Livestock Wala'au
Welcome to the Livestock Wala’au podcast. Brought to you by the Livestock Extension Group of the University of Hawaii Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and the Center for Ag Profitability of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A podcast aimed to provide educational support, information, guidance and outreach to livestock stakeholders in Hawaii and the rest of the U.S. Hosted by Extension Professionals Melelani Oshiro of UH Manoa CTAHR & Shannon Sand of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Livestock Wala'au
S4 Ep 9 : Meet Yunuen Bustamante: Oahu's New Livestock Extension Agent
Yunuen Bustamante is Oahu's newest extension agent, bringing a fresh perspective to Hawaii's livestock industry. Originally from Puebla, Mexico, her journey blends traditional wisdom with modern agricultural science. With a bachelor's in agronomy and a master's in agroforestry, in addition to her practical experience working as a veterinary technician and livestock specialist at a local ranch, she brings a wealth of knowledge to our Livestock Extension team.
She aims to develop tailored guidance for local producers, focusing on sustainable practices in swine, poultry, and land management using sheep and goats while honoring Hawaiian cultural values. As Hawaii imports most of its food, she sees livestock production as key to food security.
Currently connecting with industry groups, Bustamante is planning educational initiatives to help build a more sustainable, self-sufficient Hawaii. Follow her work @LivestockExtensionOahu on Instagram.
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Aloha. Today's episode is sponsored by the Livestock Extension Group of the University of Hawaii Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience, the Center for Ag Profitability out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, Aloha and welcome to Livestock Bala'au, a podcast aimed to provide educational support, information, guidance and outreach to our livestock stakeholders in Hawaii and the US.
Speaker 3:We are your hosts, Mele Washiro and Shannon Sand, and today we are talking with Yunuen Bastamante, who is our new assistant livestock extension agent in Oahu County. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you guys for having me. I'm very excited. I usually listen to your podcast here and there and I see all these people from CTAHR and just all this interesting information and I was like oh, I'm going to be there, oh it's exciting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're very excited to have you join CTAHR and Extension and for having you here today to come and talk a little bit and share with everybody, so it's exciting for us to be able to do this. So maybe I don't know you want to share with us a little bit about your background and how you came to be here yeah, of course I would love to again.
Speaker 4:My name is Yunan Bustamante. I was born and raised in Mexico. The city where I'm from is called Puebla, is right below Mexico City, so it's a beautiful place. Of course I'm from there right. There's a really nice weather. It's kind of Manoa type of weather all year round it's just rainy but then dry season. So yeah, so I'm from there. I have my undergrad education there. I have a bachelor's degree in agronomy, agriculture and livestock management. So for one of the biggest universities in Mexico is very specific about agriculture, so yeah.
Speaker 4:I was very grateful to get accepted in the university and get a scholarship, because getting education nowadays is not affordable. So just having a scholarship and giving me the opportunity for me to be educated. So after they finished my undergrad, one of my advisors said I will highly recommend to just go ahead and do your master's and now that you're in the track. So I was like that's a good idea. But I was like what kind of master's degree I want to do? Because I learned all about basic agronomy, agriculture, animal science, basic agronomy, agriculture, animal science and I was thinking I feel that I want to do more that is more sustainable, more natural.
Speaker 4:So one of the and the same university. One of the programs it was agroforestry for sustainable development. So I was like, okay, what is that? What is for sustainable development? So I was like, okay, what is that? What is agroforestry? So I talked to several advisors and they said this is a great opportunity because agroforestry is gonna be the new kind of, the new type of research. It's been there forever. Indigenous communities have done agroforestry for like millennials, but this is gonna be fancy new name.
Speaker 4:Yeah, let's go to forestry. So, yeah, they started to. Yeah, I really love understand and preserve our culture as a Mexican and but also I love farming and then those technologies that we can apply to all these things combined. So I was like, yeah, I think that's a great opportunity for me. Again, I applied and, yeah, I was so nervous to get in the program and, yeah, I was accepted. I was also very lucky. So then, yeah, because my background is animal science, so it's when I decided to do more specific research regarding silvopastures. Research regarding silvopastures it's the combinations with trees, grass, soil and the animals. So, yeah, I did. My research was forestry and traditional silvopasture systems in the semi, semi arid areas in Mexico. So, yeah, that's kind of like yeah.
Speaker 2:Because there's some really cool projects in Hawaii that are looking at some of that. So I was like that's neat that you have some experience with that.
Speaker 3:Shannon and I are actually on a project for a civil pasture.
Speaker 3:looking at Lucina in Hawaii and whatnot, yeah, I think it's a especially in our tropical areas. I feel like that's an area that is not as well utilized, and then I feel like some people might already be doing it and not even realize that's the kind of system that they can take advantage of and use it more efficiently and effectively their operations. But so you also have a little bit of experience, I know, because we talked about your veterinary technician and your background and livestock management here in Hawaii. You want to share a little bit about that yeah, of course.
