The state Department of Agriculture asked for an additional $55 million in its budget at a Senate Ways and Means Committee meeting on Monday.
Agriculture officials want the funds to grow Hawaiʻi agriculture, both to diversify the economy and to make sure the state is food resilient. The state has seen a decline in the industry in recent years.
Sharon Hurd has served as director of the department for the past year. She talked to HPR about the state of Hawaiʻi's agriculture.
Interview Highlights
On how two main events dominated her first year as head of the Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture
SHARON HURD: During the first year, it was two things of course that marked the first year. I'm calling it the post-COVID emergence from our cocoon, you know, we started to feel hope this year that festivals were happening again, trade shows were happening again, people were out and about. There was a sense of relief that maybe we're coming through this, you know, maybe it's over. And I think that showed in the way that people were shopping, and things were looking good, at least for agriculture, a lot of the farmers markets were humming again... Then what happened in August really took us all back a lot of steps. And we're now realizing that not only did COVID teach us that we need to be more self-sufficient, we need to start growing our own food — with the Maui incident, we found we need to be really resilient, we not only have to have the food that we're growing now, but we have to have a stockpile, we have to have seeds, we have to have — I call it germplasm — you know, trees and plantlets to start throwing new. It's almost like not even a continuation or restoring, it's almost like a rebirth. You have to start from scratch. This taught us how important agriculture is, how important it is to have farmers and ranchers that are willing to do the hard work.
On how the community can help farmers and ranchers be profitable in 2024
HURD: The overarching initiative that we want to make happen in 2024 is for the farmers and the ranchers to become profitable. The pandemic and the fire really impacted profitability for agriculture. And if the farmers and ranchers don't make money, as Richard Ha used to say, they're not going to farm. They're gonna give it up.
When we go out to buy food, let's replace one import that you buy with a local fruit, vegetable, you know, buy local beef, local eggs, local seafood, just scale up, you know, take one thing out of your basket, and replace it with a local product.
So the other way that you can help farmers and ranchers be profitable in 2024 is realize that every farm and every ranch has an invasive pest. Every one of them is dealing with some invasive species, whether it's a plant or an insect, they spend time every day suppressing and treating these invasives. So we're asking for community awareness for supporting their efforts to fight the invasives... If you see an insect flying around, catch it, put it in a Ziploc bag, freeze it, send it to us. We want to know what's out there, you know, where is it. And we know that we are challenged to keep up with the invasives. We don't have the staff. We want to increase the number of staff, we have to increase the number of staff... If everyone can help and if we can suppress it to the point where it's under control, Hawaiʻi farmers and ranchers can focus on producing food. They don't have to take time out of their day, which they do every day, you know, time and money, to fight the invasive that's on their property. Then they can produce food for 12 months out of the year, which is something that no other state in the union can do.
The third one is, you know, the Department of Agriculture has had an amnesty program for quite some time. The amnesty program is if you have an illegal pet. Most notably, you know people talk about iguanas and snakes — do not release it into the wild. If you have a plant in your aquarium that you know you shouldn't have, you know, don't release it into the ocean or the stream. Take it to us, bring it to the Department of Agriculture. We will take care of it. Our amnesty program has been ongoing. No questions asked. Just bring it in.
So those are the three things: buy local, help us with these invasives to join our fight, and then turn in those illegal pets and plants that you have at home.
This story aired on The Conversation on Jan. 9, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
