A federally funded initiative that’s set to send millions of dollars to Hawaiʻi food producers was scheduled to launch this month, but now it’s on hold — and possibly on the chopping block — while the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency reviews it.
In 2023 the U.S. Department of Agriculture allocated $400 million to its Regional Food Business Centers, which are meant to support farmers and strengthen food systems across the country.
Of that, $30 million was set aside to support farmers and food systems in the country’s remote and island communities, including areas like Hawaiʻi, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and Alaska. And $3.5 million was put into “business builder grants” meant to go directly to Hawaiʻi farmers.
“ We were about to launch our business builder grants. And because of this uncertainty, we didn't want to put out the notice and have people spend time writing grant proposals and then find out that we're terminated and that we can't award anybody,” said Harmonee Williams, program manager for the nonprofit Hawaiʻi Good Food Alliance.
HGFA was put in charge of handling the funding for the regional center that included Hawaiʻi.
Williams said farmers could get up to $100,000 for the grants.
“The business builder grants are really an innovative and exciting program because the federal government often does not fund things like equipment,” she said. “They're really about helping farmers get products from the farm to existing markets and to help create new markets. Our focus was really on post-harvest, food safety, refrigeration, storage and aggregation as well as creating value-added products.”
HGFA and dozens of staff from Hawaiʻi and the other islands and communities spent the last couple of years figuring out how to distribute the USDA funding to best fit their communities. About $5 million of the $30 million for those areas has been spent so far.
But the funding, like that for so many other nonprofits that receive federal support, is awarded through reimbursement. Nonprofits put that money upfront, and the U.S. government then gives that money back.
But since Jan. 20, HGFA hasn’t been able to get those reimbursements.
“Because we're dealing with five relatively small community-based nonprofits, we just don't have a ton of extra cash floating in our bank account. And so cash flow-wise, we can only keep our staff going for so much longer if without reimbursement,” Williams said.
The $5 million that’s been spent has been reimbursed and, if the regional centers end, reimbursements should be made up for two months after the participating organizations get their termination letters.
And it’s not just island communities being reviewed by DOGE. The entire $400 million the USDA allocated to support the dozen RFBCs across the country appears to also be under review.
There’s no timetable for when DOGE will finish its review of the initiative, but Williams hopes the potential benefits for farmers and rural communities will be enough to keep the initiative going.
