the years this year agriculture did extremely well. We've done a lot better but we did well you know almost $200 million $170 million in the state budget, in addition to what we normally get in CIP projects, $20 million in bills that have passed. But there are a lot more a lot of great bills didn't make it and these are the policies and the funding mechanisms that will really support our farmers and ranchers here in Hawaii. Well a lot of it will go back to what you mentioned early, which is true for the small farmer, as well as for the entire industry, and that is, it's got to make money. Doing agriculture has to be a winning financial proposition, and we have to be able to show that we can win the game here in Hawaii. Part of that is going to be advancing into the 21st century and beyond, in terms of technology. And there are a lot of promising directions taking place in terms of the incorporation of technology you mentioned that earlier I want to go back to that, because I see that as being one of the avenues by which to attract a younger generation into farming, because it changes the nature of labor into something that's scientific, that's technological, that's cutting edge, and it's certainly something that we need to be building as an industry here in Hawaii. What are your thoughts on this? Absolutely. We farming in Hawaii needs to adopt 21st century technology and it will help with attracting our keiki into agriculture. You know, all of these, you know, talking about STEM, you know, that's where we look at agriculture in the future. If we don't adopt 21st century technology, the world may pass us by. And there are some here in Hawaii who are already doing it. We talked about ag labor and needing to mechanize, but Kauai coffee has mechanized harvesting.  So, you know, these are the days in the vertical farming, which is very technological, but again those costs of capital costs upfront and the costs of energy are very prohibitive, but those are the things that we think are going to help get agriculture to the next step. And in fact, the Hawaii Farm Bureau was able to receive a grant and aid this year from the legislature to go and research in foreign countries, some of their equipment that may be useful for Hawaii's types of farming. You know, small equipment, foreign equipment, looking at countries like Japan and New Zealand and, you know, all over the world to see what we can bring back to Hawaii from a technology standpoint from a size standpoint for Hawaii's farms to help them grow their operations. Right. Technology is extremely important. Technology should be able to allow us to take advantage of real competitive advantages we have when we look at other places across the world. For example, aquaculture here both onshore and offshore. What's the prospect for that we've heard for a long time. A great deal of talk about advancing aquaculture. And yet, it doesn't seem as over making the advancements that we really have the potential to do. What does the Farm Bureau feel about this and what do you think we can be doing? Aquaculture is critically important. I think it's something that, again, as you talked about technology with aquaponics, look into the future. And I think the legislature is putting making aquaculture more of a priority.  But aquaculture is extremely important. I believe it's about an $80 million industry right now, but a lot of that is a brood shrimp. It is shrimp. But it's got so much potential like all of our other agriculture commodities, aquaculture has that potential. So, you know, there was a desire to move the aquaculture program into dbed this year that didn't go through and understand, you know, the arguments for and against. But they did just appropriate positions a few years ago for the aquaculture development program under the Department of Agriculture. So we're hoping that will help to revive our aquaculture industry. Again, important like all the other commodities in agriculture. We need all of it. Dr. Kena, we can just focus on, you know, one sector, one segment. It's such a broader conversation. And I think we're starting to have those now, again, with a little bit more focus and support on agriculture. There was a disconnect, I believe, and at the Farm Bureau we leave. But now we've seen that there's more folks involved in the agriculture space. And with that we ideally we will grow. We keep saying we want to grow the industry. That's what we want to focus on growing it. I like what you say about the breadth and the diversity that's out there that we really need to be reaching out to. That's why I'm going to switch really quickly. I've got so many questions I could ask you. But let me ask you at least something about the meat industry. It doesn't necessarily get all the attention that it once did. We had on the show here, Brian Mayer, who was, who gave me an interview a few months ago. He talked about a proposed law which the governor has signed, and it helps to control invasive wild game throughout the islands. Now there have been some advances that we've seen in terms of under resourced communities to serve those communities with the wild game and so forth. But there are other problems. There aren't enough slaughterhouses to deal with the wild game. It's an infrastructure problem. And there are several regulations that make it hard because these are federal regulations and make it difficult for our harvesters to really go out and deal with that problem. What kinds of things are we doing to face regulatory problems and be able to come up with the solutions that we need in the meat industry and elsewhere? Thank you. So specific to the wild game issue. There are some positive outcomes that we saw at this legislative session. In fact, Chloe Farm here, we introduced eight bills. We even were really dealing with either livestock or wild game, namely access deer. So one of the things that we did see in the state budget this year is $4 million for a small animal slaughterhouse that is slated to be built down in Kailaeville. Another thing that we saw that actually did pass was a bill that would allow for meat donations of wild game. So we did have a statutory change. We didn't see it on the governor's veto list. But we also did introduce a bill that would help reestablish the Hawaii Meat Inspection Act. And I think that's what your reference to. For wild game, for access deer, it does require USDA meat inspectors, same as cattle. Unfortunately, it is voluntary. So the harvesters or whoever's process that meat has to pay for those meat inspectors, which would bring up the cost. Again, we have a harvesting or slaughter capacity issue. So there has been, again, some momentum looking at that. We want to take advantage. If you haven't, if you're not from Maui or Molokai, you just don't know how bad this access deer is. And we've got feral pigs across the state. So we're looking at how we can take advantage or reduce those invasive species. Reduce the number that's damaging not just agriculture, but a fragile ecosystem environment, but turn it into proteins that can be used for those of us, our families and friends and our neighbors that are in need. So we're going to reintroduce those bills, but one did pass, which does change the law that would allow for meat donations from wild game. We want to see the Hawaii meat act and inspectors for Hawaii reinstated, not to take the place of USDA, but to assist the USDA specifically for wild game, specifically for access deer. And we hope to see positive outcomes or more positive outcomes next year, but we know the legislature, we've seen them put money towards access deer in several different measures and forms. Again, they passed one this year, and we'll come back again next year to see if we can get those inspectors in the Department of Agriculture to help reduce the number of access deer invasive species, but also to provide that meat. But they did appropriate the four million dollars were very, very good in Kaili law for small animals so we can we can process them. Thank you so much, Brian. We've run out of time and I can't believe it. There's so much more to learn about the agricultural industry in Hawaii. And certainly you've got your hands full and being able to help orchestrate the solutions that we need. Appreciate what you and the farm viewer are doing. And I want to thank you for being on the program today. Thank you, Dr. Akina pleasure being here and thank you for helping to advocate for agriculture here in Hawaii. Well, it's for all of us. My guest today has been Brian Miyamoto. He's the executive director of the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation appreciate his input today. Farming is something that we all need here in Hawaii and we all have to be advocating for it. Until next time, I'm Kaili Akina, president of grassroots Institute on Hawaii together on the think tech Hawaii broadcast program. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching think tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Check out our website think tech Hawaii.com. Mahalo.


