Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Environment

All right, welcome everyone to the joint informational briefing with the Judiciary Committee and the Agricultural Environmental Committees. My name is Karl Rhodes. I'm chair of the Judiciary Committee. And also on a seated next me here is Senator Gabbard, chair of the Agricultural and Environmental Environment Committee and also Vice Chair of Judiciary.

Also with us from Judiciary is Senator San Bon Ventura on our far left and Sher Gabard. Well, you're the only one here to introduce, so would you like to introduce yourself? Yes, I guess you can introduce me too since I'm like, I'm just kidding.

Yeah. Senator Mike Gabbard representing District 21 on the west side and in Lon Kako and you know, with our 2020 succession just around the corner starting on January 21st and ending on May 7th, that's very, very timely to be having this briefing info briefing today. So thank you to Chair Rhodes for setting it up.

And I just want to quickly say Mahalanui to each of today's speakers, plus all of your staff and all of your helpers. Feeding 1.4 million people every day is not an easy task. So creating and maintaining a sustainable food system is vitally important. So again, sincerely, mahalo for all you do.

And we're also joined by the Vice Chair of the Environment Committee, Senator Tim Richards. This Zoom meeting and YouTube live stream event covers the 10am JDC a informational briefing on the impact of federal policies and actions on Hawaii's agricultural industry and on food production and availability. As noted, this briefing is being streamed live on YouTube.

You can find links to viewing options for all Senate hearings and meetings on the live and on demand video page of the Legislature's website, which is Capitol.Hawaii.Gov capital with an O.

In the unlikely event that we must abruptly end the briefing due to major technical difficulties, if a future date can be arranged with the presenters, the committees will reconvene and a public notice will be posted on the Legislature's website. Since this is an informational briefing, tradition is that only the invited speakers will provide testimony of the Committee.

There will not be any public testimony, although members of the public are always welcome to contact any of our offices for with comments and concerns. Committee Members will ask you to hold your questions until the end unless there's a presenter who needs to leave early.

And please, if you're a presenter that needs to leave, really let us know when when you're up there. My guideline is to keep the questions and answer portion to 5 minutes per member. So that's so as Members.

If you if the answer that you're getting is so long that you can't get your next question and you'll have to cut off the presenter and and ask your next question. Briefing materials from today's presenters are linked from the briefing notice and will also be posted online at the Senate's Judiciary and JDC Committee page.

And this is also on Capitol.Hawaii.Gov now to focus on the briefing for a couple of minutes. Today's briefing focuses on the agricultural industry in Hawaii and food production and availability. This is the fourth briefing JDC has held over the interim to explore the rule of law and the impacts of actions taken by the Federal Government.

Some aspects of funding cuts to the agriculture industry and food assistance program appear to me to be of dubious legality. There have also been abrupt cancellation of grants and research projects utilized by the ag community. As well, tariffs have been imposed by the President which affect the costs and availability of farm equipment and supplies.

We will look at these issues today as well as other policy changes that affect the state. Regarding the topic of immigration, I will be holding a future briefing on immigration enforcement.

Nonetheless, the impact of immigration raids do affect Hawaii farmers and ag production and we look forward to information on this on on this part of that from the presenter today if you. If you so choose. I appreciate my co chair for agreeing to hold this briefing.

We both extend our mahalo to Brian Miyamoto, Executive Director of the Hawaii Farm Bureau for coordinating a great group of speakers and Brian will act at times as a facilitator. Chair Gabard, do you have any other opening remarks you'd like to make? Nope. All good. Okay then, Mr. Miyamoto, let's. Let's begin. Thank you.

Thank you. Aloha Chair Rhodes, Chair Gabbard, Members of the committees. I'm Brian Miyamoto here on behalf of the Hawaii Farm Bureau and the Agriculture Stakeholder. So thank you for inviting us today. Thank you and mahalo for convening this important informational briefing on the impacts of federal policy changes, tariffs and funding cuts on Hawaii's agriculture sector.

I think you said it well, Senator. Uncertainty. And you'll hear that probably heard that from other sectors, but for agriculture, uncertainty is the last thing we need for farmers and ranchers. We need certainty in our operations. We appreciate this opportunity to share updates from across the agriculture community.

We have an outstanding group of panelists today representing state agencies, farmer organizations and food system partners, each bringing unique perspectives to this conversation. I want to acknowledge and thank our distinguished panelists for joining us. We have our Chair of the Hawaii Department of Biosecurity and agriculture and biosecurity. I keep struggling Hawaii Agriculture and Biosecurity.

Sharon Hurd, Amanda Shaw from Oahu Resource Conservation and Development Council, Suzanne Schreiner from Synergistic Hawaii Agriculture Council, and a coffee farmer, Hunter Hevlin from Hawaii Farmers Union, and finally, Amy Miller from the Hawaii Food Bank. Together, they represent the full spectrum of Hawaii's agriculture industry.

The their insights today will help us connect federal decisions to real impacts here at home. And that's what you're going to hear. You're going to hear on the ground impacts and things that are going on with our farmers and ranchers based on what's going on federally.

Over the past year, we've seen a series of federal policy adjustments and funding realignments that have reshaped the agricultural landscape nationwide. These include new or modified tariffs and trade policies, revisions to USDA program funding, and broader budget reduction measures aimed at rebalancing national priorities. Meanwhile, these steps are part of a larger fiscal strategy at the federal level.

They have created some unintended consequences for states like Hawaii, where our agriculture operates under a very different set of conditions. Most recently, the Federal Government shutdown and resulting furlough of thousands of federal employees have amplified those challenges. During the shutdown, many USDA and other related agency offices are either closed or operating within limited capacity.

That means farmers here in Hawaii may not have access to critical services such as loan processing program reimbursement, disaster assistance approvals, and export certifications. For producers managing perishable crops, livestock shipments, or time sensitive grant deliverables, even a short interruption can have lasting financial impacts.

Adding to that uncertainty is the ongoing delay in the reauthorizing reauthorizing of the farm bill. Many of the programs that Hawaii producers depend on, from conservation cost shares to specialty crop block grants, remain in limbo. Without a new farm bill, farmers are left without clear guidance or predictable access to critical federal resources that sustain production and innovation.

At the same time, we're watching the Development Administration's big Beautiful Bill again. We're trying to figure out what's in there and how it's going to help Hawaii. Here in Hawaii, these national challenges are magnified by geography and scale. Geography and scale. Sorry. We are the most isolated population center on earth, roughly importing 90% of our food.

We say that all the time. We import 90% of our food. What we also import is most of our inputs that are necessary for farming in ramsha. Our producers operate on smaller acreages with higher cost from land, water, labor, shipping, energy and supplies.

When a Federal program is paused or delayed, there isn't another regional office around the corner to help. A missed delivery or suspended grant payment can ripple quickly through an operation affecting workers, suppliers and even local food programs.

Over the past several months, we've heard from local producers who have considered pausing planned expansions, cutting back on staff hours or delaying infrastructure improvements due to uncertainty in federal support. Import input prices for feed, fertilizer and fuel remain volatile and global tariff adjustments have made both imports and exports more expensive. We're trying to increase agriculture.

We're looking to help develop our farm to school and regional kitchen programs. Again, in order to do that, we need scale. And if farmers are just uncertain on their current operations, the last thing they're thinking of expanding their operations.

At the same time, community food programs that once relied on USDA funding to purchase from local farmers are now struggling to maintain those relationships. And as production costs climb, organizations like the Hawaii Food Bank are seeing increased demand from families struggling to afford basic groceries.

