We focus on the 2023 legislative session in Hawai’i and what was hoped to be accomplished for food systems, what didn’t happen, and some speculation as to why. With Anne Frederick of HAPA and Thomas Heaton of Civil Beat.
Kuleana is “a uniquely Hawaiian value and practice which is loosely translated to mean ‘responsibility.’ The word kuleana refers to a reciprocal relationship between the person who is responsible, and the thing which they are responsible for.” (from Hawaiian Word of the Day, Hawaii News Now).
In this episode, we talk about kuleana and politics with Anne Frederick, Executive Director of the nonprofit HAPA, and with Thomas Heaton, reporter for the Hawai’i news publication, Civil Beat.
Anne Frederick’s organization, HAPA (Hawai’i Alliance for Progressive Action), engages deeply in state legislative politics. It was founded in 2014 around the issues of food justice and pesticide use. HAPA also founded the Kuleana Academy, a political training and accelerator program focusing on building capacity in community leaders on issue-based, political, or electoral campaigns.
The first part of this episode is an interview with Anne in the middle of a busy legislative session, which found her team organizing community and stakeholder engagement on a suite of bills, which we’ll discuss. You’ll hear about their particular focus on land use and tax incentives to level the playing field.
I invited Thomas Heaton, a reporter at the news publication Civil Beat, to join us in the second half of this episode. Civil Beat is a non-profit online investigative journalism publication. Thomas is a New Zealand native who came to Hawai’i by way of his interest in the food system, developed during his global reporting experience.
An explanatory note on one of the topics: we discussed the unexpected demise of a bill to provide state matching funds to a program we speak of as “Da Bux '' which is Hawai’i’s way of describing its Double Up Bucks program. In some states, the program is called Market Match. Each state has their own version of the program, which is based on the federal Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP; also known as Market Match, Double Up Bucks, Veggie Voucher). GusNIP is a federal program, which provides people who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (SNAP, or food stamps) up to $10 in vouchers at participating farmers’ markets, when they use their benefits to purchase fruits and vegetables.
For More Info:
Anne’s 2023 Legislative Session Debrief (includes info on the Da Bux program, discussed in the episode)
Civil Beat coverage of a report by HAPA on pesticide use on Hawai'i farms
More about Thomas Heaton
The Hawai'i Grown section of Civil Beat, with many of Thomas Heaton's stories
Credits:
Created, produced, and hosted by Paula Daniels
Sound engineer: Rob Pera
Theme music: Caryssa Shinozawa
Logo: Reiko Quitevis and Sue Woodard
Paula Daniels 00:00
Anne, how would you define kuleana?
Anne Frederick 00:04
I'm sure it translates in different ways, right? So responsibility, privilege... Often was used in relationship to land as one's, you know, kuleana--to care for land. For us, we really think about in terms of helping kind of emerging leaders navigate their political kuleana. Who are you there to represent? Why are you there? What is your... what is an appropriate responsibility, right? Like we try to interrogate that in the program, as well as looking at one's positionality, one's relationship to place and history, and connection to place as informing one's kuleana.
Paula Daniels 00:42
Welcome to the Thirty Percent podcast about Hawaii's goal of 30% local food production, which means doubling where the islands are today. I'm your host and creator of this podcast, Paula Daniels.
Thomas Heaton 00:54
And I feel it I'm very fortunate to be here in Hawaii, where I'm taking up this role with the Hawaii Grown project and delving into all the problems that exist and all of the issues that exist when it comes to that kind of question or statement that gets thrown around a lot of we import 80%, 90%, whatever number that kind of comes up that on that particular day. And we're looking at solutions within that. And over the past two years, almost two years, it's really been enlightening because there are many bottlenecks in the system. There are so many knots that need to be untied.
Paula Daniels 01:39
So many knots to be untied, indeed. Thomas Heaton of the news publication Civil Beat put it well. We'll hear more from him and Anne Frederick of the nonprofit HAPA in this episode. To start us off though, I'd like to recap briefly the arc of our season thus far. We've been talking to different community academic, farm or food system practitioner and political leaders of Hawaii, about food system reform pegged to a goal of doubling local food production. Since the current state of the food system is a systemic knot in many places, it takes a range of actors working on different aspects of a system to undo those knots, or move the big ship in a different direction depending on which metaphor feels right for the moment. Because all metaphors about making change in a complex system are apt, I'll pick for today, the flywheel metaphor, in which one small gear can influence a larger gear, which influences a larger gear, and so on. Engine certainly work that way. And so if we were to stick with that metaphor, the steering mechanism on a large ship moves the gear which activates a power unit, which moves a rope or a lever or a gear, which moves a rudder, and then the ship slowly turns. The 30% goal is the steering wheel. The community leaders we've talked to are pulling at different ropes or moving different gears that all line up to move the big boat of the food system so that it is responsive to current conditions. To make changes in the food system requires activating culture, community, land stewardship, supply chain intermediaries, and infrastructure demand generation, which we've talked about in our prior episodes, as well as economic development and workforce development, which we'll get to in later episodes. Together, these gears make the wheels and runners of the system move.