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. The unholy alliance between the BJP and PDP came to an end yesterday as the BJP announced its decision to pull out of the government in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. So to talk about the future of the state and what this decision means and also the report which was released by the United Nations recently, we have with us today Gautam Navlika, a civil rights activist. So Gautam, the first question really is why does this decision come now? We know that this alliance was never really one which was formed on similar grounds to begin with and the government had problems right from day one. They had the differences. Well, if you recall in the previous interview that I did for NewsClick, I pointed out that it's for BJP to decide what approach they are going to take with 2019 elections due, whether it would be a conciliatory approach or a hard line approach that they will persist with. Well, now it's clear. It's clear. What line they are going to take. That is. So that matter is settled. So all this you and cry about the importance of ceasefire and the so-called offer of talks and all was just a lot of hot air. There was no substance to it and that became very clear. So in that context, as soon as the decision taken for not extending ceasefire was made, there was no basis left then for BJP to persist with an alliance, which as per their calculations, they were losing. It was more just a written understanding and a wish list. It was nothing and never meant to be taken seriously by any side. And that is what the last four years record shows. Please remember, in 2014, we had this September 2014 massive floods in Jammu and Kashmir. And it took two years before BJP government at the center, he did the demand of people in Jammu and Kashmir and made available resources to those who had been affected by it. So right from the beginning, BJP's attitude towards Jammu and Kashmir had been very clear. People tend to forget. It's an ideological party whose position has been consistent right from the big from 1950s. They were the ones who started the agitation against national conference government way back in 1950s led by Shama Prasad Mukherjee. Given that background, sooner or later, I mean, BJP would have called off this alliance and it was just waiting to happen. It also really puts the ceasefire into question. That was that really a decision. I mean, to expect the ceasefire to succeed in such a short duration of time without any proper political talks and to then state that as a reason for calling off the alliance also really puts the whole decision of announcing the ceasefire in the first place. Really like that becomes questionable. Please remember, the actual fact is that it was Dineshwar Sharma, the government appoint representative who pushed for ceasefire. Ministry of Home Affairs accepted it and this was communicated to the state government PDP in the middle of an all-party meeting where the suggestion came from MLA engineer Rashid and C P I M's MLA Tarigami PDP picked it up and made it appear as if it was their suggestion. So their own person is responsible for what today BJP accuses PDP of doing and for therefore mishandling so-called law and order problem. And I think that that itself says a lot because it's obviously an attempted passing the buck, all the blame onto somebody else. And also there are of course a lot of news going on about how this is coming right before the elections before the 2019 elections and like what do you think is the importance of this decision for the upcoming general elections? Well I think we'll know very soon on June 23rd when Amit Shah speaks on the death anniversary of SP Mukherjee Shah Mappasad Mukherjee. I expect that he would be making an announcement in line with their ideological stance vis-a-vis Kashmir. I mean that is going to be a hard line, that operation all out is going to pick up and become more all out offensive with no restraint. The reaction of the people of the state has been somewhat positive to this end of the government because like as what I've seen people are happy about the end of this opportunistic government but is there really a reason for celebration now because I don't think there is now the governor will be coming into rule will be ruling the state. So how would that affect the state now? Well governor's rule has never been a very happy experience for Jammu and Kashmir not withstanding what people claim. The governor's rule has always been the period when massive encroachments were made in the constitutional autonomy given to Jammu and Kashmir. So governor's rule has played a very important role in hollowing out of autonomy. Even the previous stint of NNVora when Mahbubha Mufti for three months was still undecided whether she would take on the mantle of chief ministership or not. Those three months showed very clearly which way the governor was headed. He was doing precisely the things that the BJP and RSS wanted to push in Jammu and Kashmir. Once the elected government was formed then many of those decisions were reviewed and were rejected. The only thing is and I hope that at that axis that the UN Office of Human Rights Council report which has come out recently that I hope that it acts as a restraint on the government and that they realize that the world's eyes would be international public opinion would any violation any atrocity that is committed against in Jammu and Kashmir will be taken note of by international public much more than otherwise. So coming to the report what do you have to say about the findings of the report? Well one the most interesting thing is that the Indian newspapers have written a lot about about the report and about its immorality and found false with the report attributing all kind of charges. I mean times of India went to the extent of pointing out that these people's funding where it came from made it suspicious that they are independent and things like that. Not once did India think of it when they were supporting the demand of the international community to criticize and demand and international enquiry into atrocities committed in Sri Lanka for instance India backed that demand. Of course there are also allegations of the office of the Human Rights Council that of it being biased against India. Yeah I mean for some obscure reason I don't know why they would be biased because this is the first time I mean bias would be if there being a consistent and reporting about Jammu and Kashmir our lament is that it's rather late for them to intervene and nobody is talks about none of the media has even bothered or have displayed even the courage to come out and refer to what the report has to say. It's an extremely well documented well researched rigorously researched very well sourced and its language is remarkably sober and polite despite talking about a matter which is horrendous it's a report which deserves to be read and to be understood and engaged with without reading to criticize something I think it only shows the intellectual imbecility that prevails in this country where the corporate media is concerned and this report is remarkable it points out India's international obligations that it is a signatory to and therefore must live by and the violations therefore they point out of all the legal obligations that India carries as a member country and as a signatory to say international the civil and political rights on various covenants which we have signed but we have not ratified like on torture in force disappearances or covenants that we have signed and ratified like the one on children one on discrimination and violence against women etc etc it's reminding us that we are signatory to all this so we are in violation of this in Kashmir I mean for 30 years it points out that justice has not been delivered and obviously the if you reading between the line and makes it clear that exist under the existing system of criminal jurisprudence and and and and how in a conflict area and in a disturbed area the criminal courts do not exercise jurisdiction over armed forces therefore the inability of civilians to get to get justice for crimes that are inflicted on them committed on them and not just in Jamun Kashmir in northeast for much longer we may claim that Kashmir is a law and order problem as everybody wants to pretend it is it is not Kashmir is a disturbed area where armed forces of the union army as well as the central paramilitary forces have been provided legal immunity through Afspa for anything that they do in this area it's an armed conflict area it's not a peace area the criminal jurisdiction does not operate in a in a in a disturbed area so it's much closer to and therefore international humanitarian laws that come into play in armed conflict or war situations apply or our guidelines or they are they ought to be the guidelines for any of the of the of the fighting forces of the you know the of the belligerence on on either side either the state or the non-state subject of forces in this matter yeah the report has pointed out the violations committed by the militants as well by the on the state but at the same time it points out how India is in violation of not just international human rights but also international human humanitarian laws which apply in armed conflict and war situation this is hypocrisy we want to permanency it in United Nations Security Council but we don't want to abide by any of the international obligations so we want to be like the bunch of five who rule the rules who follow no laws to