Maui County Farm Bureau Names New Board Members
New members Bobbie Patnode and Jayson Watts were elected last week to join the Maui County Farm Bureau board for the next two-year term.
The nonprofit organization consists of farms and ranch families, agricultural industries, and associated organizations that support agriculture in Maui County.
Patnode is the “mom partner” in Patnode Family Farm, together with husband Jack and son Ben. The Patnodes have been farming commercially on Maui since 2012 where their lot on Crater Road grows mostly root vegetables, such as Japanese and Korean daikon, beets, watermelon radish, onions, and more, all using organic methods.
“I’m particularly interested in working to help our Maui County farmers work better with the county administration, such as Planning, Water and Real Property Tax departments, so we all receive the support the county has enacted for us,” Patnode said in a news release.
She is also a board member of the Kula Community Association, vice-chair of the Police Commission, and a member of the Ag Working Group.
The other recently elected member, Watts, serves as Director of External Affairs and Strategic Initiatives at Mahi Pono, LLC — the company aims to transform about 41,000 acres of vacant sugar cane land into a diversified agriculture hub in Maui’s central plain.
A graduate of Baldwin High School and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Watts has a history of “building sustainable community development initiatives and public-private partnerships,” according to a news release.
Before joining Mahi Pono in 2019, the Wailuku resident served as a special assistant to the Director of the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations; and as senior advisor to Hawaii Lieutenant Governors Shan Tsutsui and Doug Chin.
Prior to that, Watts served as deputy sergeant-at-arms of the Hawaii State Senate; as legislative director to Shan Tsutsui; and as a congressional intern and staff assistant to the late U.S. Representative Patsy T. Mink.
Maui County Farm Bureau is affiliated with both the statewide Hawaii Farm Bureau and the American Farm Bureau Federation. The board of directors meet on the last Wednesday of each month. General membership meetings are held in March, June, September, and December.
See article in the Maui News here.