Paula Daniels 03:29
An inevitable aspect of any system is politics. The work of the executive and legislative branches of any level of government is of itself a system that greatly influences all other systems. It is where in the best of circumstances broken nets come to be mended, where policy gaps are filled, where outdated systems are updated. At least, that's the ideal. Whether it works as well as it could as the subject of much scrutiny, as it should be. But whether it works well or not, it is absolutely necessary to making any change happen. My mother, who was an elected official in Hawaii in the 1990s said, "If you don't care about politics, know this: politics cares about you." In other words, even if you don't pay attention to it, the wheels of politics are grinding away and making decisions that will affect your life one way or another. So it's in your best interest to care about it. Of course, I had to have an episode about politics. So for this, I invited Anne Frederick, executive director of a nonprofit called HAPA, which engages deeply in state legislative politics. HAPA was founded in 2014. around the issues of food justice and pesticide use. HAPA also founded the Kuleana Academy, a political training and accelerator program focusing on building capacity and community leaders on issue-based. political. or electoral campaigns. I interviewed and in the middle of a busy legislative session which found her team organizing community and stakeholder engagement on a suite of bills which we'll discuss. You'll hear about their particular focus on land use and tax incentives to level the playing field, among other things. An architect by training, Anne moved to Hawaii from New York and lives on a seven acre farm in Kauai, where she pursues her own kuleana, or sense of responsibility to Hawaii's food system. When I first interviewed Anne in the middle of Hawaii's fast moving and comparatively short four-month legislative session, she was hopeful that a number of bills she was advancing would succeed. As it turned out, they didn't. So to reflect on what happened to food system bills this legislative session in Hawaii, I invited Thomas Heaton of Civil Beat to join us in the second half of this episode. Civil Beat is a nonprofit, online investigative journalism publication, founded by Pierre Omidyar. Thomas is a reporter and focuses on issues in and around the Pacific, and specifically on food systems. He's a New Zealand native who came to Hawaii by way of its interest in food developed during his reporting stint in Nepal.
Thomas Heaton 06:10
So it was only after working in the world of glossy, kind of food media. I think it was a couple of years that I was working for a magazine and I grew rather tired of how the food system's talked about in those kind of areas. That was as if the conversation about food was plate deep. It was very much a conversation of yes, this beautiful tomato was grown here and here's why it's so amazing. And it's had an air of exclusivity to it, which kind of really intrigued me and also troubled me that good food is exclusive. So it was actually by the time I was in Nepal, I was covering food, I really got to know about how food systems work.
Paula Daniels 06:59
And here's how Anne Frederick comes into Hawaii's food system picture.
Anne Frederick 07:02
I started a nonprofit out of the firm that I was working for called Hester Street. And the timeline for the organization now is "where the people shape their cities." So it was really about, how do we ensure that the people who stand to be most impacted by land use decision making are centered in those decisions and have a role.
Paula Daniels 07:23
Over the course of 12 years and nonprofit grew successfully making a difference in the neighborhood the organization served. She took a sabbatical came to Hawaii to surf, and met the man who would become her husband, changing her life and the trajectory of her focus.
07:37
,My husband and I live in Anahola in the farm homesteads. And we live on a seven acre farm that my husband and my father-in-law planted together.
07:48
And she became the Executive Director of HAPA.
07:51
HAPA has a very broad sort of social, environmental and economic justice mission. But our work was really founded out of the struggle, particularly on Kauai to protect communities from harmful extractive practices of the agro-chemical industry here in Hawaii. On the west side of our island. communities were getting sick from exposure to pesticide drift adjacent to large agro-chemical test fields. And we first really just began advocating for basic public health protections that the communities living near those fields were asking for. But that was sort of our way into the larger local food systems conversation and thinking about this issue is connected to a much broader set of issues and policies across our food system.
Paula Daniels 08:34
And HAPA stands for what? It has two meanings as I understand it. HAPA means "half" in the Hawaiian language, but it's an acronym for you all as well, right?
Anne Frederick 08:44
Yes. HAPA stands for the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action. And it was a nod to, I think, when the organization, this was before I was involved, but when it was founded, it was really, again, a nod to creating a multiracial, kind of intersectional space and the bringing together of different movements, but also cultures from Hawaii.
Paula Daniels 09:05
You're unabashedly progressive, right? Just as in your name. So it tends to be I imagine a self-selecting group in terms of the policy ideology, if that's a fair word to use that folks bring in and maybe continue with.
Anne Frederick 09:20
Yeah, it's interesting, because our state is so heavily Democratic. So we see within even within the Democratic Party, a really broad range of lenses that lawmakers come to the work with. And in some cases, we've had Republicans who are really like great environmental champions. So it's interesting. I think Hawaii is unique in that way. And we are nonpartisan. So we do actually bring in speakers from different parties. So even though there's not a ton of Republicans in Hawaii, but we always make sure to have some different party representation. And but we do definitely have a lens of community accountability, looking at policy through what is best for the people of Hawaii, and the care for our land and natural resources.
Paula Daniels 10:08
I really appreciate hearing about that, because we're sitting in a time of extreme polarization in our political parties at the federal level, for sure, at least, it's been, I think it's fair to say it's been fairly well-documented that there's some shifts happening in the Republican Party nationally. And I don't mean to make this a conversation about party politics. But I will say that I've always struggled with this linear description of how people think in terms of their values, that it's either right far right or left, far left and there's center. So it's a line, which strikes me as just very two dimensional. And I've always bucked that idea, because I know people who might be what some would call conservative on some issues, but are not on others. So they might, you know, believe in an unrestricted amount of access to guns, say, but they will be very, very much a champion for environmental protection. So for me, I feel it, I feel it's like it could be dangerous and contribute somewhat to the polarization, that we're insisting on putting people in these boxes according to party description, or the left, right and center paradigm when it seems to me like more like Venn diagrams, right. There's overlapping interests in some areas. And how do we address those overlapping interest areas? Would you say that? It sounds like that's how you approach your cohort recruitment.