You hear a lot from Amy and the Hawaii Food bank later, some disturbing numbers. Our goal today is to provide a clear fact based understanding how these national policy and budget changes, including the recent shutdown and farm bill delay, are affecting agriculture and food access in Hawaii. Looking ahead, the path forward must be grounded in collaboration.

Hawaii's success depends on strong partnerships between federal agencies, state departments, producer organizations and community food networks. Wano mahalo. We know you had Congressman Case here. Wano mahalo. Our congressional delegation, they're doing the best that they can, what they can to help support Hawaii.

Senator Schatz, Senator Hirono, Representative Case, Representative Tokuda, who we are thrilled and privileged to have on the House Ag Committee, is really fighting for Hawaii agriculture. Another example of partnership is our Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke, who's been leading by example through her Hawaii USDA Agriculture Summits.

These have brought together farmers, federal officials and local stakeholders to strengthen coordination, open dialogue with the USDA leadership. These summits are encouraged, are an encouraging model showing our proactive communication and cooperation, bridge policy gaps, ensure Hawaii's needs are heard at the national level.

It started because we keep saying Hawaii leaves a lot of federal dollars and programs and programming money on the table. We're not the greatest at getting them. Legislature has helped with our grant writer at the Department of Agriculture. Other entities has helped. But these agricultural summits have been critical in nurturing a relationship with the usda.

Many behind me, including Senator Richards, have been to these summits and I think it's been beneficial. And in fact, Hawaii was the first state in March of this year to meet with the new Secretary of Agriculture once she was appointed.

So again, those open line of communications help, although they're not very helpful now because the government shut down and we're not able to communicate. And in fact, we were planning on visiting them this year again, but we're going to put that on hold. At the same time, we must continue to advocate for flexibility in federal programs.

That's something we're doing when we're talking about them. We're explaining the uniqueness of Hawaii while investing at the state level in infrastructure, workforce development and market access. We need to ensure that when national budgets tighten or administrative shifts occur, Hawaii's farmers and ranchers aren't left behind.

As we hear from today's panelists, I encourage us all to focus on three questions. First, how are federal shifts, including a shutdown, tangibly affecting different parts of Hawaii's agriculture and food systems? Second, what are the vulnerabilities in our current structure that make us especially sensitive to these changes?

And third, what can we do at the state, county and community levels to build greater stability and Independence in our agriculture production and distribution? Once again, mahalo to Committee for Convening midis for convening this discussion, and to our panelists for their leadership.

With that, I would like to invite Chair Sharon Hurd of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity to begin her remarks on how the state has coordinated its agriculture response.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Please proceed.

Good morning. Committees Chairs, Vice Chairs, Committee Members from Judiciary and Agriculture. My name is Sharon Hurd, Chairperson, Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity. I'd like to introduce two staff Members that we have here with me. I have Cedric Gates, who is our legislative liaison, and Leslie Harvey, our grant writer.

There are competing info briefings going on right now, and that's where the other staff is focused on biosecurity. Okay. So thank you for convening today. Very timely. Brian has summarized it well. The impacts of the federal policy changes is a timely, timely topic.

My counterparts on the national level meet almost on a weekly basis to discuss these federal impacts to the nation. And we are asked to as our roles for the state to focus on how these federal policies are impacting us. Gen generally just straight in the face. So, first slide. Oh, I'm sorry. I have control. Okay.

No, I think you have to.

Zero, I'm way ahead now.

Where do you point it, though? You point it back here.

I point back here. Oh.

Hello.

All right. Well, behind.

Can you go back a couple, please? One more first slide, first slide. And now the second slide. Thank you. Okay. Specifically for Hawaii, these are the impacts of the federal policies on us. There are some positives. The positive is that the federal policy is farmers first includes ranchers and growers.

This means that the programs that favor production, we can take advantage of production is something that has been overlooked in the past in terms of the. The federal funding has always been more Department of Interior, Department of Labor. But here we go. Where programs that favor production. The America first federal policy. Well, guess what?

Hawaii is the state and we're really pushing that. Brian noes and Suzanne behind me. We've been to Washington D.C. many times saying Hawaii is a state. If it's America First. Take away some of the barriers that prevent us from participating in the agriculture supply chain and they're listening.

The other positive is that now payments are going direct to farmers and ranchers. I'll be talking about a small states grant later. That is the direct benefit of this new federal policy. MAHA, Make America Healthy Again. You know, there are some policies within the MAHA that are favorable to Hawaii. One of them is the focus on health.

We are very, our population is a very healthy group. Not only that, we have a lot of food is medicine type products. Our nutraceuticals have proven to be very, very healthy. Native Hawaiian cultural practices, Noni Moringa, kung gai.

So we're going to jump on that bandwagon and we're really going to focus on spices and things that we can produce fresh. We're the only state in the union, by the way, that can produce some of these things. And we're going to focus on that, get them to the population.

The last one is that we in, in the federal policy, there's a movement to restore the American diet. So in the conversations that I've been privy to, the American diet is beef, beef, beef. And it's not only beef.

It is beef that has no additives, is simply grilled and eaten and added to that you have full fat milk. They really want to focus on back to the old ways. You know, we were, that's the way we ate. And I'm not saying that the other animal proteins don't have a place. They certainly do.

Pork, chicken, they all have a place in terms of the animal proteins, back to what we used to, how we used to eat in the past. But farmers and ranchers, especially the ranchers, will benefit from the new positive farmer first policies.

As we all know, by looking at our beef prices when we go to Costco or wherever we shop next Thing is, now here comes the negative part. The phrase that we're all getting used to on our calls is De globalization and slowbilization. There are global economic trade tensions, as we all know that's coming up later.

There are global election tensions, domestic deficits and distractions. The word that summarizes all that is uncertainty. You can say uncertainty is the takeaway for agriculture at the federal level. Right now we have 34 wars going on in the world. The big one is of course Ukraine and Russia.

These disruptions really impact the supply chain for agriculture in a big way. The climate change, we all know in my meetings at the national level we almost want to stipulate, okay, every state has a fire and every state has a drought. Can we move on? It's just everywhere.

Canada, I want to mention has been having fires for the last three years. They're just constant. And this is Canada. Places shouldn't really be having these fires. Inflation, recession, food production is decreasing, social services and support is decreasing.

All these affect the availability of food and farmers and the way we live our lives within the agriculture food system. Remember the phrase if you miss three meals you have social unrest. We're heading that direction. The supply chain is getting a little bit weak. Next slide is.

Let's see if that works?

Okay. That's the impact on the federal policy changes, specifically to Hawaii. Now for the federal grants. Let me touch on this, on this slide I'm going to give us an A on the federal grant side because we have a few recurring grants that have been recurring. The total on these are 13,552,727.

The last grant on this of particular pride for the Department of Agriculture and that is a small states grant. Direct payments to the producers that suffered climate, sorry, weather related losses during 23 and 24.

I can't see it. I'm sorry, I can't see because we, we don't have hard copies of it. I don't think I got hard copies of hers.

Oh, you can, you can go on to the, the, the briefing, the info briefing notice and you can link up there and see it directly.

Okay.

But yeah, that's as big as it's going to get.

It's a marketing sin. You just, you don't make your PowerPoint so unreadable. But sorry about that.

Okay. I mean the other one was better, you know, but there, okay, okay, let me continue with this.