whom no laws and rules apply we want to be one of those evildoers in the world to use a you know colorful word rather than be part of some of a of a country which which abides by and lives up to its international obligations and pushes for it I mean with instead of taking a moral high ground we are stooping low and trying to compare ourselves with the worst like the US UK France Russia and China to clear to to claim that these rules and obligations don't apply to us which is rather strange in fact its timing is also very significant and now coincides with the with the imposition of governor's rule in Jammu and Kashmir because even if the Indian if Indian media and the corporate houses and the pracharats and the supporters ignore this report and the international public opinion other progressive and democratic minded Indians will not and together with them the international public opinion is going to be little more alert than in the past now that this report has come so if any atrocity or killing a massacre takes place mark my word it's not going to be like old times where the world would ignore whatever happens it would be different and let me add this report and this committee and this council was praised by most of the world for the really meticulous work they did on the on the atrocities commit being committed by by Israeli forces on the Palestinians recently it's the same council while we welcome the report unfortunately the kind of attitude displayed by the government of India and its and its accolades make it clear that they are not going to allow that to act as a restrain on them India's also always been very of course even now they did not want the UN to actually come and investigate that's why the remote monitoring was done so do you think after this report that might change the recommendation of the office of the Human Rights Commissioner to carry out investigations in Kashmir will that finally be accepted? Unfortunately since the UN Security Council that decides with the five veto powers there India will be working hard on one of them to put you know use the veto against it so I don't see international inquiry getting anywhere but this document still stays its recommendations its research still stays its lens credibility to all the work that civil liberties and democratic rights organizations have done especially in Jammu and Kashmir by the Kashmiris themselves it lends credibility to their work so for anybody to believe that we would have escaped because there won't be any international inquiry well that could be one that will be an outcome unfortunately to expect given the nature of international politics and how it operates but it's not something that India would be very happy in the long term apart from calling the report biased the critique has also been that Burhan Bani has been called a leader and not a terrorist groups like Hizbul Mujahideen have been called armed groups and not terrorist groups what do you think of these criticisms? Well I don't read too much into it in the first place I welcome I'm happy they've called them what they are Hizbul Mujahideen is not a terrorist organization as far as I'm concerned it's an indigenous militant organization government of India can claim whatever they want to but government of India's definition of things are not necessarily something that are acceptable to everybody and just because they decide to call their own people nationalists and patriots when we know that they engaged in terrorist acts and heinous crimes are the worst kind and they're the most foul mouth people despite that we don't call them terrorist or or or any such thing yes whereas I do make a distinction between Hizbul personally between Hizbul Mujahideen which is an indigenous force and Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammad whom I do not consider as indigenous force and yes criticism is valid but will name calling necessarily help no identify the crimes that they have committed bring them to book for crimes that they have committed criticize them for their ideological orientation yes perfectly valid and that's what we engage in also but to abuse somebody to use it as some kind of you know it's a to junk somebody to take away agency and history and motivation from a movement from people in struggle I think that's that's I think all governments engage and then and we reject it people rejected especially progressive and democratic-minded people so must we do it and those are minor things the substantive issues of the remote nevertheless these as grounds for dismissing the entire report you have to engage with substance not for these nomenclatures and name dropping that gets us nowhere thank you got them for joining us today and thank you for watching this book


President Mohamedu Buhari will and Tuesday depart Abuja for Liberia to attend the country's 175th Independence Anniversary celebrations. The senior special assistant to the President of Media and Publicity, Gaba Sheo, who in a statement said that Buhari, who will be the special guest of honor at the event, will join other world leaders and organizations to celebrate with the people of Liberia at the event, with a theme, fostering unity, protecting peace for development and prosperity. Accompanied by the President on his trip, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeffrey Ongema and the Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, NIA Ambassador Hamid Abu Bakar. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.


Welcome to Adventures in Small Business, a collaborative effort by the U.S. Small Business Administration Hawaii District Office, the Hawaii Small Business Development Center, the Mink Center for Business and Leadership, and the Veterans Business Outreach Center of the Pacific to showcase the stories of local entrepreneurs and small businesses in Hawaii. I'm Colleen McLooney from the Patsy T. Mink Center for Business and Leadership, and today we have Adrienne Tam from Bowtown Visiting. Morning. Hello. Hi. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. So, can you tell us a little bit about Bowtown? Well, Bowtown started about maybe three years ago. Mm-hmm. It was actually a concept that I was doing, but my son is the one that was pushing me to do it. I was actually working at a job, which I was at seven years. Mm-hmm. And I guess I felt kind of like, oh, what is next? What is next? What adventure next? Right. So, you know, we tried this out and then never looked back three years later and I'm here. Oh, excellent. Yeah. It's always a huge endeavor to start your own business. Yeah. Was that something that you've been thinking, but had been thinking about prior? Yeah, because my grandma is also one of our matriarchs and she started a bunch of businesses back in Hong Kong, giving a shoe sell. Mm-hmm. So, I was like, oh, why not? If it's in the family, right? Right. If it's in the family, try something. Right. And has your family always been in food? Food and shoes. Oh, food and shoes. Yeah. Oh, amazing. Yeah. Amazing. But those were different times. They were very difficult now. Right. Right. Yeah. Oh, okay.   Uh-huh. So. Is that because he liked it so much or he thought other people would like what you were making? Yeah, because before I went out and ventured out, I was also running a bar and I had that in my bar. Mm-hmm. And he was like, oh, why don't you just try to see what happened? And then these pop-ups started coming out. Mm-hmm.  So I was like, all right. Oh, excellent. I'll just try to see what happened. So tell us a little bit about what you make at Bowtown. So what it is is it's a Chinese steamed bun that's basically what it is. Like if you had the duck in before from the Chinese restaurant. Same concept, but I do different. Like I do savory or I do sweet. But I put all kind of all kind of ingredients inside, not just your normal, that you see a Chinese, you know, restaurant, the duck skin and everything like that. Oh, okay. So, yeah.  Oh, okay. You can see if you scroll down that I did a bunch with a quail egg. Oh. Yeah. With beef tongue, soft shell crab. Oh, very diverse. Yeah, just because, you know, the bun is just like a bun. If you were to cook it instead of steam it or bake it, it's just like a burger bun. Oh, okay. It's just a different texture, different taste. Right. And light. Correct, yeah. Right. Oh, that's fantastic. We're going to see some pictures in a little bit of some of the food that you offer. Oh, that's terrific. You've been doing it for three years. Correct. And let's see, so was it difficult for you to get started as an entrepreneur? You know, once I started to get like, get the ball rolling, it was kind of easy after that. You know, but for me, sometimes I'm all over the place, so I needed to really buckle down and get organized. So I had to keep things in folders, write it down, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So I just had to keep like a log. Oh, okay. Yeah. And the more entrepreneurs that I meet, the more I see how creative they are. Yeah. And how almost every entrepreneur that I've met has multiple ideas. Yes. And so it's really difficult to get them to focus on one idea. I think that's, yeah. Was that your challenge? Yeah, just staying focused and making sure I just knocked on one barrier at the other instead of just jumping and jumping. Sometimes I do carry on too many things. Right. That's like a distraction, you know. Ah, okay. Yeah. Okay. And so what are some of the challenges that you face then in opening your business? So the number one challenge I face is employee staffing. Correct. So a lot of times, well, I had two issues. Oh, okay. One time, you know, I asked somebody to work and they agreed to work. See, my motto is if you don't want to work or you have other things or you decide to change your mind, just let me know ahead of time. I can always try to find somebody or I get my mind ready that I'm not going to have this extra person and I got to do more, you know. You have to do more work. Yeah. So get myself ready for that.  