11:36
Oh, absolutely. And I think that Venn diagram you're talking about is really interesting in Hawaii because, like you said, there's been historically, really, like Republican lawmakers who have been great environmental champions who are Republicans. So I think unfortunately, I think our information ecosystem has done a real disservice to the broader public in terms of like really exacerbating that polarization you're talking about? So we do really encourage folks to also be kind of nuanced in their advocacy work, right? So looking at like, one lawmaker might be not aligned on this priority, but then they might align with you on another priority. So especially because our community is so small, and relationships are so central to how we operate in Hawaii, I think, looking at how do we just have a more nuanced rather than black-and-white kind of assessment of lawmakers and their decision-making and just really look at, okay, we might not agree on this thing, but can we work on this other thing together? And I think, yeah, I just think that's a smarter strategy for engaging around legislature in general. So we try to encourage folks, and that's why we invite in different different speakers with different beliefs. So that, should these folks get elected to office, they get a sense of who they're going to be working with, and kind of ideas and values that they're going to navigate within the building.
Paula Daniels 13:00
So what's cooking this year? What's really hot on the agenda for the legislative calendar for 2023?
Anne Frederick 13:07
I think even the Farm Bureau rep said last year, it was a banner year for food systems bills or for agriculture bills. So I think we're seeing more of that this year. There is a really robust food systems policy agenda. We're tracking around 26 bills and sending alerts on about 26 bills, and we've roughly organize them into these buckets: public land management, expanding pesticide protections, pollinator protections, regenerative farming practices, indigenous food systems, and then this kind of bigger category of food for good change, which is a lot of good food procurement-related bills. We're seeing a lot of incentives. And so I'm hoping that, seeing the need, they're seeing the need to resource food systems change to actually create the kind of food system that we want to see to reach the 30% goals. So yeah, for example, some of the public land management priorities. We've been focused a lot on the reform of the Agribusiness Development Corporation, there was really scathing audit and 2021 that came out if the agency was basically tasked with looking at the ticking the old form of sugar and pineapple lands and creating diversified agriculture and agribusiness. Initially, it was created specifically to catalyze agribusiness for export. And we've seen the mandate of one good policy fix, was that the mandate of the agency was shifted towards more local food production, which again, supports the goals of reaching 30%.
Paula Daniels 14:40
That's the 30% local by 2030. Aloha+ Challenge!
Anne Frederick 14:45
That's it! But I think there's still a lot of missed opportunities, right? The ADC has 1000s of acres of public agricultural lands under its purview and we believe, especially when you look at farmer needs assessments that, you know, over and over prioritize access to affordable lands and leases and long term leases. We think there's a missed opportunity to get some of those farmers on public lands. And again, it gets back to this conversation of what do we subsidize? We can look at public land as a kind of subsidy. And if we want to see more local food production, we should you know, the agency could be really trying to crack that nut right now. Part of the challenge is that the leases are really huge. They're really designed for larger scale industrial. But yeah, so for smaller operations, smaller producers, there's just not a way in. And so I don't know, I think the agency could be thinking more creatively about partnerships like fostering co-ops. There is a co-op of agrochemical tenants on the west side of Kauai that occupy most of those ADC lands. Again, it's looking at these public subsidies, do we want to subsidize developing experimental pesticide resistant crops? Or do we want to incentivize growing local foods sustainably to feed our community here?
Paula Daniels 16:06
This may not be a fair question, but are you able to like ballpark? What percent of the thinking in Hawaii favors that industrial scale? And what percent do you think favors the local food system idea? And recognizing, I want to put a frame on this, is that I don't think anybody it's not my sense that anybody who believes in the local food system believes it should be 100% local. It's more than it should be a sufficient amount, and many of us are talking about that 30% goal. So let's, that's but that frame on the question that how many do you think, "that's ridiculous" and we need to keep business going, as it has been? And how many, like what proportion, do you think it is, of, let's say, lawmakers and those in leadership, who really believe that we can get to a 30% local food system?
Anne Frederick 16:57
Ah, that's a good question. I really, I think, I don't know, percentage-wise? I do think, if I try to understand why that still persists, and why it's intrenched here... I think there's like the history of the plantation economy, right? That preceded, then, a large agrichemical biotech footprint. So I think there's just this over a century of "this is how we do it." You know?
Paula Daniels 17:25
"We have jobs here in this"
Anne Frederick 17:26
Yeah, these are our job providers. I think there's just like a history, a sort of entrenched history, maybe that's especially the older guard, maybe folks who have been in leadership longer. And I think, not necessarily only the younger, next generation, but I think there's a lot of, there's just so much amazing work to revitalize the ancient, the pre-colonial footprint, food systems footprint here, whether it's taro patches that have been reactivated, or fish ponds. So I think you see all this incredible work happening, that shows that yes, there's this incredible blueprint, this infrastructure that exists that is like proof that Hawaii has fed itself locally and grown our food locally. Yet there, there's the like, overlay of the over 100 years of plantation agriculture that that that just decimated a lot of that as well that it feels like Hawaii is still shaking free from, but, you know, I think when you go out into the community, you see just a real proliferation of revitalizing native Hawaiian food systems. So I think out when you get outside of like political leadership, there's incredible interests. I mean, what we see when we put out our alerts is just, that's why we've continued to do them. It's just such a robust response. I think for the bills that we tracked last year, 60% of the testimony came from our alerts. So we know that people are really like the broader public is really supportive of these investments and growing our local food economy and doing it in a regenerative way. And I think it's just more kind of entrenched in our political leadership right now. This is like their model, unfortunately. So, but it's changing, you know, and what I think is changing is especially a lot of the really positive solution-oriented bills are moving. The support for food hubs, support for the Healthy Soils initiatives, support for trying to crack the nut of Farm to School, seems to be, those things seem to be advancing every year. The top five users of restricted use pesticides account for 97% of the total usage across Hawaii. So that tells you something. It's just not, there's like the majority of farms are farming sustainably. And so it's interesting that that yeah, that the political leadership doesn't really reflect what's happening on the ground.
