The prospects for the state revitalizing its agricultural industry look discouraging. When six months are invested in ostensibly finding ways to fix mismanagement of state agricultural lands and yield nothing, that is the equivalent of seeds thrown on rocky ground and wasted.
And now the only possible legislation to make any kind of fix to the state Agribusiness Development Corp. is a measure, Senate Bill 2473, which would only shift its oversight administratively, doing little to nothing for its failings.
Not much hope for fruitful progress there. The best that can be said is that some lawmakers who have participated in the process are clear-eyed about the lack of movement toward solutions. If they care about Hawaii’s farming future, they must push to get the overall agricultural initiative out of its stall.
The special House Investigative Committee was convened at the end of the 2021 lawmaking session, officially to dig into the findings of two audits critical of the ADC, an entity formed in 1994. The entity’s own website defines its mission: “to facilitate and provide direction for the transition of Hawaii’s agriculture industry from a dominance of sugar and pineapple to one composed of a diversity of different crops.”
Now, as the corporation closes in on three decades of history, very little of any of that has been realized. Certainly, at least, the legislative probe that was led by state Rep. Della Au Belatti has not moved the needle in the right direction.
Instead the focus of the investigative committee devolved into a critique of the state auditor, Les Kondo, who has become mired in a contentious relationship with Legislature leadership.
Without endlessly dissecting that dysfunction, suffice it to say that there’s enough blame for it to go around. What matters is that lawmakers’ duty to enact solutions was shirked.
Just before the start of the 2022 session in January, the investigative panel released its 292-page final report. The committee ultimately concluded no criminal wrongdoing by Kondo but recommended oversight of his office. It also proposed some four dozen amendments to the ADC and 17 for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, also tagged for land mismanagement, through its Special Land and Development Fund.
But none of the bills drawn up to make fixes have survived. SB 2473 would move ADC from the Department of Agriculture and attach it administratively to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
The problems at the corporation itself, however, are not specifically addressed — and they should be. Kondo raised a number of them in his audits. Among these was its longstanding failure to prepare the mandated agribusiness plan, although the state DOA did publish what it titled “Hawaii Agribusiness Plan 2021,” a 28-page document issued in December 2020.
For dragging his feet on that directive, Kondo largely faulted its executive director, Jimmy Nakatani. The audit quoted Nakatani’s statement that a plan is unnecessary, adding that “I have everything up here,” pointing to his head. Unbelievable.
The ADC has powers and exemptions to help with the transition of plantation-era acreage to smaller holdings suited to diverse crops — the primary mission — but neither staff nor the agency board of directors were aware of how to deploy them.
This is simply unacceptable: both the ADC’s chronic failings and the lack of will by lawmakers to embrace the task of reform, and get on with it.
Legislators have pledged their resolve, time and again, to put Hawaii’s agriculture on a more sustainable path. But without focused action, those are mere words — and this is a lost opportunity to see a mission fulfilled.
