During Hawaii’s annual hurricane season, while we track cyclones in the Central Pacific and elsewhere, our ongoing food security dilemma also attracts attention.

This year, as the state grapples with coronavirus-related economic fallout, a brighter spotlight is shining on the issue and how to effectively grow the local agriculture industry.

City Councilmember Kymberly Pine, who recently hosted a virtual town hall addressing food supply concerns, warned in a news release: “The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency estimates that port closures caused by a natural disaster could leave us without food in five to seven days, and we are in hurricane season” through November.

With the state’s farmers struggling to make financial ends meet amid the pandemic, the potentially scary upshot of our over-reliance on imported food is now thrown into sharp relief. Still, this problem is fixable.

While Hawaii imports more than 85% of its food, much of the state’s acreage is zoned for agriculture, although much is now fallow.

Pine and others are rightly urging Hawaii leaders to target relief support for the agriculture industry as a means to strengthening its viability as the state emerges from COVID-19 setbacks. Some efforts are well underway, such as the state Department of Agriculture’s COVID-19 Emergency Farmer Relief Program, through which farmers and other ag operations have secured hundreds of grants.

And in a forward-focused move, the state is poised to spend $10 million in federal COVID-19 relief money for “retraining and workforce development programs” in nontourism areas, zooming in on jobs in agriculture as well as health care and technology.

Further, as geographically isolated Hawaii addresses the need for a more robust farming sector, state lawmakers should revisit legislation that could hinder crop production on ag lands with higher-grade soils, which have a “B” or “C” rating under a state grading system. Prior to 2014, clean-energy solar projects on land with either rating were limited to 10% of a parcel and no more than 20 acres. Under current state law, the cap is completely lifted.

Lawmakers should consider amending the law to again impose a cap, as slightly more than one-fifth of our farmland has the “B” or “C” good-quality rating. And solar farms should be encouraged to set their sights on lands with lesser “D” or “E” ratings, which have no cap. A thriving future for farming here will require deeply rooted, sustained support.