Anne Frederick 17:28
I wonder if it's just a matter of needing some time to catch up with how to make those systems changes because what's available to them, is probably limited in terms of existing funding streams and so forth. So do you have a sense of how much, you've mentioned public lands for public good. So do you have a sense of how much by proportion, acreage or whatever proportion, you can characterize could be made more available to the public good?
Anne Frederick 20:16
Yeah. So there are just under 23,000 acres of ADC lands. The majority of those, almost 13,000 acres, are on the west side of Kauai. And then the majority of the rest of them are in Central Oahu. So some are leased out to conventional growers in Central Oahu, and then the majority on the west side of Kauai, are agrochemical tenants, but I don't believe all of those, that acreage is fully occupied. And I think same with Central Oahu, I think there's still land that they haven't filled. So in terms of how much of those lands are vacant, I couldn't see at the top of my head, but certainly we have a lot of smaller scale growers that would love to have access to affordable public leases with access to water. So I think you know, I think that's a real opportunity to support our local producers. I believe they have ranching leases and other ag lands. So...
Paula Daniels 21:18
When you say there are commercial growers in central Oahu, do you know what kind of crops are being grown there?
Anne Frederick 21:23
Yeah, some of the conventional growers... Sugar Land Farms is one of the biggest tenants. I believe Sugar Land might be the biggest conventional grower on ADC right now. I know there's like a Christmas tree farm on the Central Oahu lands as well.
Paula Daniels 21:38
They're growing Christmas trees on Oahu?
Paula Daniels 21:43
Okay. And then, so you also mentioned agrochemical tenants in Kauai. That is where we started on that conversation, but can you talk about what they're growing there, and how significant that is from a crop production standpoint.
Anne Frederick 21:43
Yeah.
Anne Frederick 21:58
Yeah. So predominantly, my understanding is that they're growing like herbicide resistance, they're developing and testing herbicide resistance in crops and developing parents seed for export. So this kind of feeds into our larger, if we look at the larger like US food system, and how much land is really dedicated to growing corn, genetically-engineered corn for things like ethanol and animal feed, and that then feeds into kind of like how we raised meat predominantly in the US which is a lot of contained animal feeding operations. So again, it's this whole system, right? That's this whole industrialized system, that the acreage the ADC lands on the west side of Kauai are really like more kind of the research and development end of that system. So yeah, I think it's, you know, again, testing, herbicide resistance in crops isn't probably the best use of our public ag lands. And again, it's essentially a subsidy to multibillion dollar corporate agrochemical tenants. So if we're thinking about how we want to leverage the subsidies, is this the highest and best use of those lands? Or is there another public good that we could be supporting?
Paula Daniels 23:10
Very interesting question. Indeed.
Anne Frederick 23:12
I think those are the kind of questions we should be asking around our public ag lands.
Paula Daniels 23:15
So to come back to this really interesting suite of ideas that are being proposed that you're tracking. There's also a chunk in indigenous food ways. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Anne Frederick 23:27
So yeah, we've been tracking, mostly most of those bills are support for kalo farming, or taro farming. So they are there's a range of tax exemptions. So general excise tax exemption, which is our 4%, state tax. Kalo farming water access, so trying to streamline the water disposition process for traditional customary taro farmers. There's a bill that would provide grants for kalo farming operations, and then there's other ones around fish pond restoration, streamlining the kind of process of revitalizing fish ponds and appropriating funds to restocking fish ponds, and other things like that. So those are encouraging. Those are and let's see, those are, yeah, a lot of those are still moving. So that's exciting.
Paula Daniels 23:34
There's some tax exemptions, as you mentioned. So you talked about that before, but the point of a tax exemption is to declare public policy interest in a certain area and just say, "because we value this, we're going to give you a break on taxes." So it reallocates resources. Is that right?
Anne Frederick 24:38
That's correct. And we've had other crops that have had GE tax exemptions or general excise tax exemptions, such as, like genetically engineered crops have been tax exempt in Hawaii.
Paula Daniels 24:50
I did not know that!
Anne Frederick 24:52
Yeah, fun fact. So it seems to only, to me, it only makes sense that we should offer that same tax exemption for taro farmers.
Paula Daniels 25:01
In addition to these ideas to support kalo farming in Hawaii, which I really think is just so important and I'm glad to see that's happening, what else? You said you there's some regenerative farming practices ideas that are being presented?
Anne Frederick 25:15
Yeah, there is a bill, it didn't quite make it over the finish line last year and got reintroduced to incentivize healthy soils. And I think this is really informed by their other states who have passed similar--I think it falls under the Land and Water Conservation--kind of approaches to incentivizing regenerative practices. So I think the idea with this bill is that there would be, there's an aspect that's like an assessment of current soils in Hawaii, which is really needed, just given how depleted our soils are from intensive industrial agriculture. And then also incentivizing different kinds of climate-friendly soil management practices. And there's two versions; there's a House and a Senate version that are both moving.
Paula Daniels 26:04
These are important. There's a strong healthy soils program in many states, including California. And there's been criticism often about how it doesn't get funded enough. But there could always be more, but at least there's a start, which I think is good. Farm to School also tends to always show up every legislative session. Can you just talk about that overall? Do you feel like there's been progress on the Farm to School front, let's say legislatively, but as well as a movement overall? And then where do you see the next stage being right about now?