These, there is in January the Governor established a federal funds team in the office and every Tuesday and every Thursday there is a report published about the status of the federal funds. The first entry was January of 2025. And that entry was for the Department of Human Services. It was bad news about cuts.

The last entry posted today is good news. It's kind of good news. It's the Department of Agriculture biosecurity submitted a report that despite ams letting us know that three grants that we take advantage of are actually. Two grants that we take advantage of are suspended. The FISMIP and the micro grants for food security.

While they're not suspended or canceled, the operations have been stopped. So every, every Senator on this panel has been benefited. Your constituents have benefited from the micro grants for food security. Senator Richards, you particularly had the most last year at 51 recipients. If this goes away, it's big. It's a big deal. But right now it's suspended.

Especially crop block grant program is still operational. We're still drawing down funds. We're still submitting reports. Okay, so from January to today, the federal funds, I would say for Hawaii, specifically for Hawaii AG, Agriculture.

I'm going to give it an ace because we just got the biggest grant we ever got in the Department of Ag history from the feds. $8.8 million. Leslie, thank you so much for that. Okay, the next slide.

This is, this is where I'm going to give us a D because this is the federal grants that were suspended or eliminated or just. We didn't even have a chance to get going on it. Of these grants, I'm going to estimate the loss at $22 million.

The farm to school grant we submitted and then we found out it was terminated. Water Smart grant. We didn't. We started the application. We had a really good one for Hamakua to put the system underground. Terminated. So on and on and on. You can read that for yourself. We have a few still going.

The hopeful one is the one on the bottom. We have a grant going now called the Industry Transformation. We're working with Kauai, Hawaii and Maui counties. It's from the EDA. And Leslie's working on a grant that could be up to $50 million that's in progress, due in March. I hope I have time to do a conclusion.

Okay, in conclusion. Okay, in conclusion, everything I said, the impact on farmers and ranchers in Hawaii. Hawaii farms decreased 10% from a 2017 to 2022 census. We went from that many farms, 7,328 to 6,569. We decreased 10%. Nationally, the number of farms decreased almost 7%. So what's the picture here.

If our strategy is to say, okay, we're importing 90% of our food, we'll just import 100%. Well, guess what, folks, the world is pulling back on agriculture. Their imports aren't going to be there for us. We just think we can just pay higher prices. We can't do that. Farms are on the decline.

There are global pressures on agriculture everywhere. India announced they are not going to be exporting their rice anymore. They're going to take care of their people. Population is growing. We're hearing day after day wars are restricting the production of wheat in Ukraine. Ukraine used to feed Europe. Now where are they going to get their their wheat?

So we cannot rely on imports as strategy to feed our people. When De globalization and slobalization is the trend. We have to support our farmers and ranchers to start growing food for us. That's my report. Thank you.

Can I just add that today everyone's phone was buzzing with the news that President Trump announced that starting November 1st, the states will have to pay for their own SNAP. He is pulling back on SNAP.

Well, we'll see whether that's legal or.

Not from the judiciary.

Thank you very much for your presentation. I'll it back over to Brian for the next next presenter.

Thank you. Chair Hurd. Again not a great start. Although there were some bright spots. I did some simple math. Awarded 13.5 million losses of 22 million. Looks like a net negative. Our next presenter will hear from Amanda Shaw, Director of food systems at the Oahu Resource Conservation Development Council. Now, I believe agriculture stewardship Hawaii.

Amanda works directly with producers community food networks to strengthen local food systems and farm viability. She'll discuss their report on funding cuts to farm programs and strategic shifts. Her report is going to dive down a little bit more. A little bit more detail and some bigger and more disturbing numbers. Amanda.

Okay, before we get going on this, let's play with the technology a little bit here. Can you load up the. You got the. Because this was working beforehand, we do actually test things around here. So let's see if we can figure out why it's that.

Okay, so then I. What. Which. Where should she be pointing the remote? Is it. It's your. Is it your computer? So it's. Us.

That was. I think that was me. Oh, that was you. Okay, let me go back.

I'm fine. If you'd like to do the. As well. Okay. Shall I get started? Aloha and good morning. Thank you so much for having us. Chairs, Vice Chairs, Members of the committees. My name is Amanda Shaw. I'm the Director of Food System at the newly relaunched Agriculture Stewardship Hawaii. Go to the next slide.

We are formed out of two organizations that merged this last year. And Oahu Resource Conservation Development Council has been active for the last 25 years supporting farmers, ranchers and food system producers. Producers.

We want to share a little bit about this work that we've put together as part of a statewide food systems coordination initiative that we have through the support of philanthropic donors and Governor Josh Green. Next slide. So we recently completed the second in two federal funding report cuts. Federal funding cut reports.

We had the first that was launched in March. So I'll say a few words about that and then we can share a bit about some of the findings and share some information and answer any questions you might have just to say about how this was completed.

So we worked with a researcher who was a former USDA staffer at the national level whose role was to analyze policies. So we looked at that in depth and as well as, you know, other secondary research sources and then some additional resources that are available at the Civil Eats Food Policy Tracker, for example.

That's been one way that we've been trying to track all of the national level changes and programs because it can be quite daunting. In fact, I learned quite a lot from chair herds conversation just now as well about some of the programs that are more state facing that have shifted. So there's lots that's happening all the time.

So we're trying to track that at the national level and then understand exactly how that's impacting the food system here locally. Next slide, please. So when we're talking about food systems, we really try to visualize that from production through consumption. And I think the speakers here today reflect that well.

When we try to take that perspective of looking throughout the system, we're really seeing kind of multiple points of constriction through the changes that we're seeing at the federal level. Next slide.

If we go back to March, we did our first report where we actually surveyed folks to find out how they were faring with regard to at that time. It was more federal funding freezes. And so we reached out to, I believe that was 90 some farmers, food systems organizations and others that reported back.

And it was, as Brian has shared as well, you know, it was pretty daunting even back then that some of them were talking about scaling back production, not putting food in the ground, starts that weren't going to be able to get place in the ground because cost share agreements with the feds had stalled.

And so we looked at that point, the total was about $88 million of potential cuts. And when we look at that as a share, if we're just taking the GDP of Hawaii's agricultural economy, which is about 700 million per year, you start to see the percentages are fairly large.

So that would account for about 13% of agricultural GDP back in March, as we've moved towards August and the work we've done was really looking at the obbb, the one big beautiful Bill and its impact on across the food system, as well as other changes since then.

The reports find that there are 64.7 million in confirmed cuts so far and about 175 million in potential cuts, so amounting to a larger share of the agricultural economy. And I'll say a little bit more about those numbers in a few moments.

And I guess as Brian has also shared and perhaps some of the other speakers will comment on, you know, this is a further moment where we're seeing yet more uncertainty, more shifts.

We know there's lots of questions about and very live updates about snap, also about WIC budgets, thinking about farm loans right now that aren't also are not going out the door, as well as staffing issues. So if we look at the findings, I shared already that we saw some disturbing impacts already even under the freeze of March.

And we just, I think put this in the context of, as Brian and others have been saying, you know, we're really trying to scale up this production. We're trying to do more, we're trying to ensure that this is reaching, you know, kids in our schools and ensuring that they have access to locally produced food.

So the fact that we're seeing, you know, this big shift, obviously in the federal funding panorama is really troubling for reaching our own goals.

At the same time, you know, what we looked at when we went through some of these policies in the report kind of goes through those, you know, pretty in detail in the back sections there. But there are some shifts, you know, in USDA priorities just there may be overall more money flowing to certain programs.

