Why Hawaii Needs To Rethink Efforts To Increase Local Food Production… Romantic ideas about locally grown food and a lack of statewide planning could be getting in the way of making real progress addressing food insecurity, climate change and the economy.
Double food production in Hawaii. Triple the percentage of locally grown food consumed in the state. Make state agencies source at least half their food locally.
Hawaii has some very ambitious goals for revitalizing the state’s languishing agricultural sector — a desire that has only been intensified by the food shortage scares and supply chain disruptions that have accompanied the coronavirus pandemic.
Meeting any of the state’s production goals would be an enormous achievement. But there’s no comprehensive plan for how the state will get there — or even a clear idea of what a goal like doubling food production will accomplish.
That’s a problem, agricultural experts in the state say.
“We have this kind of fixation or this fetish around agriculture,” says Albie Miles, an assistant professor of sustainable community food systems at the University of Hawaii West Oahu. “But we need to be intellectual about this.”