Anne Frederick 26:37
What I understand from the folks who've been working on it is that it had some had some early progress and successes. And then there were setbacks, particularly during the pandemic. And so I know some of the bills this session are looking at how to address the challenges of statewide procurement, the really centralized nature of our Department of Education, and how to regionalize procurement. So giving more, delegating more authority at the regional level, to be able to procure from local farmers in your region. So I know that those are some of the fixes that they're looking at. And I know that there have been different efforts within the agency, and then through legislation as well. So I think this is an effort to try and assess what the roadblocks have been and address them through policy.
Paula Daniels 27:23
And then maybe to help institutionalize it because some of these initiatives can be managed by, let's say, a strong leader who's interested in doing it. But if that leader changes, then at least there's a fallback in terms of a law saying, "we're allowing you to do this work" and removing any roadblocks for it. Is that right?
Anne Frederick 27:40
Yeah, I think that's huge actually, because, as you mentioned, from administration to administration, you might have a really great champion who's head of an agency and one administration, and then that could change. So I think institutionalizing in statute is really important to ensuring longevity. But it seems like one of the challenges we've seen from other issues we've worked on is, you might get a great bill passed and then it can be implemented really poorly, too. So it does take both of those kind of levers pressing on the policy angle, but then also the interagency work as well.
Paula Daniels 28:13
True. Teally appreciate you doing this legislative recap from this session. This'll be exciting to think about how these move. When we come back, we'll find out what happened with the bills that Anne was tracking in the 2023 legislative session, as we continue our discussion with Anne, and also Thomas Heaton of Civil Beat.
Thomas Heaton 28:34
I love that food systems are so complicated and confusing, because there's always something more to think about with systems-thinking, as we often talk about, and yeah, so I also in my work, I also keep an eye on the Pacific and the Pacific food systems because of course, the Pacific's at the coalface of climate change, and it's the canaries in the coal mine, whichever, whichever kind of cliche might be thrown about or whichever cliche I can come up with. It's all there and other Pacific holds--Pacific islands, nations territories--hold so many lessons for Hawaii and Hawaii has many ways that it can also help as the entire region contends with climate change and works to sustainably intensify agriculture to a point where there isn't this cliff that it's facing. So yeah.
Paula Daniels 29:35
I have often said to folks that I believe there's a parallel between Hawaii and Iowa. While some may say there's no comparison between Hawaii and Iowa other than a combination of letters that are in different orders, what I found similar between Hawaii and Iowa is: Iowa has very fertile growing area but has been dominated by monoculture cropping with corn and soy and so forth, and there are organizations there that are trying to have more of a regional food system, but it requires them to get access to land. And there's an organization for example, called Sustainable Iowa Land Trust, that is trying to get more access to land and to build more agricultural conservation easements and so forth. So in that sense, I feel like because I, in my view, you know, it seems like in Hawaii agriculture, the farmers might need more access to land, there might be some similarities there. But we digress, back to this recent legislative session in Hawaii, what bills were your tracking as a reporter?
Thomas Heaton 30:37
For me, and Civil Beat, we're really interested in looking at the barriers to farming. So we're naturally interested in things like subsidies and creating incentives because they not only highlight issues, but they also highlight solutions. So at first, I guess the major barriers for farming, to actually produce food, if we're talking about part of the food system, producing food is the cost of doing business. Once again, subsidies and incentives. So, I was interested in this wave of bills. But looking at tax credits, specifically, there were quite a few. There was one exempting kalo farmers or taro farmers from certain taxes. That one seemed like it could really benefit them. So it helped kalo or taro farmers earning over $10,000 from the crop per year, and it essentially just exempted them from certain excise taxes on things like machinery or seed or you name it. That's what was exempted for them. But other than tax credits, I was really interested in infrastructure. Yeah, so essentially, a lot of the bottlenecks that I hear about in conversations are infrastructure related, whether it's from before planting, or before rearing, or if it's post production, if it's harvesting, if it's sale--from seed to shelf, essentially--there are bottlenecks everywhere. I was particularly interested in livestock production. And I was following a number of bills relating to that which focused on, one of which was focused on getting wild game onto plates. Of course, Maui has a--Maui County, So Moloka‘i, Lanai, and Maui have massive problems with invasive deer. And just about every island has a problem with pigs. And then so yes, so I was very, I was very interested in a few bills that would have helped essentially get wild game into the most accessible form of the food system, like getting it onto supermarket shelves. Most of those bills died; however, there was one that did live on. And that was, I believe, a bill that will help get wildgame into nutrition program and into hunger relief programs, such as food banks and stuff like that. I think the biggest omission that I can identify as DA BUX program. I can't say exactly what happened to the bill, but I'd be really interested to know what you have to say. And essentially, they passed on a chance--lawmakers passed on a chance--to double up their own bucks, and have a really effective program go forward. With this program, as you both know, is kind of a triple whammy.
Paula Daniels 33:24
Yeah.
Thomas Heaton 33:24
It benefits local economy, it benefits farmers, and of course it benefits those recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP.
Paula Daniels 33:33
Yeah. Thank you for that. Anne, what's your take on what happened with DA BUX? And then maybe as you speak on that, let us know what other sort of take you have on the legislative session, the bills you're tracking, and how it ended up.
Anne Frederick 33:46
So yeah, HAPA was tracking over 50 bills this session, only two of those passed out of conference committee, which were a bill to increase fines, state fines, for pesticide use violations. And then another bill for fair coffee labeling. So DA BUX is really mystifying to me. I don't understand, really, it was like, as, I think Thomas already mentioned, was leveraging federal funds. It's, as he mentioned, as well, like a...
Paula Daniels 34:16
It was to create a match, was that the idea behind the bill?