But as I think others will speak about as well. You know, those don't necessarily really fit with how we produce food and agriculture here in Hawaii. Not a lot of Title 1 commodity producers.

So a lot of those USDA priority shifts do mean that Hawaii farmers can face great greater competition as they compete nationally, which with much larger acreage farms, for example, and farms that kind of fit the model of those types of commodities. We also saw the discontinuation of some policies that had payment factor increases.

This is related to the socially disadvantaged farmer provisions, which added a payment factor in recognition of USDA's historic discrimination against certain groups. And so between 4 and 5,000 farmers in Hawaii could receive fewer dollars because they won't be receiving that payment factor increase.

And then, yeah, I think just to kind of highlight again, you know, the direct scale of funding can be really hard to track again because we did see some increase in federal safety net farm safety net programs overall. So some of those programs did see increases.

But as we were sharing doesn't always, you know, that doesn't necessarily in itself help Hawaii farmers. Loss of USDA staff is another big piece that I know we're all tracking because those folks are so dedicated and really, really help, you know, producers at the local level to understand and navigate the programs.

There are so many programs, so we really depend on their Expertise. And since September 2024, we've lost locally 18% of USDA staff. And the agency expects that with their new reorganization plan of moving folks away from D.C. into regional hubs, that nationally we may lose another 20 to 30% of USDA. Another. Another too small table.

My apologies for. Don't expect folks to read. Hopefully the headline at the bottom is clear, but that's where we catalog and it's available in the report. You know, the different programs that we looked at and their status, you know, it's even. This was figures as of about August 13, mid August.

And so even since then, we may have seen some shifts, some ads, you know, SNAP ED is on there, things that have been terminated, some things that are still technically going forward, like the Rural Energy for America program or reap. However, we have a lot of questions about how will that actually continue and reopen up.

They've closed applications, for example, on that program. And now with the federal funding shutdown or the Federal Government shutdown, it's uncertain when those will reopen. They twice pushed that deadline back. So we're trying to track is it pending? Has it been awarded? Has it been fully terminated?

But as you can see there, those headlines are the 64.7 million in confirmed cuts. There's also a number of impacts to food access and yes, another too small table. But I think we'll get to some of those, those points with Amy's conversation.

But you know this, we are looking in particular at farmer side programs, but we also wanted to ensure that we are highlighting what's happening in terms of food access, a number of changes to snap.

We know there' things about what type of payment the states will be asked to pick up as well as just eligibility and change in work requirements.

So when we talked about the number there, that 64.7 million or the 175 million, those are just the numbers of, you know, what programs are no longer going out and have been terminated.

But we know, thanks to folks like Hawaii Appleseed that have done an impact analysis of SNAP cuts, that there's an economic multiplier that when federal dollars come in, they help us generate economic activity, they go out into the community. And so we haven't used that for our report.

We wanted to stay sort of like a little more on the conservative side, just look first exactly what's being cut and then we can do further analyses. But we are really struck by what their report showed around the cuts to SNAP that Hawaii will face. That that could lead already to a 1.3 $1.0 billion economic loss.

So very significant. Small, small tables abound. This is just a snapshot of the different programs we looked at.

So if folks are interested in the report or they have producers that are thinking about some of these programs, you can go in and see by program on the cost share side, for example, under Fsa, under nrcs, what the impact of the Bill is and what we think the implications are for Hawaii.

So I won't go into those, but that's available for further. So just kind of concluding mentioned a little bit about, you know, the federal shutdown. We talked about how using something like a fiscal multiplier number could help us to really assess what these 64.7 million in cuts actually means. So common federal multipliers use is 0.5.

So if we were to use that, that would be, you know, reducing total economic activity by 90 million, you know, economic multipliers. There's a whole debate. And so, you know, those can go up to 2. So you really could have a much more significant impact depending on the economic conditions.

We really think, you know, food access and farming programs are really inextricable for a few reasons. Obviously those SNAP dollars help farmers and grocers. You know, we see Great programs like Farm to Families that really end the bucks, which really exemplify that. So they, you know, farmers need those SNAP dollars to help sustain their businesses.

That's part of this panorama. In addition, you know, when we look at rural farming counties across the United States, they have the highest rates of food insecurity. And food, if you look at them as a group, have higher rates than the other workers of using food assistance.

So it's actually food system workers themselves are recipients of food access programs. And if we think about how many workers that is, a food chain workers alliance uses a different characterization, the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And so if you look at workers from production all the way through food service, that accounts for about 28 million workers in the U.S. economy. And that's larger than any other sector of the economy.

So if we really step back and kind of take a food systems lens or perspective when we're connecting what's happening from production to consumption, the impacts are significant next. So we know there'll be conversation on what can help fill the gaps and respond. So we look forward to that with, with all of you.

We know that we have to address rising food insecurity at the same time that we're, we're seeing changes in funding to support that. We know that we need to continue to support farmers. So really excited about ways that we can do that. And also our local capacity just, you know, that does require strong data.

We do need to know what's happening in our system in order to be able to, you know, fill these gaps and make those changes to support the system.

And then, you know, we'd love to hear more from folks as you know, over the next several months about possibilities to generate revenue so that we can support some of these programs as well as not forgetting about opportunities that are on the table.

You know, the institutional purchasing and regional kitchen work, as well as food as medicine, that represent opportunities and not just challenge. So you can access the full report there with the QR code and thank you. I'm available for any questions.

Okay, thank you. We're going to hold questions till the end. So we'll go. Thank you very much. We'll move on to the next testifier.

Thank you, Amanda. And committees, as you can see, they've done some extensive work and got some, some again, disturbing numbers. I mean, if we're looking at $175 million, you know, farmers and ranchers, very resilient, but they can only, they can only take so much. And every other industry has been impacted.

And so there's less dollars, there's going to be more need as far as the state's concerned. So our next speaker, Suzanne Shriner, she's administrator for Synergistic Agriculture Council, Shack, and she's a farmer herself. They represent Mac Nut coffee, papaya and floriculture producers. She'll discuss all tariff and trade policies.

Changes are impacting Hawaii specialty crops and can speak firsthand as a farmer and as an administrator who works really closely with our Federal Government, USDA on many programs, projects and funding. Go ahead, Suzanne.

Thanks, Brian. Aloha, Senators, Chairs, Vice Chairs, thank you for having me today. So Shack Brian, we recently added the Cacao Association. So we have five commodities.

They're primarily export crops and we represent probably about 40% of the farmers here in Hawaii have some component of exports which are really good for bringing those trade dollars back here to Hawaii. Next slide. So with exports, tariffs became a very scary word for us.

February, of course, tariffs were declared on Canada and China, two of our key trading partners. April, we had Liberation Day with an additional tariffs in 180 countries. And then August 1st tariffs took place. It feels like it's been forever, although it's fairly recent when we look at what that's done to our export dollars.

I know that's tough to see, but you can see comparing the first two quarters of last year versus this year, exports are down 10% for the state. That includes everything from tea to coffee. And beef is probably in there as well. So all of our crops, we're sliding quickly.

We don't have our third quarter data yet because they haven't released them because of the shutdown. Next slide. I'm going to jump into two of our crops, two of our five crops to look briefly at Mac Nuts to see the global competition we're facing. Hawaii used to be number one. We've slowly slid.