One guy called me saying that he broke his arm and he was in the hospital. So I don't know if I should say my story or back to that with that. Oh yeah. Okay.   And after three hours, I was out of there.  You could at least just say you change your mind or come up with a better story. But so I think number one for me is finding the right employees for what I do. Because I guess what I do set up wise is it's not traditional where you can just get in there and then you just, you know, you have to set up.  But when you do set it up, it's like a kitchen. It's like, because I've been working in a hotel industry for a long time as well. So I mirror certain things that I've learned, you know? Right. Like even with the ticketing, it's just like if you are looking at a, like if you're in a restaurant, it's right ahead of you and you have your dish out, everything is the same. Oh, okay. Yeah. But just, I think the tough part for some people is just their setting up. Oh, okay. And so you've learned, so your history and experiences in hotel food industry. Food industry. Yeah. So about 20 years so far now. So I've learned from all sorts of people, you know, all sorts of mom and pop stuff, too. Right. There's a lot of trick and the trades.  Mm-hmm. It's good. You know, I've never, I was never, I guess you call it a school. I didn't go to school for it. I just learned on the job. Fantastic. Yeah. That's great. And so other than staffing, are there, what are any other challenges for you as an entrepreneur? I would say, I guess when you work with family too, everybody has an input, yeah? Yes. But it's hard because it's like, it's your baby. Yes. It's hard to run your baby. Ah. Okay. So family. Yeah. You get family to help you then. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I don't know where I'd be without my family helping me. Oh, yeah. I'm always appreciative, yeah? Definitely. Yeah. It's just hard to hear some things sometimes. Right. But that goes with the territory, you know? Right. Right. A lot of love, yeah? Yeah.  Um, so I have about five total. Mm-hmm. One to just do the buns, steam the buns, because the buns just constantly need to be replenished, steamed again, replenished, because it's just the volume that we do. Right. And then two guys on the line and then me cooking. Mm-hmm. So I can control everything while I'm cooking, and then I can hop over and help the guy on the line. So that's the formula I figured out so far. Oh, excellent. With trial and error and everything like that. Right. Even when I first started, we had about 10 menu items. And that was just killing everybody. Yeah. But for me, I was just always like, man, I want to do the same thing, every event, same thing. So I had to learn to kind of just do couple items well, very well. Mm-hmm. That were sellers. And then just, you know, just modify as I go and just add. Ah. Yeah. So we do three items. But right now it's the tam-tam, which is pork belly. Mm-hmm. And then the other one is chicken and KFC. And I do this lobster tart with mac and cheese. Oh. Yeah.  Right. So I just got to do what I can with the staffing I have. And I noticed those three items are enough. Ah. And it's still good enough to, you know, for us to have a good night. Yeah. So I did three wonderful items. Yeah. You must see repeat customers then. Yeah. Since you're not available every day at a brick and mortar or at a specific location and people are following you. So my dad, he would laugh because he was like, yeah, he would tell me that, oh, this person came back again and again. Oh, great. So sometimes you have repeat customers that same night. Mm-hmm. You know, and then they really like it. They enjoy it. Right. You know. And then some people, they don't know what it is and they're hesitant. They're like, wow. Gotta go back for more of that. Yeah.   Oh, definitely. Yeah. Oh, that's a huge success when you get someone coming back. It's a good feeling, you know, when you're doing something and it's actually working, you know. Yes. Yeah. And they're willing to stand in line again. Yeah. The lines are crazy sometimes. They can be. Yeah. So I went on my Facebook page. Mm-hmm. You see, when we did the south building, maybe I think that was like a year and a half ago, the line went all the way out towards the corridor. Oh. So my dad was just laughing when he took the pictures. He went on the top. So it made him giggle, made him happy, yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. And so, what about competition for you? Who do you see as your competitor? Right now, I'm the only one doing it. Mm-hmm. Before there was somebody and I didn't mind. Yeah. I like competition. You know, it gives variety, yeah? Yes. You know, and it gives you that you want to like see what they're doing compared to what you're doing, how successful it is.  So it's always good. Competition to me is good. It's not something I'm afraid of or shy away from. And so, what about your business makes you unique then? I guess right now, I would say I've taken that bow, the traditional style Chinese bow and incorporate fusion, anything Asian, Chinese, Italian.  So they would do themes. Oh, okay.  Like Oktoberfest or something. Correct. When they had it at Bishop Museum. So I did what I did. I did like, I can snitch. Oh. But in a bow. And then I also did like, I did the sausage. Oh, right? Yeah. I did that one too. So there's a lot of pictures up on the internet. You can see it on my Yelp or you can see it on my Facebook or my, Instagram. Instagram, correct. Oh, okay. So it's very, it's unique in that you can tailor it. Yeah, you can. A lot of many different types. I mean, basically it's, like I said, it's pretty much like a bun. And you just got to think like you can add anything into it, you know. And then most of the time it comes out. Right. I mean, try an arrow, but most of the time it comes out. Right. Yeah. Do you offer any vegetarian or vegan type options? Well, I did one, one time, two times actually. I did one for Eat The Streets and I did one for a wedding event. They wanted some kind of vegan. So I did like a fried tofu. Yeah. With like an Asian slaw with a sweet and sour kind of sauce. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. Sweet chili sauce. Yeah. It was pretty cool. That's what I was going to ask you next if you do only your pop up or if you are available for catering. Yeah, I'm available for catering. Even tomorrow I have one. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's a drop off though. Right. Right. So because of all the experience I had, I don't only do just bao. So even the catering menu, you would see a lot of like Pacific Rim food or. Oh, okay. Yeah. It just, you know, the range is pretty good. My range is pretty good. So it's just not just, oh, I just want to eat bao, you know, I can make. Right. Whatever you put in the bao, you can also serve as food or something else. Yeah. Exactly. Just, I can do a bunch of stuff. It's pretty cool how I learned and received it. Oh, that's fantastic with all your training there. Yeah. It's fun. You know, 20 years later. Yeah. I know. Well, you've put a lot of time and effort into it. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Okay. Well, we're going to take a break now and we will be back with some pictures to show you what you can find at Bowtown. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m. Aloha. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on Think Tech Hawaii every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join me where my guests talk about law topics and ideas and music and Hawaii Ana all across the sea from Hawaii and back again. Aloha. Welcome back to Think Tech and Adventures in Small Business. Today I have Adrienne Tam from Bowtown, and we're going to actually see some pictures from Bowtown. Okay, so Adrienne, tell us what this is. This is our version of a Korean-style fried chicken. Ooh. So what I did, I marinated prior to chicken and ginger, soy sauce, sugar, and garlic. That sounds great. How long do you marinate it? Good day or two, depending. Fantastic. So that's also the Korean-style fried chicken, but I added more stuff. It's updated now. So what you see there is also mint. It's a cabbage slaw as well, and there's also basil in there on top of that chicken. And then there's also a Korean-style sauce I use. Oh, is it spicy? Yeah, it's actually tangy, sweet and tangy. A little kick, but not too much because, you know, I don't want... Not everybody likes spicy. Yeah, correct. But it's really sweet. Once you eat it with everything, you can't even tell the kick is there. Oh, okay. Yeah. And do you offer spicy things on the side or any condiments on the side? So what I've also learned is sometimes people like to put sriracha. So I'll put a little sriracha out for them to do themselves. Oh, okay. Yeah. And then some people like more mayonnaise. But mayonnaise we take care of, but the sriracha, whatever other stuff, we leave out there for them to do themselves. Oh, all right. Yeah. Spicy, spicy. Yeah. But then there's something like, oh, can I get more sauce? I was like, well, the sauce is the same. Right. It's not going to kick it up if you put the sauce in. Yeah. So certain things, you know, you adapt and you learn, like, what the customer's like. Mm-hmm. So a good thing about also, I use square besides just cash. Right. So it keeps track of everything and what's sold, what's most sold that day. Mm-hmm.  