Anne Frederick 34:19
There's a federal match, correct, yeah. $3 million appropriation which would have been matched by federal funds, and I think an estimated 12.6 million into the local economy from Civil Beats reporting. Honestly, I can't really shed a light on that one, other than this session seemed more chaotic, perhaps than other sessions that we've been involved with. So I'm not sure why that was, but it was really a real contrast to the prior year, which was a banner year for food systems and agriculture, according to the Farm Bureau. So it was really mystifying because I think it's a program that has a strong track record, although there is I will say a push right now to have it included in the budget. So I think there's I think we really like yes, we should look at in particular policies, but I think also the underlying structural issues that may be cutting across whether it's food systems or other issue areas of really, should we look at the power of committee chairs? Often they can choose to not hear a bill witout, with really no justification, which can be problematic. And then also the power of money chairs in the legislature, and also issues of transparency, which I think, again, like Civil Beat did a great job of covering reforms to the legislature and what made it and didn't make it because I think it's within that context that we see how really good and really important priorities can easily die.
Paula Daniels 35:47
And it requires a lot of engagement. How many people are actually engaged in that process? How many organizations? What are you finding Thomas, in terms of the engagement in the political structure in Hawaii as compared to other places you've covered?
Thomas Heaton 36:01
I think that there is a good level of engagement, although it is probably more of a picture of a passionate few, really. Lots of advocacy groups, right? Lots of industry groups. But when it comes to even if you just look at testimony, right, submitted testimony, I would say that the lion's share is from advocacy groups or industry groups. There aren't many kind of grassroots organizations really, not just grass roots, people. People from the grass roots who are really pushing this stuff.
Paula Daniels 36:34
in one of the observations that has been made is that Hawaii has a very short legislative session. It's four months, essentially. And there's a bit of a tail to that, but there's TIL, but it's four months. And the hearing notices are very short. But I will say California that has a longer legislative session starts in January, but it starts winding down around September. So there's more time, there's definitely more time for committee hearings, there's more time for engagement, for testimony, for all those opportunities for people to organize so they can get people to the Capitol to testify, or on Zoom. You still have the challenge of things dying at the end because the committee chair didn't move it forward or it died in suspense file. There's was article in the LA Times this morning about that. While that doesn't cure all things, what do you think about Hawai'i's timing on its legislative session? I think there was some conversation around changing that as well, this year, wasn't there? Do you think that would help? If there was a change like that?
Thomas Heaton 37:32
There certainly was. There was a big discussion there about extending it. And I think so, well we raised the question of why do we have to have it this way? Why can't we look at these other ways. So just for me, I sign up to all the alerts from the different organizations that are focused on food systems. And it's always, "we need you to help, please come testify, or please submit your testimony. Deadlines tomorrow."
Paula Daniels 37:59
Yeah, pretty hard to get organized for tomorrow.
Thomas Heaton 38:01
Yeah, absolutely. When it's a statewide issue, you're talking to farmers. These guys aren't on their emails all the time, they're out in the field. I think it's a valid question. I'm not, yeah, I'll probably defer on her thoughts.
Anne Frederick 38:17
Sure. Yeah, I think it is challenging having such a short session, we are one of the groups that is sending out those alerts. And we really didn't notice there was a gap in kind of a broader food systems, like mobilizing of kind of grassroots testimony. And that's why we really expanded our policy agenda and ramped up our kind of legislative mobilizing, but our staff, it's an all hands on deck situation where the hearing notices often drop after working hours on Friday evening. And we just work on the weekend to try and get the alerts out. So people have time. And again, it's a really have a day to submit testimonies.
Paula Daniels 38:56
And then I would imagine there's a frustration level if they did take the time to fly in from the outer islands or to take time off of work, just even sit there and listen. One time I gave testimony and I couldn't do anything else for two hours. And it was by audio, that I had to block my calendar for that time. So I would imagine part of what you're facing here is that if they're taking that time, and then the bill dies anyway, they probably wonder should I put that effort in again the next time? Should I keep trying this?
Anne Frederick 39:24
I do think there is a level of cynicism that develops over time. I can say we worked on Pesticide Regulation issues for a long time. And really what you mentioned in Iowa where you have this kind of outsized influence of certain industries that are using up a lot of our public ag lands, that are really trying to democratize how those lands get allocated and the practices how public ag lands are managed. You know, there have been folks who've been working on those issues for going on maybe two decades now. It does, it is challenging to keep people engaged over time, although I do think there has been a resurgence and looking at our food systems, especially since COVID, of looked at what are these potential other economic drivers, looking at our food system and the opportunities in the food system, so not just narrowly at any one facet of it, whether it's Pesticide Regulation, but looking, I think there has been and I really credit also Civil Beat to really amplifying the public conversation around our food systems and looking at it comprehensively rather than in just narrow silos. I do think that there is a renewed interest and, and looking at the opportunities and mysteries along our food system, and how do we have these, like similar to the double bucks program, triple wins, where we have it for our local economy, for local producers, for our environment. What are the multiple wins that we can see along our food system?
Paula Daniels 40:47
Since we're talking about the legislature, there's a couple of thoughts I want to play out here and get your reactions to: one is about the duration of the session. The other is, are they the only place where you can make this difference? So on the duration of the session question, my sense, I don't know this, for sure. But my sense is because my understanding is it's. in theory, a part-time legislature. And that means that the when they decided to create this legislature, and create their pay scale. The pay scale is not that high because, in theory, they're part-time, this may come from a sense of what Hawai'i used to be like. "Oh, you can handle this big business just in a part-time, then go back to your other work. And so we're only going to pay you a certain amount." But to change that, but to change it to full-time legislature, would go against the general grain of thinking, the conventional sense out there that maybe we're spending too much on government officials. I don't have that view. I'm just saying I get that perception from folks. So I'm wondering if that's that piece and why it might be harder to make it a longer legislative session, because then you'd have to admit that the legislators are full-time and you'd have to pay more. Would the general public be amenable to that? And it's a self-reinforcing cycle if the legislature keeps voting down on bills that people are interested in. And they think, "Why should I give you more time to just vote it down?" Or would it change things? So that's one piece. The other piece: is there another way to go at it? But let me get your reaction to the first part.