Australia used to be our primary competition. You can see from this that South Africa and China, including Vietnam, are now bumping up and far exceed us. The interesting thing about this chart is every country is in magnet growth except for Hawaii. We're actually declining and tariffs are going to make that harder. So next slide.

So when we look at the tariff, 50% of our nuts historically have gone to China and now we have a tariff of 22%. We're already the most expensive nut in the world. Our main competition, Australia, has pretty much a zero tariff, a preferred trade agreement with China.

Canada, another one of our big markets, has not put a tariff on us. But the strong aversion to the US made brand is hurting us there. And our 2025 sales are down 32% over the same period. So here in Hawaii and on the mainland, foreign kernel is 30% cheaper than what we can grow it here.

And that's impacting us significantly. We also see the doubling of input costs. Most of our packaging comes from China. That's, that's doubled. And the snack market overall is tanking in the US because nut prices have gone up globally, falling in imports and the usage of Macs and mixed nuts and other things.

What that's doing is that's pushing our growers and our large processors back into the global market where we're competing once again for those cheaper nuts. So even in a moment where we would hope an American first policy and benefit Mac nuts, we're coming up against the challenge there. Next slide.

And this shows you that first half of the year, year over year, we're down 16% over 20. We expect that number to increase in the third quarter and going into the new year. Okay, next slide, we're going to jump into coffee here.

Talk about the overall market, which if you read any news about coffee, is very messy at the moment. Brazil has had a drought and incoming tariffs have driven record prices for what's called the commodity market, the sea market.

So if you go into a Walmart 2 pound bag of coffee that used to cost $6 now costs 14 or $20. In some cases. A can of Folgers is over $20. It's just amazing to me, this was $2 coffee when I grew up.

USDA considers coffee a staple, which is why you can buy it with SNAP and other other food programs. But it's also a luxury good. And Hawaii is we sell a luxury good, we don't sell a staple coffee, we sell a luxury coffee. And when we get up, we butt up against these commodity prices.

Roasters will have a smaller budget for rare beans such as the Hawaiian Kona wine Kotlu. When you add tariffs on top of that, it gets even more messy. And we're seeing that in Canada and China once again. So. But it's a mixed message with Hawaii coffee. The full impact is still pending.

Our harvest is just coming online for the year. Most of our sales happen in January. So what we're seeing with this and with Mac Nuts is our wholesalers are scared to book long term contracts because they don't know what's going to happen in the next few weeks or a few months.

We do have a mainland industry that's on our side. It's worth 343 billion overall. So they're lobbying hard against tariffs and reciprocal tariffs. So we're hoping to have some relief there, but not, not much real hope for the long run. Next slide. And you can see here that little number in the corner.

Our sales have dropped 32% with coffee. It's not only tariffs, that's also inflationary pressures and just General unease in the economy overall. So next slide. And the bottom line we're seeing is trade policy is defining the future of premium Hawaii exports.

We're facing headwinds and limited growth while other countries are taking advantage of that and scaling up against us. So a lot of self inflicted wounds. Next slide. Going on to some of the ways that we are trying to overcome this. SHAC has Foreign Ag Service funding for Hawaii crops. We're an official cooperator at the federal level.

We receive 1.35 million from the Regional Ag Promotion Program which is a congressionally funded activity that's through 2030. We're targeting Taiwan, Dubai, Japan and South Korea for marketing of our products and that includes all five of our products. We coordinate closely with DBET and Department of Ag to leverage these dollars to benefit our growers.

It's tough money to spend. Every single federal dollar must be spent on activities themselves. So our commodity groups have a 10% cash pay copay and quite a bit of in kind to meet the federal match on that. We also take part in the Market Access program which is 210,000 for this year. So next, next slide.

I'm going to talk briefly about some of the other funding cuts. We've seen that one. So we have a NIFA, especially crop research initiative, $6 million grant for coffee leaf rust that's been frozen twice this year under this Administration. Even though that's a legal contract, it's really frustrating. We think we've now cleared it officially.

We've cleared doge, we've cleared some internal blue state issues. We think we'll be able to spend that remaining 2.6 million in the coming year. That that's going to, uh, our ARS facility here in Hilo. We're also partnering with, with Puerto Rico and to to get that research done.

And what may seem like an odd thing is we had USAID funding as well and that money is gone. That was R and D funding. Wonder how a small commodity group here in Hawaii gets USAID funding?

Well, there's an amendment called the Bumpers Amendment at the federal level which mandates that if research is happening with US dollars in foreign country, the home country must benefit from it. So Coffee had about $21 million targeted towards research that would benefit our Hawaii growers.

We were going to then expand into Mac nuts, papaya, floriculture and Cacao, which also receive USAID funding. That obviously is not happening now. That funding is still on the books, though. That's R D funding through the State Department.

We're working closely with our delegation trying to get those research dollars back here to Hawaii because they make a huge difference when you think about, I'll give you an example, strawberries. There's over 600 varieties of strawberries. We only have 21 varieties of coffee and makes us very vulnerable to pest and disease.

And if we can bring those research dollars here and protect our growers over the long run. And that's my presentation. Thank you for your time and available questions.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Suzanne. I just wanted to reiterate what she talked about. We're talking about these funding cuts and program cuts and USDA program cut, again, the uncertainty for agriculture, her presentation for export products, but also the jeopardy that we're seeing for our research and development.

When she talked about ars, we saw it in funding cuts and even potential personnel cuts. Again, as we try to combat invasive species. We need these research dollars to help support some of that effort. So, again, it's across the board that agriculture farmers and ranchers are being impacted. Impacted.

Next, we're going to hear from Hunter Hen with the Hawaii Farmers Union. He's the advocacy Director and he works closely with family farmers across the islands, helping them access resources and represents their voices in state and federal policy discussions. He'll provide some insight, insight into the on the ground challenges from producers and what they're facing.

Again, we're going to hear some reoccurring terms or topics. Hunter works directly with small farmers and ranchers across the state. And it's got a real temperature on really what's going on with their producers. So, Hunter.

Thank you Brian. Aloha Senators. As Brian shared, my name is Hunter Heveland. I'm the advocacy Director with Hawaii Farmers Union. And we'll share a little bit today on some of what I've been hearing. We're in the midst of our policy prioritization process, so I've been doing outreach with our chapters across the islands. Go to the next slide, please.

Which extend from. From Kauai to Kau. So I've been having a number of talk stories and finally have been sleeping in my own bed from some lovely visits.

But for those who I haven't had a chance to share with Prior As Brian noted, the Farmers Union represents farmers, ranchers, food system allies statewide, largely with a focus on producer education, cooperation and legislative activity.

We do that as part of the National Farmers Union, which is the longest operating farmer membership organization in the United States and which has long been at the forefront of what I often view as progressive policy activity, whether that was women's suffrage, civil rights, and is focused on really supporting family farm operations throughout its duration.

In terms of the federal shifts, as noted by many, what we're seeing today, right, we have a farm Bill that has expired. We have federal gaps for key programs. I have my own clicker. Let's try that. zero, all right. Shutdown is furloughing USDA staff and delaying payments. Tariffs have significantly increased input and marketing costs.

And key programs, particularly ones that many producers in our networks relied upon like the Climate Smart Commodities program, have been cut, have been having direct outreach from producers who are confused about why the FSA was no longer picking up the phone and seen significant cuts in NRCS staffing and available federal staff for the programs that have benefited producers across the islands.

This volatility has significant impacts, but it's also important to highlight the distinctions that many local farmers here face from being able to access programs operated by the USDA and other federal programs that largely benefit larger commodity producers.

