Local ag needs unified support

Food security is a term that’s been bandied about in recent months as an undeniably worthy goal for Hawaii to achieve.

The game plan, of course, would depend on how one defines “security.” It appears that the state needs to make sure it’s aligned all the programs needed and see that they’re not at cross purposes with one another.

One element of security is to increase the amount of homegrown food Hawaii produces for local consumption. The idea is that if food supplies from imports are imperiled in a shipping disruption, the state would have at least some capacity to maintain stocks for a time.

But security also means safety, too. The state must work with its still-fledgling small-farming industry toward meeting the food-safety rules required to stay in business.

The complication to the overall security mission is the federal Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), signed by President Barack Obama in 2011. Federal authorities have extended to 2018 the deadline for compliance with new rules aimed at keeping produce safe and sanitary.

But Hawaii has a long way to go in bringing farmers in line with those rules, and no more time must be lost.

The issue bubbled to the surface last week at a Kunia workshop for farmers, presented in partnership among the seed developer Monsanto and federal and state authorities.

Scott Enright, director of the state Department of Agriculture, noted the challenge ahead posed by the FSMA — even if, under the law, most Hawaii farming operations are small enough that they’d be technically exempt.

The realities of the marketplace, however, spell out the need to comply, anyway: Enright said the commercial buyers of homegrown produce, worried about liability over food safety issues, would feel compelled to buy from farmers certified as safe.

The rules can be daunting, covering everything from general food-packing standards to the handling of sprouts, particularly vulnerable to microbial contamination.

And they have been changing. A draft water quality rule, for example, drew complaints from one farmer because it proposed to bar workers from bringing bottled water in the fields.

Rules are nearly final now, so the confusion should be clearing. What the farmers need at this point is solid advice for what accommodations can be reasonably made to ensure compliance.

The department two years ago began a series of meetings by the Good Agricultural Practices Task Force to prepare, but officials rightly remain concerned that compliance efforts by farmers are lagging.

Distributors, such as Armstrong Produce, are offering to help farms work toward certification. The company’s marketing director, Leticia Uyehara, said those “not practicing good sanitation practices both in their field and in their packing houses” likely won’t be suppliers anymore.

That leaves Enright worried enough to predict that Hawaii could lose up to 30 percent of its farms because of inability to get enough product to market.

This hurdle needs to be overcome in the next year. The department has taken corrective action, fortunately, by creating a food safety branch with a manager to be hired in December, with the directive to get more farms into compliance. The Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation has a $750,000 state grant to work on outreach, too.

So much more must happen in the drive toward food security. In the Insight section of Sunday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser, stakeholders and advocates in the food-production sector outlined numerous issues involved in meeting Gov. David Ige’s goal of doubling food production by 2030.

Sufficient land at affordable lease rates must be available. Training for new farmers must be a priority, with farm extension agents dispatched to help with education on the business of agriculture. Water allocation issues must be resolved if a farm is to survive. Aid with the financing required for the startup costs is essential.

But all of these things must happen in tandem with aggressive outreach to keep the food supply safe and marketable. Otherwise, the dream of agricultural diversification, with the potential to put more fresh food on Hawaii tables, will die on the vine.