The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service recently updated Hawaii’s reimbursement rate for school lunches and other federal child nutrition programs, which will bring a projected $8 million to support healthful meals for island keiki.

Operators of child nutrition programs, such as the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program, receive federal reimbursements to help cover the costs of meals provided to children. So-called “out­lying areas” such as Hawaii, Alaska and Guam receive higher reimbursement rates than other states because of higher labor and food costs, but there have been calls to increase Hawaii’s share even more.

The state’s reimbursement rate is 17% above what is known as the National Average Payment, but advocates have called for the rate to be 62% above the payment, which would match Alaska’s current rate. The updated Hawaii rate, which is temporary and will go into effect July 1, will increase Hawaii’s reimbursement rate to 30%.

While the new rate is still less than half of what advocates wanted, it’s been met with praise in Hawaii.

“We have been trying to get this increase for over a decade,” said Daniela Spoto, director of anti-hunger initiatives at the Hawai‘i Appleseed Center for Law &Economic Justice, in a statement. The policy institute last year published a report calling for the 62% reimbursement rate.

“Hawai‘i’s reimbursement rate was far too low to be able to operate these programs effectively, and it has been negatively affecting our ability to serve quality meals to children,” Spoto said. “We are incredibly excited for what this means for improving access to and quality of Hawai‘i’s school meals.”

The Hawai‘i Appleseed report said that with a 62% reimbursement rate, the state Department of Education could have received $221 million in federal reimbursements for the federal school lunch and breakfast programs since 2000.

Even higher rates could be coming to Hawaii in the next few years. The USDA, starting in the 2024-2025 school year, said in a news release that it will begin conducting a nationwide study on the costs of producing school meals. The results of the study will be used to adjust the reimbursement rates for outlying areas like Hawaii.

Following the announcement earlier this month of Hawaii’s new 30% reimbursement rate, advocates said they want the state to use the additional federal funding to promote local agriculture.

“We hope that the Hawai‘i DOE spends a portion of this $8 million in federal funding for purchases of locally grown fruits, vegetables, starches and protein from Hawai‘i’s local farmers and ranchers,” said Jesse Cooke, Ulupono Initiative’s vice president of investments and analytics, in a statement. “This additional funding can provide a better quality of food for our students, and will help the Hawai‘i DOE make progress towards its legislatively mandated goal of 30 percent locally-sourced meals by 2030.”

A variety of reports and studies have shown that food insecurity is a problem in Hawaii.

The Economic Research Organization at the University of Hawaii in a survey last year found that 8.9% of surveyed adults in the state experienced low food security and 11.4% reported very low food security.

Aloha United Way last year reported that more than one-third of Hawaii families considered “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed (ALICE)” — in other words, working families that can’t afford the costs associated with housing, child care, food, transportation, health care and other necessities — include children who sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in 2021.

About 12.6% of Hawaii households benefit from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a federal program to provide food to lower-income families, Hawai‘i Appleseed noted in a recent report. The state’s SNAP users are disproportionately Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian and Filipino families, the report found.