India Clarke
India Clarke, an Oahu based TSP and founder of Hawaii Farms Re-Generation Movement, works to build food sovereignty in her local community through agroforestry design & implementation.
Hawaii Farms Regeneration Movement
In Oahu’s North Shore, what was once 1,300 acres of Dole sugarcane and pineapple land has since been subdivided into 5 acre parcels, largely overgrown by invasives. India Clarke is helping landowners transition this land into collectively organized regenerative orchards.
As a farmer, business owner, and soil health specialist with Oahu RC&D, India wears many hats, though her focus of late has been to mobilize her design work to capture the huge influx in demand among North Shore landowners.
Overyield has helped her mobilize, supporting rapid iteration of designs and earlier communication with landowners, which helps her take on more clients at once.
Agroforestry design
In many of her designs, India applies agroforestry concepts to orchard systems, with traditional orchard rows enabling easier management. Establishing perimeter and in-field windbreaks is often her first step, with species selection informed by an original windbreak decision matrix that matches site considerations to species benefits, such as drought tolerance, plant height, nematode suppression, etc.
Other agroforestry concepts employed include planting fast-yielding mid-term crops like papaya alongside slower-growing, longer-term species like Mango, which ensures supplemental revenue as tree crops mature. India advocates for planting perennial ground cover between rows, though she also intercrops supporting and insectary species such as marigold and comfrey within rows.
Pictured: India creatively uses the section and layer tools to model a food forest.
Economic modeling
India uses the crop template feature prolifically, adding myriad native, canoe, and pre-commercial crops to Overyield. She hopes to refine each template’s data through collaboration with Hawaii grower groups, such as the Hawaii Avocado Association and the Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers. She works with these grower groups on import substitution efforts, aggregating Overyield’s yield projections to inform cumulative yield estimates within regional foodsheds. She often approaches landowners with regional food production goals, asking if they’d like their land to contribute a certain production percentage to a specific goal.
Cross-platform uses
&Implementation
Once designed, India exports her drafts from Overyield, using Adobe Illustrator to layer illustrative, 3-dimensional canopies atop spatially accurate, numbered orchard maps. This helps clients visualize what planted projects will look like long term. Once a design is finalized, India supports clients through an implementation process that doubles as an educational experience. She walks her clients through the intricacies of farm management, such as soil testing and amendment, irrigation installation, etc. She works with her partner, the owner of a grafted native fruit tree nursery, Grow Fruit Hawaii, to install and maintain plantings and manage existing orchards.