Thomas Heaton 40:53
That's an interesting one. I think that, part of I think the struggle for a lot of representatives and senators is really just, we've got so much coming at us. While of course, even just in the past two years, there seems to have been this greater kind of uptake of systems-thinking and agricultural food systems knowledge, the understanding speaks to a lack of time, a lack of research, lack of understanding, and perhaps if they were working, and they were doing this as a more of a full-time job, it wasn't like a part-time kind of leader split of legislature, as you said, perhaps there would be would be more effective. Perhaps they would be able to consider these things and sit down and really go through the nitty gritty and have the conversations with the people who are submitting these bills, or who they are submitting these bills on behalf of.
Paula Daniels 43:11
They seem to have enough staff, Thomas, because if you deal with the federal government, you might have three different staff that are assigned to this topic area legislatively, but the Senate or the congressional level, and same in other states, like how much staff to do the legislators have to assign to this.
Thomas Heaton 43:28
And please correct me if I'm wrong, but probably have three to five full staff.
Paula Daniels 43:36
...staff overall. Yeah. And then you might be finding yourself dealing directly with the member on these issues, rather than their staff. Yeah. So the time to research, it's important to give thoughtful consideration to these bills, like how does it fit into the context of everything else that's going on? That kind of thing?
Thomas Heaton 43:55
Rather than taking whatever is told to them as gospel or whether it's questioning things, I will say that this year, I did feel like it was more thoughtful questioning. And that kind of questionings, the lines of questioning from legislators, sessions and meetings and hearings, was it seemed like they understood things better. But if we extended it out, and we gave them a little bit more time to have those conversations in the background and deliberate on these things, I think it would be useful because they're juggling a lot in a very short time. I'll say that.
Paula Daniels 44:32
So is it worth, so now we're in, the legislatures has adjourned their legislative session. So now in this time between this one and the next one, what are some of your plans about taking lessons learned? I guess I'll turn to Anne for this, from what happened this year compared to the year before, which as you pointed out was considered a banner year for a number of organizations to help them get up to speed and think about the next round.
Anne Frederick 44:59
Yeah, I think more work in the interim, frankly, and I think more kind of coordinated work across maybe groups that are engaged in food systems advocacy would be really helpful. I think maybe it would be helpful to get lawmakers out onto some farms to actually see things. How do we link arms more across the groups that are doing some of this work and coordinate better and, and therefore build greater capacity to engage lawmakers in the interim and to think more strategically about how we continue to amplify the voices of the farming community, but also just across the food system throughout, even during the session. So that might, there might be some opportunities there. And so I'm looking forward to circling back with folks in the interim and strategizing a little bit and I think there's been some good movement towards more collaboration, I think we see a lot more defined coalitions in other sectors, frankly, like the working families coalition, or there's coalitions working on a range of issues. So I think there's more opportunities to do that, perhaps around, specifically around, policy advocacy for the food movement in Hawai'i.
Paula Daniels 46:06
Thomas, like you did cover the Hawaii Farm Bureau and the Hawaii Farmers Union. Was there any daylight? How much daylight is there between what Anne has been saying in terms of reform for ADC and the views of the Hawai'i Farm Bureau and Hawaii Farmers Union? Do you think they'd be in agreement? I'm not asking you to be a spokesperson for them, but what you've been tracking in terms of their goals, how does this line up?
Thomas Heaton 46:30
Outside of the Farmers Union, from my perspective and talking to them, would be aligned with Anne and HAPA, as the Farm Bureau. They would essentially, I think, carry the line that they often tell them is that they support all agriculture. So I don't think that take a hard stance against what was going on.
Paula Daniels 46:53
So let me ask you this in terms of in pulling out the threat of building a coalition more, and you mentioned a coalition and an opportunity now to think about that. What are your views, both of you, on where the sweet spots would be with all the different groups that are engaged in food system reform? Anne, you represent a certain we talked about it viewpoint, right, in terms of change, that maybe the house Farmers Union has aligned with as has Hawai'i farmers Bureau, there's other organizations. Where do you think the commonalities are, in terms of what they wanted to accomplish in this legislative session? I'll start with you, Thomas.
Thomas Heaton 47:26
Sure, I think the fact that I think that there are so many places where this kind of attack can be taken this. So local farm to school purchasing, that's big one. Farmers Bureau is going to support that, the Farmers Union is going to support that, HAPA gonna support there, the Food Hubs are gonna support it. That's I mean, prize. Double Up Bucks, perfect. There are these there are many of those kinds of sweet spots. I think it's when perhaps you get into the fundamental idea of how one should be farming that might get a little bit more divisive. Those are the kinds of places that institutional spending, the subsidies or tax credits for farmers, anything that might help Hawai'i's farmers relieve their own dependence on outside-of-state needs is going to be really a place where this kind of coalition could really do a really good job and galvanize support. And I will say that one other thing that, it was a novel idea that was brought up to me by the newly appointed head of the Department of Agriculture here in Hawai'i, Sharon Hurd, was this idea of creating an omnibus farm bill into, of course, we are in a Farm Bill year. Federally, Miss Hurd, indicated to me in an earlier interview that I had with her was that she would like to create something like that here in Hawai'i. So there are many opportunities that could perhaps come forward if there was enough common ground between all of the organizations that are really at the coalface. So I thought that was one interesting idea that could be... Maybe keep an eye on in years to come.