Speaker 4:So then, because life takes you from many different ways that sometimes you don't even know yeah.
Speaker 2:No, you never know where you're gonna end up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah so then for I have some family here. They used to live here in oahu. Now they're in Big Island, in the Hilo side they invited me into vacations and I ended up staying. That was how I ended up. Wow, this place is beautiful, it's magical. I have family here and Hawaiian culture and Mexican culture are so aligned. We care a lot about family and just community and all of that. So I was just like this is great. So then I moved here. I moved to Oahu around like eight years ago and one of my first jobs it was as a veterinary technician. It was just this hospital, very specialized for feline health, so it was just for cats, mostly for cats. I learned all the basics about injections, medications and all of that for small species. They apply to bunnies, to cats, to dogs, to all different species and companion animals overall.
Speaker 4:So that was that I stayed for a couple of years. I was very lucky. Also, I met a lot of great people. I learned a lot from the veterinarian. It was great. So then, because of my background in animal science and agroforestry, I was just in the search for something a little more. And having all this now knowledge about the medical field I was searching for a job and I had the opportunity to work at Ballora Ranch. So I was hired as a. I started as a lead and then I transitioned to livestock specialist because my background made sense at the time. So I was there for over three years, three years where I learned a lot and also we grew a lot. I remember we started with 30, 20 laying hens and now, when I left, we have 400 hens. I was like gosh, how did that happen? Yeah.
Speaker 4:So we grew a lot. Also, we have a small flock of sheep and then also got twice as big too. While I was there, One of the things that I learned that I was like why didn't they teach me in school back in Mexico it was about Korean natural farming. Coalura Ranch have a great, great piggery. They have all figured out how to raise pigs and litter. But yeah, I learned a lot and even even next, we expand that and we started doing some pasture pigs. They're still doing some pasture pigs. Yeah, a lot of learning, a lot of developing and it was great. All the people that are worth it. I'm still like. I feel like it's still my family. I see them every time and I just nice opportunity for go and visit them because yeah, I love them so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great. It's good that you can still be working in the same sort of sector in agriculture and whatnot and still be able to see those folks yeah, good awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what interested you in moving to extension in Hawaii? It's clear you were never leaving Hawaii if you had a choice, but what made you make the transition over into extension?
Speaker 4:I feel that I always enjoy and I had. Really I was very, I'm very, passionate about educating people. Oh, nice, good, like share what I? The little bit that I learned. I don't know anything. Everything and something they realize. The more they learn, the less that I learned. I don't know everything. And something that I realized the more that I learned, the less that I know. Right, so, just the little that.
Speaker 4:I learned during school and just hands-on experience and working in the vet and working in the ranch, every time that we have visitors, new people, or I had to train employees. That was my joy. Then I always like, since I was in in high school and and yeah, I always knew there was this extension program, I was not too sure about exactly how we look like and how we exactly work, but I know that existed, yeah, because, yeah, also, the extension is not big but people know about that in Mexico. So I was like, okay, I know what it is.
Speaker 4:But the reason that I decided to transition for working hands-on in a ranch to extension is because it was this job opportunity they opened up here with the College of Tropical Agriculture and UH Manoa the extension livestock extension and one of my colleagues at the time they told me I think you will do great in this job, I can see you doing this job. And I was like, are you sure? And I was like, yeah, because I was thinking about it the other day. Sometimes people see things in you that you might not even see it as you be really good at it. That's how I did some research about extension in Hawaii and I decided to apply. I applied last year.
Speaker 4:And yeah, thankfully I just joined the team and I'm very excited.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's exciting. I was like I'm sure they're excited to have you, yes, very excited.
Speaker 3:It's nice to be able to have you on board and I can see your passion for wanting to share and educating and that outreach within a community, I think, is such a big part of extension and it takes a certain person to be able to converse across the different segments with producers, many different people from different areas of agriculture in our industry and you have to be able to switch gears in how you're being able to talk to different people.
Speaker 3:So everybody builds their extension program. We all have sort of areas that we are responsible for of course, all the different livestock species but there's always things that are going to interest us more or maybe we have a little bit more background. So can you share a little bit where you're planning to focus some of your extension program on, and or if there's special things that you were wanting to look into?
Speaker 4:I want to go back to the question. Doing some research on just a normal engine like Google and things. I was looking up for advice on how to do things in a certain way and most of the information that I've found is from mainland and a lot of these things do not apply to the ecosystem and just environmental conditions, because they have seasons and they have all of that and even the animal species. Sometimes they're not even the same. So I was like I wish it was like someone that could just give me more accurate advice. I know I reached out to Dr Danny and to Caleb from the University of Hawaii, the professor, and to you as well, melly, but I was like I think we need a little more of this.
