According to the United Nations, “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs for an active and healthy life.” The Star-Advertiser’s recent article, “Farming Opens in a new tab Our Opens in a new tabLand Opens in a new tab” (Insight, Nov. 19), says little about food security.
It speaks about food sustainability but doesn’t say how that should be understood. It says that with more local production, Hawaii could reap economic, environment and health gains. How, for who, at what cost?
Supposedly, “more robust production” could leave us less vulnerable to natural disasters, but high dependence on local production could leave us more vulnerable, especially if the bee mites get their way.
The people who prepare us for emergencies have no plan for dealing with food crises. Simply increasing food production is not a plan.
It’s recognized that Hawaii lacks firm data on how much food is produced locally, and how much is imported. We also need better data on how much is exported. But before chasing more data, we should give more thought to how the data would be used, by whom, and for what.
We already have plenty of data that goes unused.
It is important to distinguish between commercial crops that produce revenue, but little or no food that adds to our food security. Seeds, forests, flowers, coffee and macadamia nuts are not must-have items if the ships stop coming.
Much more could be done to encourage gardening, through which people produce good food mainly for their own consumption, rather than for sale.
It’s reported that new farmers and training programs are key to future sustainability success. Why build up the hopes of young people through training programs if the economics of farming are not promising? Why is it that much of the farm work in Hawaii is done by poorly paid immigrants? Why is it that so much agricultural land in Hawaii lies fallow?
Local farming does not flourish because we can import many food products at a lower cost than we can produce them. That point needs to be addressed, not ignored. The disappearance of locally produced milk provides an important lesson.
Far more of our food dollars go to processed food than fresh food. Local agriculture accounts for only a small share of our overall food supply.
The Food Bank, Aloha Harvest and many food pantries around the state attest to the widespread food insecurity, but somehow the issue is not on the state government’s agenda. Income security for farmers is not the same as food security for people with low incomes. Those people are not clamoring for locally produced food. They just want access to good food at affordable prices.
Hawaii should produce more of the food it consumes, but selectively, for clear reasons. The high priority goals should include increased food security, especially for those who are needy, not simply increasing the production of just any kind of food, or any kind of agricultural product.
The recent article was on “Farming Our Land,” not “Feeding Our People.” It spoke about subsidies for the agriculture industry. How about subsidies for low-income consumers?
There is a need for fresh thinking about food security here, in all its dimensions. There is no unit in state government that takes the lead on this.
George Kent is professor emeritus with the University of Hawaii. His chapter on “Food Security in Hawaii” appears in “Thinking Like an Island: Navigating a Sustainable Future in Hawaii” and in “Food and Power in Hawaii.”