And so while the impacts are significant, I'd like to highlight that there are already been gaps that Hawaii farmers were facing in the form of we could say government subsidy or support.

So that would be crop insurance not covering many employees, crops disaster programs that in some cases didn't classify our particular hazards under their programming, marketing assistance that didn't necessarily become specialized well to specialty crops.

And again, as I highlighted that Climate Smart Commodities effort, what we see in this is that when some of these federal programs go away, it disrupts the trust that producers have in working with, with government programs at all.

And while some, you know, larger mainland operations may have buffers in their, their bottom lines, producers here tend to rely on farm, you know, family labor and credit cards. It's not a sustainable long term strategy for producers who are thinking long term and pursuing sustainable production and really any producers.

So how this manifests is in a variety of local shocks which I will summarize as sort of A3C's right? We've got costs in the cost of inputs significantly rising.

I was in a discussion just this weekend with producers whose feed costs were having them reconsider or have to think deeply about whether or not they're going to be able to expand their egg operation and trying to federate, which many of our producers do with their local chapter to see how they could collectively address these problems.

This affects the certainty producers have in whether or not engaging in programs is even going to be worth their time. As I mentioned, when they are in the middle of negotiations or trying to figure out FSA or NRCS or other program relationships and suddenly the phone stops being picked up.

And again, this highlights the issue of continuity, right? So we've seen conservation contracts, particularly through that Climate Smart commodity program, essentially disappear. While there's still some hope, it may, they may return. Producers can't bank on hope alone. And so this is part of where we really need to.

I think I see an opportunity for the state to step in to play a larger role. And I'll touch on that at the very end. But adding to these myriad concerns is the impact to our workforce. In a study I did in 2018 of producer needs, I believe labor was the number one barrier to increasing farm expansion.

In the past just five days of producer meetings that I've been having across the islands, labor came up again and again and again with discussions of farms who had ceased operation as a result of not having sufficient labor or arms, who decided to not expand as a result of having labor shortages.

These problems, which are long standing, are only exacerbated by the actions of Federal Government policy changes, particularly we've seen with Big island coffee workers being arrested and deported, legal residents being mistakenly detained. And the chilling effect of these is that workers are concerned about whether or not they should show up, even if they are here illegally.

Further confounding this is that existing programs like the H2A visa program are rarely utilized by producers in the state. This is a significant labor access mechanism for many farms nationwide. And in Hawaii, it's usually no more than I think ever a couple dozen farms that benefit from this.

And again, this is a highlighting the mismatch between how federal programs are designed and the capacity of Hawaii's small, diversified family farm operations to access this form of subsidy. And subsidy is critical because in most advanced economies, agriculture is sustained in one way or another through government support.

And if we believe that agriculture is an important part of our future, and I think the next presenter will highlight the necessity of, of ensuring that we are able to feed our communities, we're going to need to step up and really think critically about how we can modify some of our existing programs and maybe expand and replace some of the federal ones to ensure that we continue to have the productive Families, communities and economy that we all want to conclude the policy that we craft needs to meet the realities that we face.

So in Hawaii, we have as is. You know, Sharon and I were discussing on, just on Friday, right. The most. The majority of our farms are small holders that rely on family labor. These are producers that in some cases are at the margins of the market and in some cases are lifestyle producers.

But in the long arc of history, small holder operations are resilient. They weather the economic storms by relying on what is at least academically termed self exploitation and family labor. And they tend to stick around through economic ups and downs.

However, what we've seen with particularly as was highlighted with some of the larger commodity, they are, you know, in some cases ship off when the bottom line doesn't pencil out. So if we only invest our state resources in these larger efforts, it begs the question, how durable will those investments be?

We've seen sugar depart, we've seen pine depart, but we still see smallholder family farm operations. And so we need to be considering how the state invests and where the state invests and also highlighting that, you know, sustainability is not just about ecology. This is economically smart, it has market access opportunities and it conserves our precious natural resources.

Modifying and updating our disaster programming to ensure that the continuous, seemingly disruptions that producers across the islands face. There was a, I think it was a summer a few years ago and I had farmer friends on multiple sides of the island all flooded out through different events.

West side, Waianae, Waimanalo, everyone facing floods from different, you know, rain bombs or whatever it had been at the time. And we need to be able to have rapid response to these programs.

On the labor side, there are opportunities for H2A programming to be supported because there are requirements that mandate housing and transportation that counties and state could step in to try and provide to ensure that that federal program is more accessible to smallholder operations. And additionally modernizing our Medicaid, should it continue to exist, at least.

Programming approach to determining eligibility can expand our agricultural labor workforce while supporting existing farmers. Currently, we determine Medicaid eligibility based on a monthly or recent month basis. Many other states have adopted an approach that is allowed in CFR to have an annualized income assessment.

You can look at the past year, you could look at the next year and that allows the fluctuations that particularly are present with farm incomes to be smoothed out so that you don't lose your health care coverage because you're having a good part of your season.

So outside of the state, food security, which I'm sure we'll hear a number about going forward. These are some of the opportunities that we see to support small family farmers and really the agricultural economy across the islands. And mahalo for your time and looking forward to further discussion.

Okay, thank you very much. Brian, go ahead and introduce the next speaker. Thank you, Hunter.

Really great information. And thank you for your focus on workforce and farm labor, which is critical if we're gonna grow our sector. Finally, we'll hear from Amy Miller. She's the President and CEO of the Hawaii Food Bank.

Amy and her team are on the front lines of food security, working directly with local producers and community partners to ensure families have access to healthy, affordable food. We were really excited that they embraced the Farm to Food Bank and Farm to Families programs. But unfortunately, we're in the environment we are now.

She'll speak to how these agriculture economic challenges are affecting food availability and affordability across Hawaii. Amy?

Aloha. I'm Amy Miller with Hawaii Food Bank. Thank you so much for having me. I'm going to talk. Next slide, please. Sorry.

Briefly about, oh, back one, food insecurity here in Hawaii. Just to get a sense a little bit of what we're seeing right now. We're. When we talk about food security, the definition that we're using is enough food in the household for everybody to live a healthy active lifestyle. And that can range for families.

So you might have families who are making compromises about the kinds of foods that they're feeding their families all the way to severe food insecurity where people are missing meals, not eating for whole days and losing weight just because there isn't enough money for food. Next slide please.

Last year we did a study looking at food insecurity in Hawaii and found that one in three families were food insecure. 10% of our families were going without food for whole days, some or most months of the year. This is a really severe issue and it's affecting a lot of our families. Next slide please.

This is especially impactful for our children. So we found that 29%, again about one in three children are food insecure. 9% of our kids are skipping meals. 6% of our kids are going for whole days without eating another piece. That's hard to wrap your head around a little bit. In our households with children.

So 29% of those children are food insecure. 38% of the adults in those households are food insecure. And the reason is because those parents, the caregivers are going without to make sure their kids have enough to eat. We were recently talking to a father of four, gets SNAP benefits.

SNAP doesn't last through the, through the whole, through the month. And we talked to him on the 29th of June and he said, zero, I, I didn't eat last night and I'm not gonna eat again tonight cuz I need to make sure my kids have enough to eat. I just tell them I'm intermittent fasting.

So this is a reality that we're seeing over and over for, for the families in Hawaii. Next slide please. This is an issue across the state. So these are numbers from again from 2023, but range from 23% on Kauai all the way up to 40% of our families are food insecure on Hawaii Island.

