In Service to the Land
Erik DeGunther is a hands-on edible landscape designer and farm manager based on the Hamakua Coast of Hawaiʻi's Big Island. For the past three years, he's managed eight acres in Papaikou: designing, planting, and maintaining food systems that work with the land instead of against it. He's also built and maintained plenty of other projects across the Big Island, helping landowners turn their land into something they can actually eat from.
Erik's approach draws on syntropic agroforestry and traditional orchard practices: layered, diversified plantings that support each other the way a real forest does. Once established, these systems mostly take care of themselves. Healthy soil and good design do the heavy lifting, so there's less work and more food, year after year.
As a Pure KNF certified practitioner and board member of the Pure KNF Foundation, Erik applies Korean Natural Farming principles to build biologically active soil without synthetic inputs. For Erik, caring for the soil is more than technique. It's a spiritual practice, a way of honoring the ʻāina and the life it sustains.
Erik believes sustainable land practices can be more profitable than conventional, extractive ones, and he's spent years proving it. He tends the ʻāina with care and gets real returns for his clients doing it. Whether that's turning an overgrown half-acre into a thriving edible landscape or planning out a working farm, he brings the same hands-in-the-dirt dedication to every project.