Paula Daniels 49:04
I can see Anne in my screen nodding, so I'll just relay that there seems to be a scent from Anne on those ideas.
Anne Frederick 49:12
Absolutely, I agree. I think what's interesting is that, as Thomas mentioned, and we were we might disagree with say, like the Farm Bureau on issues of like more regulatory issues, we actually align on a lot of things. As I go through the testimony files, you know, all of like, you know, as Thomas has already mentioned, all of the support for farmers and for agriculture, we really align on all those things. And I don't think we see really any opposition to those bills. So I think, those are, that's opportunities for us to work together. I think we all recognize that it's incredibly hard to be a farmer or rancher in Hawai'i. It's just the margins are so thin. The cost of business is so high that I think we align around we need to invest if we really are serious about a food-secure future of meeting those 30% goals. We're going to have to invest more, And really, such a small, agriculture gets such a small share of our budget, it's so underfunded in Hawai'i that I think we all see the need for investment, and especially when there's these opportunities to leverage federal dollars, we should really be, we shouldn't be letting any of those funds go, you know, untapped. So I think that there's a lot of actually alignment around like institutional procurement, as Thomas has already mentioned. But yeah, I think we might not agree on some of the regulatory issues or pesticide issues. But I think let's work together where we can really.
Paula Daniels 50:34
You know, my takeaways now from this conversation are, you know, I asked that question about, can you make the change without the legislature. We've talked about the budget process, so that's one way to do it. Sounds like a lot of commonalities on bills that ended up dying, you know, the Farm to School bills didn't go anywhere, the DA BUX didn't go anywhere. So my take away kind of is, it sounds like we need to educate the lawmakers more about why this is so important. Does that sound like a direction?
Anne Frederick 51:01
I do agree, I think there needs to be more work in the interim, to kind of get folks, we had a new house ag chair, so he may be still getting up to speed somewhat on ag issues. So I think meeting with him in the interim would be good. And I think like getting maybe lawmakers out in the field to see especially those who may not be as well acquainted with some of the challenges of being a producer in Hawai'i, maybe that would help give us a little bit more real boots-on-the-ground kind of sense of what our producers are up against. But I honestly think we do have to tackle also some of these larger systemic structural issues in terms of..
Paula Daniels 51:38
The legislative session, sunshine. Yeah.
Anne Frederick 51:41
Yeah, decisionmaking. I think we have to like, really, we have to have more equitable distribution of power and decision making, frankly, in the legislature because, for one lawmaker to hold a whole priority hostage, you know, as like a bargaining chip is, it's really, you know, why people suffer as a result and our sector suffers as a result, if that's the case. I don't want to sugarcoat it that we can't, that just educating lawmakers is going to get us there. I think we also need to look at these maybe structural reforms, and also look at the opportunities within the administration. We haven't really talked about that at all. But I think there's a lot that can be done also within the administration, you know, the agencies under the purview of the administration's such as the Department of Agriculture. So I think there's opportunities there as well. And I think, I do think that this was an unusually bad year, given that last year was way more robust in terms of the priorities that were supported. I do think that there is more political will, for these issues than was demonstrated this session. So that's my hope, at least.
Paula Daniels 52:49
Interesting. Yeah. Thomas?
Thomas Heaton 52:51
It's I think I would probably echo most of what Anne said. Like, we talked about chokepoints in the food system. I think there are chokepoints in the legislature. And I think that kind of speaks to what a great year we're gonna have in 2023 with the session. There are so many bills, wow, this is great. And then Ah, okay. We don't even have Double Up Bucks.
Paula Daniels 53:16
Without any real understanding of why, that's the part that I'm a little mystified about.
Thomas Heaton 53:20
Yeah, yeah. So I think if I had a magic wand and had one wish for what could happen to accelerate food system reform, that would probably be increasing kind of transparency of why these decisions are being made, why these plans are being made, why this plan, why this goal exists, but there's no plan to get to that goal. There are so many questions that linger over all of these food systems goals that have been put in place for decades now that we don't know if the tickers moved along at all, because we never measured it in first place. Whether that's doubling food production by 2030, or whether that's increasing the Department of Education's spend on local food by 2030. Trying and getting that up to 30%. Yeah, there are just so many kinds of goalposts that have been put there, but we don't know what the hurdles are. We don't know where the kind of, we don't have any key performance indicators. Put it that way if we're going to talk in that kind of speak, but yeah, I think really, it comes down to transparency. That lack of transparency is concerning, because we are putting all these goals in place and we're not measuring them, measuring progress, then where are we? I think that one thing that I really think is really important and what I will say also is while it appears many lawmakers are really invested in the food system, perhaps it's time to get more, not only get more people more lawmakers out into the pasture into the field, into the farms, into the facilities that are making turning that food into another form of food, value-adding, which as so many lawmakers say is the future of Hawai'i's food system. Why don't we also get some of those people into the legislature?
Paula Daniels 55:13
On that note, thank you both so much. This has been a really enlightening session. Thank you.
Thomas Heaton 55:20
Thanks for having me.
Paula Daniels 55:24
Our sound editor is Rob Pera. Thanks to Sue Woodard and the Waipahu high school student Reiko Quitevis for our logo design and Waipahu high school students Caryssa Shinozawa and our Landon Guzman. Syd Sausal for sound creation and our theme music, I'm Paula Daniels, host and creator of the Thirty Percent podcast.