We just have redone this study. We're about to release the numbers but I will give you a quick peek which is they have, we're seeing the same, same thing a little bit higher. So 32% of our families overall are food insecure, 34% of our children.

So this is a real issue and this is before any of the recent changes that we've. That we're seeing. Next slide, please. We talk about impossible choices because for so many of our families, um, they need to make choices, right? You have to choose sometimes.

Can I put food on the table for my family or can I put gas in my car? Can I pay for health care? Can I pay for medicine? Can I pay my rent? And these are choices that our families are facing every single day. Next slide, please. So how. How does your, how do your.

Does your food bank network address these issues? So I'm just going to very quickly talk about how the food banks work. Because we are not a direct distributor for the most part, we actually are kind of a middle man. So we work with a network of agency partners. These are nonprofit organizations, churches, schools, community organizations.

These are the folks that are doing the on the ground work to get food into community. So we help source food through a variety of channels and then we work with these partner agencies to get food into the ground. I'm sorry, onto the ground into, into folks kitchens.

Right now, Hawaii Food Bank directly serves the islands of Oahu and Kauai. We have a total about 275 agency partners and pantries, including 58 school pantries. And last year, we distributed food for almost 20 million meals through these different channels. We are part. Next slide, please. Of a statewide network of food banks.

And we call ourselves the Food Bank. Who is. This includes Maui Food bank, which supports Maui County, and the Food Basket, which supports Hawaii Island. All together, we work with about 500 agency partners, hold, held more than 1,300 mobile distributions, and distributed food for almost for over 29 million meals.

And so this is really an incredible network of organizations. Again, pretty much every organization that's doing food insecurity work, distributing food, they probably work with a food bank to get their food. Next slide, please. I also want to point out that because we're purchasing at scale, we can really stretch a dollar.

Last year we did a short study just to understand how far a dollar stretches because we are able to purchase in bulk. Oftentimes we're buying at the container level. And we found that for every dollar of our cost, if you were to go to the store, it would have. It'd be about 5.3 times the cost.

So we can really, really stretch a dollar. We're really proud of our work. We're very efficient. And the retail value of the food that Hawaii Food bank distributed across Oahu and Kauai last year is over $105 million worth of food. Next slide, please.

We are Very proud of our Farm to Families program too and very grateful to the state for funding Farm to Families this year. Last year, collectively, Hawaii's farm food banks purchased more than $4 million of locally produced food from Hawaii's farmers and producers. And we're really proud of this.

We believe strongly that we need to support our local food system. But I do want to point out that it is expensive. So, so I have here just a spotlight on Oahu. Last year, 77% of our total produce purchase budget was spent here locally with farmers.

It provided only 28% of our product volume because the cost is so much more expensive than what we're able to access through mainland partners. We are been adopted by the California Association of Food Banks, for instance. And so California food banks are so large they work regularly with agriculture and they.

We can buy at the container level, you know, naval oranges for 10 cents a pound. We will get apples for 8 cents a pound, sometimes from the Northwest. So we're able to get good healthy food. Matson has really helped with the transportation. So we're able to get access to all this healthy food.

In fact, about a third of all the food we're distributing right now is fresh produce, but it is much less expensive to purchase from the mainland.

So as we get stretched, this is an area where I will say that we are concerned that we might need to to pull back from some of our local purchase and has yet be another difficulty for our Hawaii farmers. But we've been quite committed to this. Next slide, please.

So now I just get into the meat of the presentation of it. What are the impacts of some of the federal cuts that we're seeing?

So I mentioned that the food bank source from variety channels about 20% of all the food that we receive comes through USDA programs, USDA commodity foods through a couple different programs, TFAP and CSFP. One of the biggest programs called TFAP, CCC, the Commodity Credit Corporation, that was ended this spring.

So in 2024, all the food banks together received about $4 million worth of food through this program. And that is now going down to zero. So we are quite stretched to figure out how we're going to replace these foods.

I was recently at a conference of food banks on the continent and across the board, all food banks are utting back in what they can distribute because of this, this major cut.

The other thing that was really unfortunate is this the CCC program foods were very high value prized items like expensive proteins, pork and chicken and things that people are really looking for. So this is something that we're, we're looking at right now is how can we replace these food items. Next slide, please.

So the same time we're seeing cuts in our supply, demand is going up. So this is just a snapshot for Hawaii food bank from 2018 to currently how many people we served on average each month.

And you can see right now we're serving about as many people as we did during the height of the pandemic and about twice as many people as we served prior to the pandemic. And this number has continued to go up and up.

Most of the people that we are seeing access the Charitable Food Network for the first time are working families that have never had to ask for help before. These are folks that have always been able to make ends meet. And the cost of food and the cost of living is just too much.

So they're coming to, to ask for help. And it can be really hard for people to, to swallow their pride and ask for help. That's exactly why we're here. But we are seeing that demand just creep up. Next slide, please. And we're. We've been able to meet that demand.

So we are now distributing, again, close to the same volume of food we are distributing during the height of the pandemic and more than twice what we had been distributing before. But we are again concerned with these cuts in TFAP and other programs, how we'll be able to continue to meet the rising need. Next slide, please.

I do want to talk briefly about SNAP cuts. Right now, about 165,000 people or 85,000 households receive SNAP benefits here in Hawaii. That is equivalent of about $50 million a month that's coming into the state supporting people and allowing them to purchase the foods that they need. Just this past October, we saw snap benefits drop by 2%.

This is due to some changes in the calculation for how much a thrifty meal costs in Hawaii. And that happened several years ago. So this is the last. The last cut we'll see due to that. But that is equivalent about $36 on average for a family of four.

Overall, that's about $1.0 million a month less still flowing into the state. And again, for families who are already seeing who SNAP benefits might not be lasting the whole month, that extra $36, that's. That's a day's worth of food. So again, families are going to continue to be stretched.

And then we're seeing these new changes that are coming in from the OBBBA and act. So there are changes to work requirements for able bodied adults. These we just learned a couple maybe a week or so ago that these will go into effect November 1st.

DHS is estimating that this could potentially impact 16,000 individuals age 55 to 64. So previously if you were adult over age 55, you did not have to complete any work requirements. Now that that has changed. Also previously if you had a child under the age of 18, you did not have to meet any work requirements.

Now that that has dropped to 14. Also certain groups of folks foster children that are transitioning out of foster care age 18 to 24, individuals who are homeless and veterans also prevent previously did not need to meet these these work requirements.

I will say that these paperwork requirements when they've tried them in other states have not really increased employment. But what it does do is is tends to decrease benefits because it can be difficult. If you're on the gig economy, it can be hard to demonstrate that you have a regular paycheck.

We have lots of people that don't have a regular 9 to 5 job. So even if we just estimate, okay, say 16,000 people lose benefits, we don't know if this is just an estimate, but that would be another $5 million a month.

So as we're seeing our federal funding and federal foods decrease at the same time, we're looking the needs already increasing and on top of this we're anticipating it will continue to grow as people lose their SNAP benefits and might need to turn to the charitable food system. Next slide please.

And then I just briefly wanted to talk about the impact of the federal shutdown on food security. So we are quite concerned again looking to see if there could be increased demands on for food assistance from people who again maybe have never needed to ask for help before.

So people who work for federal contractor, active duty, military and civilian federal employees, if the shutdown is prolonged, could also impact these federal nutrition programs such as snap, TFAP and wic.