Right. You know your customers to fix it, you know. Oh, for sure. Yeah. So talking about a square and it'll follow what your best sellers are. So which one is your best seller? The chicken. Mm-hmm. That's the funniest. That was actually the second because before I thought it was the tam-tam. Oh, okay. Yeah, so. And then when you went back in love.  So I think it's because I tweaked it maybe three times and I finally perfected, like, what everything goes with it. Yeah, so it's kind of like everybody enjoys down and more. Oh, excellent. Yeah. Oh, great. Yeah. Okay, let's see one, another picture we have here. Oh, cute. So is this your family? Yeah, it's my son and my dad. Oh, and they help, did they help at every event? Well, my son is in the mainland now. Mm-hmm. But my dad is here, so he helps out a lot. Oh, fantastic. The background you see there, I think that is the, the fisherman's wharf. Oh, right. Yeah. Right. Across from near Ward. Yeah. Oh, okay. But they don't have any events. Okay, and then this one is at a, is actually at an old folks home. Oh, okay. In the parking lot. I think it's all in Hawaii Kai. Oh, right. But a lady that my sister, my sister's classmate was the one doing, you know, those little small craft fairs and stuff like that. Right. So yeah, we did that and then this gentleman had a pit bull and you can see it says Memphis the Pit. Oh, yes. Yeah.  Oh, cute. So this is how our setup for outside is when we do one tent. Oh, all right. So you have to condense everything into one. But I learned that even though it might take more work for two tents, it's easier to separate everything. Oh, okay. It makes it run just like a kitchen.  Right. Right. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. And so tell me a little bit about any kind of assistance you received maybe in starting your business or if you worked with did you get any kind of funding or... So there was no funding, no assistance. Everything I just learned on the whim through trial and error as well. Right. I think one of the... not hardest, but there was an obstacle when I actually went to apply for my business name.  When you were registering your business? So I kind of had to like ask them if you can help me, you know. Right. Right. Normally they don't... I don't know. It can be challenging sometimes. Yeah. I mean, if you catch them on the... I guess the wrong time in the day. Right. Right. But, you know, they were nice enough after I explained myself and they helped me out. Once they hear what you're doing and direct you. I think that's the hardest. That's the most... as in like a pick up. Just getting it started. But then once I got it started and then I learned everything else, just kind of just research. Oh, great. Or trial and error again, you know. Sure. Yeah. The true entrepreneurial way. Yeah, I wish it was that. Yeah, I know it is. Too kind. It definitely is. Okay, so we like to call that bootstrapping. Yeah, bootstrapping. So you did that all yourself. You funded yourself too? Funded myself too. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. So when I first started, I was spending a lot of money. Of course. Because I have a red tent, as you could see in the picture before. And it has my logo on it. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it goes all around. It has my handles for my Facebook and my Twitter and my Instagram. Right. So it's surrounded. I made it red and black and white because I just like those colors. Sure. Yeah. Sure. And then... So I spent a good money on that. Yes.  But I was like, when you first started, you got to push the money out. You get it back later, you know. Right. So I think within maybe seven or eight months, we got all the money that I spent. Mm-hmm. We made it back. We got it all back, yeah. Oh, congratulations. Yeah. So it was a... It was scary at some time when you're like, oh man, we're not busy, but then for some reason we'll get super busy. Well, you must have a good product. Yeah. Yes, for sure. And so, what kind of insights do you have for somebody who's wanting to start their own business in maybe some tips for making them? I think the first step is really figuring out your concept. Mm-hmm. And then if someone else is already doing it, figuring out how to do it better than they're doing it, because if you're going to do something similar or something the same, you got to figure out how to do it better. Because then, you know, if they already have it out, so they're already first. Right. But I would say just do it. Don't think about it too much. Just do it. And then everything will fall into play. Right. You know. How to differentiate yourself, though, from the competition. Yeah. And it's good, you know, it's good to learn, because before I didn't know how to keep track of where my money was going, how it was spent, if I was in the negative after, you know. Right. So it was good, you know. I'm not an accountant, but I learned how to be accounting for my, you know, my business, you know. Right. And so did you do, like, an online class, or how did you? No, an online class, just, so whatever I buy, I look at the receipts and I write down what it is, write down where I got it from. And then for that gig, I would put down, label it, and then at the end, I'll put profit and loss. How much money I made, how much I spent, and go from there. You're creating your own infrastructure. Yeah, so the only thing that was hard was when I first started, I only did one gig a month. Right. So obviously you're always going to be in the loss because you're doing one gig a month. And sometimes you have leftover, you don't sell. So what I notice is if you do it every week, week to week, you actually, whatever you might not make, on the next event, you make.  Okay. That's what I noticed. So consistency and being able to provide your product. Correct, yeah. Okay. And then were there any specific surprises that you had and that come to mind in the last three years as you started your business? That I'm still in business. You know. Yeah. So the next step for me is either brick and mortar or food truck. So what I found hard with a food truck, I did buy one. Oh. It was a gigantic one. Oh my gosh. I had it for about five months. I was working on it, working on it. And then I just came to realize like, wow, like, it's a lot of money. I'm pumping into it because it was so big too.  And I mean, I bought it cheap, but it was backdated. Oh. So that's, you know, it was backdated a while and whoever had it before didn't take care of it. So I had to fix a lot of stuff. But good thing is I sold it to a guy in Maui. You can see the truck in Maui. Oh, great. Yeah. So he did his own thing to it. I got rid of it and I'm going to go for something smaller instead of, because it was huge. Right. But the good thing is my house where I can park it, took the whole thing in without blocking the road, nothing. Oh, that was convenient. The parking, just parked it at the house. Oh, good for you. Good for you. It was good shade for the other car. So we're talking about food trucks. So where do you see yourself maybe in the next five years then, or your business in the next five years? I see myself, I guess, in the food truck for now. Like I said, I was looking at a brick and mortar. I haven't found one yet. Right. Looking for something affordable. Yeah. And something where, wherever it's in town or wherever it's in the place where I want to be, it's just not feasible at the moment. Right. So I'm just saving money as I go and see how I can do it. So, funding would be good. Mm-hmm. But I just figure I'd do it on my own. Yeah. Be more rewarding. Right. So we might see you in a food truck then next. Yeah, for sure. Okay, terrific. And then, let's see, why don't you tell us where we can find you, where we can find Bowtown? So I have two events coming up. I have one event this Saturday. Mm-hmm. Which is the salt building. Okay. I mean, you can't miss it. Right. Cock-a-co? Yeah, cock-a-co. They're going to take up the whole block, like an L-shape. Right. So you're going to see maybe 40 other vendors. Mm-hmm. And they also have not food vendors. They have retail vendors as well. Oh, okay.  Right. Is that a night market or a street grind? Yeah, it's Honolulu Night Market. Oh, Honolulu Night Market. Yeah. I have an event at the Capilina Homes. Oh. I think it's the old Iroquois. Okay. I have a beach that's going to be held by Eater Street. Oh, all righty. So I'll be doing it on that side. Fantastic. So two weekends in a row. Yeah. And then this Friday I have a regular... but next time when I have a beach one, I also have a wedding gig to go to. So I'm trying to find people to spit off. Oh, okay. Two in one day. Yeah. I think it's cool too because they wanted... even though it was a wedding, they wanted street type of food, street food. Right. Just nothing... just casual. So it was cool. There's maybe three more other guys that I know. So it'll be fun to do events again. Oh, neat. Yeah. Oh, that's exciting. Yeah. That's great. And I want to thank Adrian for signing up for Shop Small Hawaii today. Thank you. Just remind everybody for all of our small businesses out there to sign up for Shop Small Hawaii. It's a campaign to help support small businesses year-round. And it's also to help promote small businesses via our Instagram and Facebook. And so you just go to Shop Small Hawaii. You register. Super easy to do. And then also starting in August... August or September, I believe it is, the American Express site will start opening for Small Business Saturday recognition, which is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Nice. And companies or small businesses can go on and choose to be a neighborhood champion, which is having one business sign up, 10 other businesses around them to support an event for Small Business Saturday. Nice. So that's an exciting thing. And we are also doing a contest, an online contest that we'll talk more about at another time. Nice. Definitely. Thank Adrian for being here today and talking about Bowtown. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Oh, sure. Thank you so much. And get your free stickers. Yes. Yeah. Well, that was one last thing I wanted to ask you real quick. So do you run your own social media then too? Yeah. I run everything myself. Fantastic. Not a ghost. Yeah. Yeah. That takes a lot of time. Yeah. A lot of time and effort to stay on top of that. So good work. Yeah, I try. Definitely. And we will see you another partner. We'll see you next week on Adventures in Small Business.


