Paramacharya Palaniswami and Acharya Arumugaswami participated in a meeting at State Sen. Gary Hooser’s office in Honolulu at the Capital Building yesterday regarding the large parcel of State land across the river from the monastery. This 6,500 acre section of agricultural land has been allocated among 13 parcel holders since it was abandoned by the sugar industry in 2000. Today’s meeting finalized aspects of that allocation which had been long pending, in particular assuring that 68 acres of the land will go to a papaya farmer education project being conducted from the Kauai Farm Bureau in conjunction with the University of Hawaii. From left to right: Palaniswami; Arumugaswami; Roy Oyama, president, Kauai Farm Bureau; Sen. Hooser; Laura Thielen, Chairperson, Department of Land and Natural Resources; Sandy Kunimoto, Chairperson, Department of Agriculture; Alfredo Lee, Executive Director, Agribusiness Development Corporation; Dr. Terry Sekioka, Kauai Count Administrator, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii; and Jerry Ornellas, president, East Kauai Water Users Cooperative.