Every other year, the work of Hawaiʻi's farmers and ranchers takes center stage at the Hawaiʻi Agricultural Conference.
The 2026 Hawai‘i Agriculture Conference, or AG2026, kicked off this year on Nov. 9 at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa on Hawaiʻi Island.
To learn more about what topics they'll be tackling this time around, HPR spoke with two people who are keeping the industry innovating.
Jacob Tavares is a rancher with Parker Ranch and a key force behind the gathering, and Taylor Kellerman is with Kualoa Ranch and most recently joined The Conversation to discuss their efforts to fight invasive fire ants.
Interview Highlights
On forging Hawaiʻi's agricultural future
JACOB TAVARES: We dance with Mother Nature constantly. And so how we become more resilient from a natural resource management perspective and how we steward our resources are very critical. And when we're faced with disaster, or we're faced with changing climate, or we're faced with changing markets, changing demographics, it impacts us significantly in our ability to produce food. So it's a broad array of people from across the state who have different perspectives and different roles in the food production system and natural resource management system all coming together for a two-day period to talk about … what's important for the broader community to understand about our ag economy here in Hawaiʻi.
On adapting to a changing climate
TAYLOR KELLERMAN: 2025 was one of our driest years on record, and 2026 has proven to be one of our wettest years on record. … We talked a lot about the pipeline of agriculture and how important it is to be able to have assumptions you can work off of in building a quality product week after week. So much of those assumptions are now challenged by these changes that are unexpected. … So we're having to kind of learn as we fly the ship, which typically, when you're working for a business where margins are a little slim, that's a pretty tall ask for the industry as a whole.
On innovating the agriculture industry
TAVARES: One of the things that you know these extreme weather patterns have, I wouldn't say forced us to do but allowed us to do and take a step back and relook at our systems in place, has been looking at what resources do we have and how do we make sure that we are setting ourselves up in the communities around us for success. … And so there is technology that's coming out, and that we're starting to adopt here in Hawaiʻi more and more frequently. That's going to allow us to be more resilient as landscape scale managers here in Hawaiʻi.
More information about the 2026 Hawaiʻi Agricultural Conference can be found here.
This story aired on The Conversation on Nov. 9, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
