Hawaii is a long way from achieving anything approaching food self-sufficiency — the capacity to produce locally a significant portion of the food its population needs — but some important strides have been made that need to be encouraged and amplified.
There is a lack of good baseline data on how much of Hawaii’s food requirements actually are filled locally, a vacuum that the state is working to fill. However, the estimate officials now cite is that Hawaii grows only about 10 to 15 percent of it, a sobering figure.
Changing that is a daunting proposition; the encouraging development, though, is that collaborative efforts by agricultural businesses, nonprofits and state planners are beginning to address the problem.
Some recent developments:
» The first harvest of the Kunia Ag Park was an occasion marked by a public tour Oct. 26.
The park is the first public-private partnership allotting parcels for small-scale farmers. Chili peppers, peanuts, ulu and taro were among the first crops yielded by the land, provided by the partners Hawaii Agricultural Foundation, Island Palm Communities and Monsanto Hawaii.
» Another partnership, involving the state Agricultural Development Corp., the nonprofit Trust for Public Lands and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, is entering the latter stages of planning for the cooperative management of the former Galbraith Estate, 1,720 acres of former pineapple lands north of Wahiawa.
The acreage soon will include a preserve around the historic Kukaniloko birthing stones site, large-scale cultivation and smaller farms.
» Agricultural sustainability was the core issue at the recent convention held by the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, with a presentation of the state’s October 2012 strategic plan on food security and food self-sufficiency.
That blueprint, drawn up by the state’s Office of Planning and the Department of Agriculture, outlines some of the impediments Hawaii farmers and consumers face.
Not all of them involve real estate, according to the plan.
For example, the neighbor islands are where the vast stretches of agriculturally zoned land are located, but the far-flung farmers there face the problem of getting their produce to market; new distribution channels need to be created there.
Some sectors of the industry struggle to manage other high costs, such as the expense of livestock feed hindering local production of eggs, meats and milk. Here there is the prospect of a solution. The DOA and the Oceanic Institute, a research affiliate of Hawaii Pacific University, are studying ways to produce feed more cheaply in-state.
Labor is another concern in a state where the age of farmers averages out at about 60. One way to address this is a new veterans-to-farmers training program offered through community colleges as an employment option for troops seeking to reenter civilian life.
Further, farm products need to reach a wider segment of consumers. Among the strategies here is a new program to enable lower-income shoppers to use their Electronic Benefit Transfer cards to purchase produce at farmers markets.
And to appeal to shoppers seeking more convenience foods, farmers need easier access to processing plants. On Oahu, there’s state funding to support building a plant at a Whitmore Village location; another site in Kunia is also under discussion.
All of these efforts are needed, even with the general understanding that some food products will always be imported to Hawaii. The ability to keep enough avenues open to fill the demand is the aim of an island state’s food-security policy.
Within that broader goal, though, it makes sense to drive down imports from their current 85 to 90 percent share. Shipping disruptions are rare but inevitable occurrences, and such a large proportion of Hawaii’s food stock should not be left so vulnerable to events beyond our control.
