For Festival attendees who wanted a first hand view of the Big Island's agricultural diversity, several tours were offered on Thursday and Friday. These tours included visits to a coffee plantation, bee and honey farm, a vanilla bean orchard, goat dairy and even a tour to the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii's state-of-the-art aquaculture facility on the Kona Coast where lobster, moi, abelone, oysters, sea vegetables and more are grown and harvested.
Another tour visited a number of family farms and ranches in the Big Island's Kamuela area and included stops at the Kahua Ranch known for its grass fed beef and lamb and the Honopua Farm in Waimea where organic vegetables, lavender and flowers are grown.
For those who wanted to spend the morning or afternoon on the links, special pricing was available at one of the several championship golf courses at the participating resorts.
