James Weatherford for Hawaii County Council District 5

Early in the 2009 Hawaii County Agriculture Development Plan project, public input was sought regarding a “vision of agriculture on Hawaii Island in the year 2014″ and what was “necessary to achieve the vision.”

Below is what I submitted in September 2008.

1. A. Vision of agriculture on Hawaii Island in the year 2014

A good starting point is the goal identified by the Kohala Center: increasing local market share.

The central organizing principle is capacity building for import substitution.

In general, a doubling or more of agricultural products — food, fiber, and fuel — produced on Hawaii Island and marketed on Hawaii Island and beyond, notably metropolitan Oahu.

The vision is for it to be logistically and financially possible on any day of the year for any Hawaii Island family to have the choices available that allow them to prepare and eat a nutritious meal of food all produced on this island. Importantly, these choices may include a meal with some, none, or all items either homegrown or purchased in local markets.

The context of this vision is an island-community economy founded on a mutual commitment to local self-reliance, land care, and social justice in a clean, productive, peopled, rural landscape.

1. B. Necessary in order for our island community to achieve this vision

Four factors of agriculture development: land, markets, people, and capital.

Land –

Adopt zoning and subdivision policy that, in print and in practice, does not abide capricious irreversible conversion of agricultural land. When proactively and consistently implemented, this policy must change expectations regarding land use options so as to create a clear differentiation between the market price of land to be used for agricultural purposes and the market price of land to be used for non-agricultural purposes. This differentiation will in turn make agricultural land more affordable for farming.

Markets –

Of the four factors of agricultural development, markets are perhaps the most constraining, and therefore, offer the greatest opportunities for private and public investment in:

• physical infrastructure for assembly, processing, transportation, storage, selling and buying of agricultural products — food, fuel, and fiber produced on agricultural land; and
• information channels to connect buyers and sellers in a transparent market.

People –

Essential skills are:

• agricultural science / production;
• business management and marketing / entrepreneurship;
• food, biofuel, and fiber science / post-harvest processing, handling, and storage; and
• culinary arts / food preparation.

Investment is required in formal and non-formal education and training in the above skills.

Capital –

Investment in:

• farm production credit, for both long- and short-term costs;
• market infrastructure;
• market information; and
• skills development.

Farm production credit is a private function.

Physical market infrastructure may present an opportunity for public-private partnership.

Market information and skills development are public goods and require public investment.

Public policies regarding all factors of agricultural development can create a business environment that attracts private investment in production credit, skills, market infrastructure, and land.