Thank you for the introduction. I'm going to start off with a bit of motivation for this work. Take the following encryption scheme. This is a very standard way of converting a trapdoor permutation into a public key encryption scheme. Choose some randomness R, apply the trapdoor permutation to this to get the message header. Then you hash the message R using some hash function and use it as a one-time pad to encrypt the message M. Now, suppose that I ask you to prove the CPA security of this scheme.  The one thing that I do allow you to play with is the actual hash function, H. The first idea these days might be to try to use random oracles. So the random oracle model introduced by Valar and Ragh away basically we pretend that the hash function H is actually a truly random function that sits up in the sky, and the only way that we can interact with this function is by querying it on inputs of our choice. So I send an input, I get the output. We can easily rewrite the scheme as a random oracle scheme that obeys this restriction, and the random oracle model says that the adversary is also required to interact with the random oracle in this way. All right, random oracles are actually very interesting objects. They are great extractors even for computational unpredictability. So for example, if I have some unknown input, and I give you some leakage about it, maybe a one-way function on the input, and now I also hash the input using the random oracle, the output of the random oracle is pseudo-random. It's also hard to find outputs of the random oracle that have known trapdoors, and this is useful for, say, using hash functions to generate common reference strings where everyone believes that no one knows a trapdoor. Another easy application of random oracles is to convert selective to adaptive security for primitives like signatures and identity-based encryption. In the case of signatures, basically I just hash the message before signing. There are many other uses of random oracles, but this is just a couple. Now unfortunately, random oracles don't actually exist. There's no object in the sky that contains a truly random function that people can query. Instead, everyone really does have the code for a hash function. They evaluate it for themselves. And therefore, a proof in the random oracle model is really a heuristic argument for security in the real world. And there's a sequence of works showing that this heuristic actually does fail in many settings. All right, so the next approach, if we don't want a heuristic, we actually want a security proof, is to look at some standard model definitions for the hash function H. We could start with the standard definitions. These are things like one-wayness, pseudorandom generator, collision-resistant hash function, and so forth. These definitions have the advantage of being very simple and easy to state. We can use some of the weakest assumptions used in cryptography, and we can base them on a variety of number-theoretic assumptions. Unfortunately, they have limited usefulness for actually instantiating random oracles, and for the scheme I described, even if you assume H is one of these sort of standard definitions, we don't know how to prove security. So then we might turn to more exotic definitions, such as universal computational extractors, or UCEs, or some variants of very strong one-wayness and pseudorandomness. And these definitions are actually very useful for instantiating some random oracle constructions. For example, by picking the right one of these definitions, we can prove security for the scheme on the first slide. Unfortunately, though, for most of these, the only way we know how to instantiate the security properties is just to make the assumption that the security property holds a given hash function. We don't know how to reduce most of these to standard cryptographic assumptions. Okay, and why is this a problem for these exotic security definitions? I'm going to highlight the problem with an example. So consider the following notion of a strong pseudorandom generator that strengthens some other strong one-wayness definitions in the literature. More or less, the requirement is that the function is a pseudorandom generator, even if I give you arbitrary leakage of the seed. The only condition on the leakage that I asked for is that given the leakage, you can't actually compute the seed. So as long as the seed remains computationally unpredictable given the leakage, the output of the hash function is pseudorandom. Now, how do we gain confidence in this assumption? Suppose I want to assume that SHA-256 is a strong PRG. Well, I might post some challenges. I might go on the web, post an output along with some leakage, and say if you can solve this, I'll give you $1,000. Now, unfortunately, this might give me confidence after several months no one breaks this that the hash function is a strong PRG for that particular leakage I gave you. But what about other leakages? Now, if I want another leakage, I have to post another challenge for that leakage function and so forth. And it's not clear that this approach will work for general arbitrary leakages because there's infinitely many possible leakage functions. And it might even be that for some particular really pathological leakage functions, maybe those involving obfuscating programs and stuff like that, that this definition is actually unattainable. All right, and this is not just limited to this issue, it's not just limited to strong PRGs. It's really an issue inherent to a lot of these exotic security definitions that take the form of assumption families. Really, this definition is a family of assumptions, one assumption for every possible leakage function. Okay. Now, these definitions, these definition families are actually very useful as security properties. The literature defining these, the whole point was to show how useful they are. But they are, the point I want to make is that they're highly undesirable of starting points, assumptions to start with for achieving tasks. The ideal scenario is instead to use a single, simple, well-studied assumption, one that I can post challenges on the web, gain confidence that it's secure because no one can break it, and take this assumption and use that to derive these strong security properties. And that's where this work comes in. Using a new tool called Extremely Lossy Functions or ELFs, we show how to take a single, simple assumption and derive interesting consequences for instantiating random oracles. All right, so what is a standard lossy function? A standard lossy function is a function that comes in one of two flavors. There is an injective mode where the function is actually one-to-one, there are no collisions. And there's a lossy mode where the image size is much, much smaller than the domain size, so there are many, many collisions, and it's called lossy because the output of the function necessarily loses information about the input. The security requirement for standard lossy functions is that the injective mode and the lossy mode are indistinguishable to any efficient adversary. Just a couple notes on standard lossy functions. Even though the functions are very, in the lossy mode, are very lossy and have a small image size, it's still typically exponential, just a much smaller exponential size than the input. And generally, standard lossy functions also include trapdoors, which are required for many of the applications. For this work, though, we actually don't need any of the trapdoors. So an extremely lossy function is a standard lossy function on steroids. Basically, there is an injective mode, like before, that I'll represent with the big human size elf, and there is a lossy mode that I'll represent with the little dobby size elf that is so incredibly lossy that the image size is actually a polynomial. The total number of image points is just some polynomial. Okay, now, as I've described this, this is not an attainable security notion. I can't possibly have computational and distinguishability between these two modes because there's a sort of trivial attack. Basically, I can just try to evaluate the function I'm given on a bunch of inputs looking for a collision, and this attack runs in time roughly equal to the size of the image in the lossy mode. And since our image size is polynomial, we can't possibly get security against this adversary.  