Speaker 4:And now that I'm on the other side, I understand there's so much work to do in terms of extension and I see the need and I see all the things that we could work in so many different ways. But at the time it was another thought that I had in so many different ways, but at the time it was another thought that I had. I wish it was more publications and things very specific to to hawaii and oh, now in my position to oahu, because another thing that I've been learning now that I'm visiting farmers and thing is that even though we're the same island, we have differences it's very different climate even depending on which island and, like big island, has 11 different clients, oh yeah, so yeah, something like that, like here is more urbanized so just having all these constant.
Speaker 4:We need more like food supply and we need more things and also we're fighting with the ag land, so all these things that is changing all across the island.
Speaker 4:So I was thinking, oh yeah, I wish I could learn more about it and with my education, my experience and my backgrounds I can just help more farmers the the help that I that I got from dr daddy and dr caleb or you, amelia, wish I could just help all their farmers. And even working at the ranch I was still connecting with some farmers and things, but my job it was just making sure we're very productive and sustainable and just raising animals and with all the products, about animal welfare. Yeah, I think now this job is the extension is going to allow me to contribute, like in a bigger picture about sustainable agriculture practices and helping more producers with the little things that I learned through school and through my work.
Speaker 3:It's a huge part. I think that you like you said it's hard because you get in there and you're like, oh, we need to do this and there's so many things on the list that we want to do you really got to let things float up and prioritize what's going to be the most beneficial for our producers and you know I've had so many talks already. I think we have a lot of great ideas on where, a lot of different things to work on and whatnot. But yeah, it's great when you have a big team, or not even a big team. There's not a lot of us, no, there's at least there's two of us in the state.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was gonna say I'm sure Mellie's excited not to be the only one left.
Speaker 3:But it's nice, yeah, you can. At least you're always going to have little areas that you have a larger portion of your education or experience, and so it's nice to be able to have somebody to share responsibilities in a sense, or with or even just collaborate on work, and sometimes it's talking about different areas and different things that are going on in the industry and how we can work together with everyone to guide and help our producers and provide resources for them. So I think that's very good. I'm very excited to be able to have more agents and hopefully we'll have more in the near future. There's more positions that are going to be opening up. But, yeah, is there a particular interest that you have and look at, you want to pursue with your extension program or in how you can help support some of our producers, of our producers?
Speaker 4:Yeah, extension program. What I would like to be is just, of course, tailored for specific needs for Oahu. I'm the Oahu livestock agent, so what I wanted to do is reach out to people and get to know them and just learn from them, and exactly what is what you need to know them and just learn from them. And exactly what is what you need. However, with my education, my background, I always try to target all sustainable practices and community-based education. But when I was working at Colorado Ranch and all the things that I've been learning lately is just, oahu has more the capacity or will be more likely to develop the swine industry. The pork industry has been the biggest in Oahu, so I think promoting that and just help those farmers still exist. I think that will be one of my priorities. Same thing for poultry. Poultry I find it very important in O'ahu. We have the largest egg farms here in O'ahu and, and I think overall, culturally, people have their laying hands, so why not promote more backyard or homestead laying hands? I think that will be the main approach. And the other thing that is now more and more popular is the use of small ruminants like sheep and goats to maintain your lawn or help with invasive species and because, again, we are the most populated island, it makes sense to have a smaller species and of course, there's some cattle ranchers that are still around and they have this heritage Paniolo heritage that we want to protect and acknowledge. But, yeah, I think sheep and goats will be a big area, I feel, to develop for sure.
Speaker 4:Now, the other thing that we've been hearing in social media and just all about is about regenerative agriculture and pasture-raised farming. I think is very relevant nowadays and I think I would like to just also include those two approaches because it lands into sustainability and silvopasture. Yeah, all of that, the main goal overall is just to improve and just have more food security. So, always having that in mind, so the main goal is just be more, less depending of imports. Now it's more and more.
