Hawaii’s COVID-19 saga highlighted the food insecurity that exists in the Aloha State. During the depths of the pandemic, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that the Hawaii Foodbank and other nonprofits were working overtime to meet the spike in demand.
Managing our local food supply chain during a plague was a nightmare. However, it begs the question, What would food insecurity look like had we been hit by a different class of natural disaster? For example, how would we fare during a Category 4 storm, which could wreak havoc on our port and other infrastructure?
To answer this question and more, I sought out Albie Miles, assistant professor of sustainable community food systems at the University of Hawaii West Oahu. Miles specializes in the study of diversified agriculture and the structural obstacles to sustainable food and farming systems. In February he received a $1 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to enhance sustainability and resilience in Hawaii’s food system.
I sat down recently with him to discover how the Aloha State might prepare for future disasters.
Question: What lessons about our food system have we learned from the pandemic?
Answer: We learned that household food insecurity in Hawaii (and nationally) is an economic issue and not one of inadequate food production. Low-income U.S. households — for example, being a single mother with children — are at the greatest risk of experiencing food insecurity.
The second important lesson learned is that Hawaii’s food system is vulnerable to interruptions caused by natural and human- caused disasters. The current just-in-time import food system was stretched to capacity under the added strain of the economic impacts of COVID-19. This was without port closures, mass human casualties and downed electrical and loss of other critical infrastructure.
Q: Are we ready for the next natural disaster in our state? Do we have enough of an emergency food supply?
A: This depends on the severity of the disaster, of course, but no. For example, in the instance of a closure of the Port of Honolulu, commercial food stocks are calculated to last only five to seven days (HI-EMA 2019). There is also little in-state storage of commercial, household or emergency food. In 2022, for example, it is estimated that FEMA now stores 3 million emergency meals and 2.7 million liters of water in the state for disaster response. This food and water is not dedicated to Hawaii, but may be used elsewhere in the Pacific, such as Guam.
Q: So, what should we do?
A: We need to pre-position emergency food in vulnerable communities and build more resilient food storage and distribution infrastructure in the state. In addition, we need to better resource key agencies like HI-EMA and enhance coordination and planning between state and county emergency management, the DOD and private-sector actors — such as commercial food distributors. Drawing from both federal and state resources, we’ll need to spend in the neighborhood of $25-$30 million to do this well.
Q: What are the obstacles and opportunities for local food production and consumption in Hawaii?
A: Important obstacles to local food production relate to the lack of infrastructure supporting a diversified ag sector combined with the high cost of production in the state — land, housing, labor, electricity and inputs — resulting in higher-priced, locally produced products competing with the economies of scale of California and other regions where many staple foods can be produced at a cheaper price. High rates of agricultural theft in our state also do not help. One way to address this is we need Hawaii institutions such as the visitor industry, state agencies like the Department of Education, the network of private schools and hospitals to support farmers by purchasing locally produced food. A living-wage standard will help Hawaii households afford the food produced here.
Q: Land is expensive, farming is hard work and the pay/return on investment is not great. How can we encourage young people to enter farming as a profession?
A: Make farming more economically viable through policies that create better conditions for local farmers to be successful. Successful farming takes a great deal of technical training, market research, crop planning, business management and capital investment. Like any other industry or enterprise, it is naive to think that someone can simply walk into it and be successful given the slim margins. In addition to those things previously mentioned, tackling affordable housing near farmland would be important.
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Rob Kay, a Honolulu-based writer, covers technology and sustainability for Tech View and is the creator of fijiguide.com. Email him at Robert fredkay@gmail.com.
