In Lihue, on 48 acres of Kauai farmland, you can find any fresh produce you could think of – from vegetables to fruit trees to native Hawaiian plants to Thai fruits and veggies. Dang Fresh Farm is a Kauai farm for one-stop goodies. Farmer Dang, or Suthat Promnosri, has owned Dang Fresh Farm since 2013. Working alongside is his wife (Phis), son (Pory), Pory girlfriend (Kate), and friends (Bee Khaechawat & ThaiReef).
Dang and his family are from Thailand and moved to Kauai to have a fresh start to look for more farm opportunities. Back in Thailand, Dang and his family grew up as rice farmers. Today, they can grow anything they set their mind to. Some veggies and fruits they currently have growing on the farm are lettuce, bok choy, cabbage, watermelon, broccoli, pineapple, Thai papaya, and peanuts.
And Then Came COVID-19…
Dang and his crew have been working diligently during these past several months. The first month when COVID-19 began, they were struggling to find people to purchase their produce. All they could do was use the time that they had to make improvements on the farm.
Eventually they were offered opportunities with Mālama Kaua’i’s CSA Bag Program and the Hawaii Food Bank. Luckily, these programs and collaborations helped to keep them busy and selling products for a few months.
In the future, Dang plans to build up his Kauai farm business by improving his social media platforms, such as creating an Instagram and Facebook account. They aren’t too familiar with using these kinds of social media plateforms because they havenʻt been exposed these kinds of marketing tactics before. But with rising digital age technology, he thinks it will be great idea to use so the community could know more about what they do on their farm!
When things start to get back to normal, he hopes he can expand his farm to plant more fruit trees (mango, lychee, starfruit, longon, lilikoi, etc), Thai fruits and veggies, and more Hawaiian food plants for the community. One of his fruit trees that he is most proud of, and loves to grow, is his Thai papayas.
These are the number one papaya in Thailand, and they are perfect for making papaya salad. These ones are a lot sweeter than sunrise papayas. You can tell if it is ready to eat when the papaya skin turns a bright orange-pink color.
Dang says as he smiles with a grin from ear to ear
Advice for Kauai Farms
It’s hard to sell produce at farmer’s markets because all the vendors sell about the same thing. I think all farmers should communicate with each other and negotiate what they are growing so all farmers can have a slice of the pie at the farmers market. Sharing is caring, and we are all in this together to feed the community and make a living.
Dang of Dang Fresh Farm
If you’d like to order local produce, you can contact Dang Fresh Farm at (808) 646-9229 or email [email protected].
Want to read about more Resilient Kauai Farms? Check out our blog!