Meet Your Producer: McCall Flower Farm

Nestled in the lush, sprawling ohia forests of Volcano is McCall Flower Farm. Although the name suggests flower production, the 10 acres of McCall Flower Farm are full of edible crops; brassicas like broccoli and cabbage in all shades of green, crisp, leafy lettuce and spinach, rainbow swiss chard, and bushy carrot tops are bursting from the tunneled greenhouses. The fields are lined with rows of thick bushes weighed down by blackberries the size of ping-pong balls. Jeff McCall, a father and a farmer of over 35 years, takes great care to give the community a crop that he feels proud of, or in his words, “a crop that I would want to eat.”

In the mid-eighties, Jeff bought land in Ka’u and grew flowers to sell commercially (hence the farm name!). After 20 years in the flower industry, Jeff was pushed to change course after the vog from the 2008 eruption wiped out most of his flowers. Looking for a fresh start, he sold the Ka’u property and bought his current property in Volcano, where he began growing food and “some flowers.” At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, McCall Flower Farm stopped selling flowers and focused their energy on cultivating edible crops to feed the growing demand for fresh veggies. This transition was more aligned with Jeff’s values because it allowed him to experiment with more organic practices, rather than “spraying a lot of things I didn’t want to be spraying.”

While McCall Flower Farm is not certified organic, Jeff and his staff use organic practices such as crop rotation, biopesticides like BT, and, interestingly, steam-sterilizing their garden beds. A practice Jeff picked up in the flower industry, he utilizes hot steam in between plantings to suppress weeds, kill soil-borne pathogens, and quickly break down organic matter for use by the incoming plants.

Jeff spoke with us about the challenges of navigating pest management in Hawai’i, due to the different microclimates on island. “What works for one farmer may not work for another,” so he advises trying everything once. Even with his decades of experience, Jeff is often testing out new tactics to combat pests, diseases, and the elements.

One of his most ferocious foes has been the diamondback moth (or cabbage moth), whose infestations will sometimes take him six months to control, he says. And while the rains in Volcano are welcomed, the occasional lengthy downpour drops enough rain to put his crops under water… literally. When faced with roadblocks, Jeff has learned to focus less on the things he cannot control. Regarding a particularly difficult strawberry crop, he says “if they give me berries, okay. If they don’t, that’s okay too.”

Although McCall Flower Farm sits on 10 acres of land, just 5 of those acres are in use. Woven naturally throughout the property, the other 5 acres support thriving forests of native trees and shrubs such as koa, ‘olapa, ‘ūlei, hāpuʻu, and ma‘o hau hele (Hawai’i’s state flower), which act as windbreaks for the farm. When he isn’t farming vegetables, Jeff propagates the native flora and transplants them around the property.

Jeff tells us that he feels lucky but also saddened to belong to the last generation that could largely afford to start a farm without working another job. He says that if he hadn’t had all the equipment from his flower-growing days, he probably would not have been able to start his current farm. He commends new farmers for their hard work, time, and dedication to overcoming the financial challenges of growing food and feeding the community.

In addition to supplying our CSA and a few other buyers, McCall flower farm sells produce at the Cooper Center Farmers Market and at the farmstand on property. Jeff and the farm team, thanks for all that you do!