And the security property is that for any adversary, I can choose a lossy mode that fools that adversary. So I don't just have, again, because every lossy mode has a polynomial size, I can't have one lossy mode fool all possible adversaries, but I can reverse the order of quantifiers and say that for any adversary, I can choose a lossy mode that fools that adversary. Okay, so how do we construct these objects? The first step is to build something that I'll call a bounded adversary elf, and this is one where we go back to actually just having a single lossy mode. And as we said before, we can't possibly have security against all adversaries, but instead I'll insist upon having security against a priori bounded adversaries. All right, and the details of this don't matter for the purposes of this talk, but basically if you take the DDH-based lossy functions in the literature and shrink the group size down to be a polynomial, you get a lossy mode that has a polynomial image size, and by making the assumption that the DDH problem actually takes exponential time to solve, we get security against bounded time adversaries, exactly as we needed. Okay, so I need to make this assumption, this exponential DDH assumption that DDH takes exponential time to solve. It's definitely a non-standard assumption in cryptography. We usually like the polynomial hardness assumptions or maybe sub-eximensional hardness assumptions. But I want to argue that this assumption is still very reasonable. It's a nice assumption. The complexity assumption framework of Goldwasser and Kali, and it also appears to be true. On elliptic curves, for example, the best known attacks take exponential time, and in fact, even in practice, the parameters for elliptic curve schemes are set assuming that it takes exponential time to solve. So if exponential DDH is false, we actually have much bigger problems to worry about because a lot of the crypto on the web would be insecure at the current key sizes. All right, from bounded elves, we can get to unbounded elves. Basically, we just iterate at a bunch of security levels. So I just string them together a bunch of bounded adversaries elves where the lossy image size are growing polynomials. And when I want to invoke lossiness against a particular t-time adversary, I just invoke the lossiness at the i-th elf where i is large enough to fool that adversary but still have a polynomial image size. As I've drawn, this picture actually doesn't quite work because the output size might grow too fast, but using pairwise independent hashing between the iterations, we can keep the output size small. Okay, so now let's move on to how do we actually use elves to accomplish interesting things? So using elves, I actually can give you a construction of a PRG satisfying the strong notion of leakage resilience that I defined before. Basically, what's going on here is from the input X, we derive a bunch of different Goldreich 11 hard core bits, all independent. Now, these bits are hard core if I give you just one of them, they're not hard core anymore if I give you all of them. So instead, what I do is I feed the hard core bits into this alternating sequence of elves and pairwise independent hashing. Now I'm going to prove that this actually satisfies the definition of strong pseudo-randomness. Recall the setup, we have X, some leakage about X. X gets fed through the hash function to produce some output Y and the leakage and Y are given to the adversary. The guarantee that I'm given is that X is computationally unpredictable given the leakage. And I want to prove to you that Y is indistinguishable from random to this adversary. I'm going to do this using a handful of hybrids. In the first hybrid, I'm going to invoke elf magic on the last elf in the sequence and replace it with a lossy mode elf. As we've discussed before, this necessarily requires knowing the adversary's running time, but using the guarantee of the elf, I can do this. The second step is to invoke Goldreich Levin. To simplify the picture, I'm going to take this part of the construction and just call it L. So L just takes this input X, produces some output. The only property I care about of elf for now is that the last part of L is to apply a lossy mode elf, which means that L has a polynomial image size. And because L has a polynomial image size, it's very easy to prove the following lemma, that if I give you the original leakage and I additionally give you the leakage that's the output of L, X still remains computationally unpredictable. And this falls from a simple argument just using the fact that L has a polynomial image size. So what this means is that even now that I give you this additional leakage, I can apply Goldreich Levin on this last hardcore bit and replace it with truly random. Okay, so let's open things up again. The next step is to undo the elf magic, replace the little lossy elf with an injective elf. And now we see that I actually have the exact same picture I showed you before, except that I replaced the last bit with true randomness. So now what I do is I just repeat this. I move down the chain, take the second-to-last elf, replace it with lossy. Because it's lossy now, I can apply Goldreich Levin to the second-to-last bit, replace it with true randomness, undo the elf magic, and now I'm back where I started, except the last two bits are truly random. And I just repeat going down the chain. All right, so at the end of the day, I have now all of the Goldreich Levin bits are replaced with truly random. And what this means is that the Y the adversary sees is actually completely independent of the CDAS. And moreover, it is straightforward to show that Y is actually statistically close to random when all these bits are random. So putting things together, what I have is that for any computationally unpredictable source that the output of the seed is pseudo-random, as desired. And also, as is useful for certain applications, this function H we can show to be injective. All right, so what are the applications? So here are just a few immediate applications. One is an instantiation of an injective one-way function satisfying the definition of the Tanskin penna. Previously, basically, we had to make these annoying assumption families to get any sort of injective one-way function. We also get a very simple point function office skater, secure against auxiliary input. And again, this more or less just required the injective one-way function from before. So the previous constructions had the same limitations. One way of looking at the strong PRG is that what it actually is, it's a way to extract polynomially many hardcore bits from any computationally unpredictable source. This was previously known from universal computational extractors, though this really universal computational extractors is more of a generalization of this definition. Or we had constructions from very strong forms of obfuscation. And these have several limitations, including being, again, annoying assumption families. They only worked for one-way functions and they're incredibly inefficient. And then lastly, the CPA scheme that I gave you on the first slide actually is secure using this hash function H. And this is really just a special case of the hardcore bit extraction in the case of injective one-way functions. You see that H of R is just extracting hardcore bits from the trapdoor permutation. Okay, so some other results that we get from ELFs. So this is selected to adaptive security conversion using random oracles. We can actually just use an ELF instead. And the proof is very simple. So the construction is to just hash the message that you're going to sign using the ELF and then sign with whatever selectively secure signature scheme you had. In the security proof, first I switch to a lossy mode ELF. This is indistinguishable to the adversary. And now because the lossy mode ELF has only a polynomial image size, I can guess the output of the hash that the value that actually gets signed by the selectively secure signature scheme incurring only a polynomial loss in security. We also give a definition of output and tractability for hash functions. And this captures the case where I want to use the hash function to generate common reference strings and ensure that no one knows a trapdoor for the output. And the construction is extremely simple. It's just composing an ELF with a pairwise independent hash function. All right, so to conclude in this work, we show that the exponential hardness of DDH is useful for constructing this object called an ELF. And ELFs are useful for a variety of interesting applications involving instantiating random oracles. There are a handful of open questions that we leave. Sort of the biggest in my mind is can we build ELFs from other assumptions? Right now we need the exponential hardness of DDH. Could we perhaps base it on the exponential hardness of learning with errors? Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be the case. The current lossy functions based on learning with errors just don't seem quite lossy enough for our purposes. Related question is can we get close quantum ELFs? It's known that quantum computers can break DDH, so can we get an ELF that is secure against quantum adversaries? This is very related. If we could do it from LWE, that would be fantastic. And then lastly, can we get more applications of ELFs, more interesting applications? All right, that's all I have for you. Thank you very much.