Speaker 4:I think 80 or 90 percent we're depending of food from overseas and I think the other two aspects I want to include in my program is making sure we are making part of the Hawaiian culture is part of it and the Paniolo culture. All those are very important values that need to be preserved and acknowledged and respected. I think all of that is going to try to be included somehow in my programs. I don't know how, but this is the intention and I think at the end, what I find it very valuable and it's kind of part of my job description is to support the kinky and the youth to learn how, to learn the next generation farmers how to be a farmer, how to take care of your animals and just trying to put the seed of love and passion about raising animals and the importance of it in food security. Yeah, all of that, of course, with animal welfare, emphasizing animal welfare too. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a lot to think about when you're putting your program together, because you know you want to incorporate a lot of things to be able to support our industries, and it's amazing how it does come together in the end and you're like, oh okay, that's really great. So you do have some responsibility, or some of your program will be with the 4-H group as well, or working with some of the youth in workshops. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm primarily working with producers, all kinds of small livestock producers in Oahu. However, I believe the College of Tropical Agriculture and UH Manoa find and me as well. They're just promoting all of that. Also, the younger generations is very valuable. Yeah, it's built into my position, so I'm going to be working with some workshops, some trainings. You're gonna see me I don't know helping in the in this, the county fair and the state fair. I'll be around. I'll be around for sure. Like I said, this is my second month in the position, so I'm still learning all of that and there's very specific protocols to follow and very specific technical words that I need to just learn for that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm excited. I'm going to learn from all the four H's for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. We have a lot of paperwork behind the doors that we have to do that and reporting that. It consumes us time, but it's got to get it done. So do you currently do you have any programs you want to share that's that are coming up or things that you want to, yeah, share with any of your stakeholders that are?
Speaker 4:I kind of use this channel to begin People get to know me, to get where I'm coming from, what I care, what I value, what I want to do. I'm in an exploratory phase right now, when I'm just.
Speaker 4:I met a lot of not a lot, but a few ranchers and farmers through my career and working at Fuller Ranch, but the ones they haven't met yet, um, I would like to just meet in person, talk, story, learning about how they became farmers and what are the many challenges. So I'm in that phase right now. After that, probably what's gonna happen? I'm gonna, after I gather all the information for farmers, stakeholders, people that are related in the industry, I'm going to try to assess all the needs and just try to prioritize. There's a lot of needs and there's a lot of work that needs to be done, for sure, but we need to just go one step at a time. So we're going to do the main, the things things are impacting the most to ranchers and farmers now. So there's gonna be a priority list and, yeah, all of that, like I say, community-based program. And after that I'm done assessing all the needs, probably all simultaneously, I'm gonna start coordinating some workshops, some training, some, some webinars, seminars. So that's in the works.
Speaker 4:So right now I'm being in contact with the Hawaii Sheep and Goat Association and also the Hawaii Pork Industry Association. They've been very great. I've been learning a lot and, just as in a group setting, sometimes you can get more information than individual settings. So just it's me going to meetings and just going around the island and, yeah, so for future workshops and trainings, probably I don't have anything planned as of right now, but you will be able to see in the Instagram and Facebook of the new Instagram that is called Livestock Extension Oahu, so you guys can follow us and this episode is going to be posted there for sure. If I get the after, I get the link. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think right now is well lately. Social media is the way to go in terms of connecting with people, so we're going to do a lot of Instagram and things like that. Yeah, it's exciting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's good. Yes, and we will, for sure, share any type of workshops and things. We've always shared it on our Livestock Extension group on our Facebook page, as well as our podcast, our Lifestyle Palau podcast, instagram page. So definitely be on there. And yeah, we look forward to workshops and putting on events and things with you, you know, because it's a lot easier and to try and do these things together as a group than individually sometimes. Yeah, we look forward to that. It's great, and I think our producers in Oahu are looking forward to be able to having an agent there on the ground. We've never had an with some extension time, so to have somebody that's going to be 100% of their time being extension, I think it's going to be a great benefit to have you there for our producers and I think they already have enjoyed meeting the ones that you've been able to talk to and stuff. It's been great to get involved with those associations and help them as well to continue their progress that they've done over the years and continue to stay involved. Yeah, very good.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I'm very grateful that Oahu County and the University of Hawaii. They see agriculture and livestock very important. They have this position open and I was able to get this position, so I'm very happy.
Speaker 3:Well, definitely like to have you come back on another episode and we can talk more about. You and I were talking about some of the pastured pig operations and looking at that stuff and some civil pasture things, so we'll have to have you back, so we can have a little bit more focused talk on one of those areas for sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they'll be great. Yeah, for sure, I love that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we hope our listeners found this informative and that it will be useful to them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, make sure to follow us on our social media pages. The Livestock Follow be useful to them. Yeah, make sure to follow us on our social media pages. The livestock follow out and livestock extension group.
Speaker 2:If you haven't already be sure to visit the UHC tar extension website and our YouTube channel listed in the show notes for additional information about this topic, see the show notes of the podcast, like Melee said, in the description box or our YouTube page. Thanks for listening to the livestock followout Before we go, show some love for your favorite podcast that's us by leaving us a review anywhere you listen to this, and then stay tuned for next month's episode.
Speaker 3:Thanks again to our sponsors, the livestock extension group or the university of Hawaii Manoa college of tropical agriculture and human resilience, the center for ag profitability of the university of Nebraska, lincoln, and the Western sustainable agriculture research and education program. Mahalo for listening, a hui hou A hui hou.