When it comes to Jonu and all of the different things that he can do, I mean, we see him make contested catches, block, run after the catch. How much flexibility does it give you all in offense to have not just anyone who's versatile, but a tight end who's versatile? Yeah, it's a lot of fun to go to work with Jonu every day. You know, he's a guy that brings great effort and energy to everything that he does and he's been working hard at all different aspects of his game. So we're very fortunate to have a number of tight ends here that we can depend on to do different jobs and different roles. And it certainly makes things fun to get a little creative. How would you evaluate Jonu as a blocker at this point of his career? I think Jonu would be the first to tell you that we're always looking for ways to improve.  And so I'll call him in process and improving in all areas of his game right now. Court. You taught a couple of years ago, Jonu was struggling to catch the football. Those struggles seem to be behind him. Is that simply repetition, confidence, both? Yeah, I think they go hand in hand. You know, obviously I wasn't here a couple of years ago, but since I've been here, I've seen Jonu work very hard at all aspects in the past game, including, you know, catching the ball and contested catches and going up and making tough plays with the ball in the air. So I think he's starting to see the fruits of his labor, so to speak. And I wanted to ask you about Michael, that touchdown pass he caught I think it was week one, he caught the back half of the football. Are his receiving skills underappreciated? You know, he had a lot of production in college. I remember him coming out. He had a lot of catches and did a lot of nice things in the passing game, collegiately, you know, if it's underrated, I think it's by somebody else. You know, we know how talented he is and how skilled he is. And that was a great catch. That ball is coming in hot, Ryan put it exactly where it needed to be and improve is able to make a play on it. You know, I know he caught the back half of it, but it was certainly good. Good job, clamping his hands down and securing the catch. Jim, I see you on the call. Did you have one? I do. Todd, you need to get that call? No, I don't think it was me. OK, I want to ask you, I guess, about your your initiative with 100 the organization of 100 Black men and the donation that you're making. How did that kind of come about? Why that? Why is that important to you? Jim, I appreciate you asking that really came out of some of the great conversations that I've been fortunate enough to have with my players here in the tight end room, which have been steered, you know, by coach Brable and coach Smith, you know, just creating an environment where we can have an open dialogue and talk with one another. It was important to us to do something together, to show unity, to be able to celebrate our on the field performance by incorporating a cause that we knew would help with some of the issues that our society has going on today. And truth be told, my wife did a lot of research and, you know, a lot of legwork and finding the organization. But there was a checklist of things that the guys in the room made clear were very important to them. And we just wanted to kick it off. Our family just wanted to kick it off by saying, hey, we stand with you. We support you. And if those issues are important to you, they're important to us and a bunch of people have jumped behind it. And it's often running in a pretty good clip. But I think I might have to revisit my son's college fund at this point. But we're we're we're appreciated to have everybody joining in. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. You got what, a thousand of poppy got four tight end touchdowns already. May either run or variable or all or whoever is involved in these decisions. Get the tight end of all of you, maybe you are. And I guess you're more than willing to contribute in and do whatever you can to raise much money for this cause as possible, I guess. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I I kid about the about my son's college from I hope to score a hundred touchdowns. We we're excited to be a part of it. And I think it's a good initiative and and certainly something that we're fortunate to be able to be in a place where we can support what's important to my players. And and I want to ask you about going back to Minnesota as well. And I mean, can you help the defenders or or maybe give some tips here and there on Cal Rudolph, maybe some things that guys should look for after all your time working with him? Well, our defensive staff does such a wonderful job of thoroughly evaluating opponents, you know, I'm sure if they have any questions, they'll they'll come down to me, but they're they're a well-prepared group. I'm really fortunate to spend that year that I did there and in Minnesota coaching the tight ends and it's a talented room. They've made some additions and, you know, I think they're a very talented group. But, you know, our defensive staff will do just fine without without my input. And last for me, I mean, just broadly, you know, tight ends, like you've mentioned, been very involved, you know, from John New, the Anthony to Michael, how contagious is it in the room or how much energy energy does it bring when those guys are getting a lot of looks and a lot of scoring opportunities? How do you think they're doing? No, we we haven't approached things any different than we had all last year. You know, sometimes the ball finds you and sometimes it doesn't. Their their goal and my mission is their coaches to create an environment where we're always working hard, even at the weakest parts of our game. And and we have to trust that the process will bring football our way. You know, do the little things right in the run game, do the little things right in protection and then do the little things right in your out stems and releases and all that.  So our process hasn't really changed. I wouldn't say the energy levels change. I think they're they're enjoying their opportunities and hopefully get some more. Thank you, Todd. Thank you. Todd, I wanted to ask you one more about Johnny's versatility. You know, because it kind of goes with his explosiveness. We've seen you guys, you know, put him in the backfield, run screens to him and some of those things that with his athleticism, how much more time do you and Art spend trying to be creative, finding different ways to use him and get him the football compared to a normal tight end? You know, I think that's a natural part of the game plan and process, you know, looking for ways to create matchups or looking for ways to, you know, get the different personnel groupings on the field and things like that. As I said earlier, you know, Johnny's skill set makes it fun to think and tinker with different ways that you can line them up in different areas. And then it boils down to Johnny and his preparation and know where to be and how to execute the jobs that they were having for him. So again, you know, it's all part of our process, all part of the process that Coach Brable and Arthur have laid out, you know, in terms of how we go through our checklist in the week. But Johnny certainly makes it a lot of fun to be creative.