And I will note that Hawaii is home to the highest concentration of military service Members across all the state and we actually have the second highest numbers of federal civilian employees. So we are quite highly impacted in comparison to the rest of the country. Next slide please.

So the nutrition programs, we've heard a lot about SNAP already, SNAP benefits are fine through October and as you just heard from Chair heard, there's a question about whether or not SNAP benefits will be available starting in November. So that's again about $50 million to the State of Hawaii.

We also have WIC which is a program for families with children under the age of 5. WIC benefits should be available in Hawaii through the end of this month, but starting in November. Again, there is a question.

I've heard a little bit about potential of the Federal Government directing tariff dollars to support WIC going forward, but we don't know that for sure. These commodity programs, TFAP and CSFP, they should continue as they're ordered in advance, but the administrative funding can slow. And then the child nutrition programs, again, should be okay through this month.

Next slide, please. This is just for illustration purposes only, but we tried to understand how many people might be impacted. We have 24,000 civilian employees of the Federal Government here in Hawaii, 44,000 active duty service members, and some unknown number of federal contractors. Yesterday our active duty military did get paid.

So that's not a group we're needing to worry about right now. But that takes us from an estimated maybe 75,000 households down to 31,000 potential households at risk, um, and another 62,000 individuals. So we are estimating potentially 93,000 people or 31,000 households that may not be taking home a paycheck right now.

If we're looking at a third of them being food Insecure, it's another 10,000 households. And I said we did the math to understand what we would need to do in order to meet the needs of these new folks who, you know, a lot of our households live paycheck to paycheck.

They don't, can't afford to go without a paycheck. We would need to increase just at that 10,000 household. We need to increase the volume of food we're getting out into community by about 40%.

So your food banks are really watching this very closely and doing everything that we can to ensure that we don't have people going to bed hungry at night. And that's all I have. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Brian, did you want to make a few closing remarks? And then we'll have, we'll take your. We'll accept your suggestion. Everybody can come up and we can ask some questions.

Yes. Mahalo, Chair Rhoads, Chair Gabbards and Members of the committees, again, thank you for holding this information briefing. The, you know, our panelists shared, you know, some unfortunate numbers and information. But again, as you heard Hunter say, you know, farmers, ranchers, they're resilient.

I want to give a very warm mahalo to our panelists, Chair Herd, Amanda, Suzanne, Hunter and Amy. Thank you, Senator, for allowing them to come up. I mean, these panelists represent stakeholders across the State and really have been in this agriculture space and, and really are doing a lot to support Hawaii's farmers and ranchers.

Really appreciate their thoughtful and passionate presentations. I do also want to thank Senator, your staff, especially Jesse, who helped to coordinate this, although I'm sitting here, it this wouldn't have been been done without you, your staff, Chair Gabbard and, and your staff.

So thank you again for allowing us this platform to really tell the state, not just this Committee, these committees, but the state, everybody watching what's really going on for agriculture. And it's no different in other industries. Other social services are being impacted.

But that means that the pool is getting smaller on how much money we at Agriculture can get from you folks here at the state Legislature. We know everybody's going to be coming to you.

So again, we've heard how federal policy shifts and funding changes compounded by the recent government shutdown have disrupted access to programs, delayed reimbursements and increased uncertainty for local producers. We've also heard about tariff pressures, higher input costs and the difficulty of competing in global markets while farming in one of the most isolated regions in the world.

Farming and ranching Hawaii is difficult under the best of times, under the best conditions. Right now it's just got that much tougher. So I know the agenda says a theme or themes. The theme is uncertainty. Then you're going to add what Hunter said, Volatility. Right.

We live in an environment of uncertainty farming and ranching on long term endeavors and with uncertainty. It almost reminds us a little bit about Covid with all that uncertainty. Not the same. I'm not suggesting the same, but it is getting more and more difficult to farm here in Hawaii.

So with that, we'd like to bring up the panelists to ask some questions.

You may have to grab your own share. Go ahead, come on up and spread out as much as you like. You don't have to be hitting elbows.

Chair Gabard we had originally talked about just having five minutes of questionings for each Member, but I, you know, there's been so much information, they're actually quite succinctly and concisely laid out. But there's a lot of questions here.

So I was thinking we probably have enough time that we could, we can just do rounds, a couple rounds of questions.

And I was going to suggest we'll start with you go to center San William and True and then go down this and come back and I'll be last and then we'll just do rounds as long as we, I don't know we should probably try to get out of here. How long do we have the room? Okay.

Quite a while.

Well, I. I have an input briefing at noon.

At noon. Okay. So we'll try to wrap up by noon. I'm sorry. Okay. If you'd like to start the questioning, that would be.

Yeah, sure. Thank you, Chair. So, for Director Hurd. So, are you making a list of. Specific steps that the state should be taking to protect Hawaii farmers from disruptions that are being caused by these, the changing federal priorities?

Yes, we are. Thank you, Senator, for the question. It'll be part of our package for the upcoming session and it will be focused on providing resources to farmers and ranchers. Unfortunately, it does involve some resources that is very, very lean right now. But farmers and ranchers will be the key of our list.

Right. Yeah. So the earlier we get those in. Terms of crafting the bills that we'll. Need to get introduced, the better.

So thank you. Well, we will have that for you maybe next week because we're putting it together.

Thank you.

Yes. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, I did. Director Hurd, you mentioned in your impacts of federal policies a positive of Make America Healthy Again. I've been to a whole bunch of seminars this summer to find out what opportunities those were. Can you mention what exact opportunities or is it just a hope that this General policy will actually benefit our farmers?

Thank you. It isn't. It is a subjective response that I'm giving to you, but I think Hawaii is a very healthy lifestyle. Yes. We don't put stuff in our food. We gather it. We fry it up. So that's the opportunity. We have fruits and vegetables that we grow. So. Yeah, so I want to.

So. Yeah, so I want to. Okay, we know. Okay. In fact, I am going to have an informational briefing next week on the federal impacts because I'm Health and Human Services Chair of the shutdown on SNAP and WIC and other federal benefits that are causing major disruptions. Okay. But so we know from what the presentations are that grants have already been terminated.

Do you know whether or not we are going to have grants for projects? Because. Because we have good projects. We have farm to school projects where the grant is terminated. We have blue zones projects where the grants have been terminated. That's why I went to Boston and Denver. I wanted to talk to the federal people.

What exactly do they mean by Make America Healthy Again? What kind of grants are they going to give us so that we know we can switch, we can pivot from and hopefully restructure our farm to school to fit their guidance? Do you know what those opportunities are? Or again, is it just a hope?

Because that's what I'm getting is hopefully this will work. But we don't know right now. We know it's terminated, but we don't know whether or not we're going to get any funding for this healthy lifestyle stuff.

That is very much in line with the theme of today's briefing, uncertainty. We have our grant writer here. She is preparing grants and grants and grants. Thank goodness she had a farm to school grant that was terminated. But it came back. It came back. It came back but with a different name, different scope.

So we had to massage and make it more specific to submit it again. And I'm going to turn to her and say, did we submit it again?

It's due in December.

It's due in December. But it's the same basic grant to provide food in a system that eventually gets into the schools. It's called a farm to school, but the nature of it is more direct to producers. Again, but my presentation, it's direct payments, no middleman, focus on production. So uncertain.

Because you know what, Senator, they could pull it again, right? Because we were, we had already submitted our grant when they pulled it. So this time we'll submit it early. We always submit early. And if they pull it, I don't know, but we, so there's promise, there's hope, but there's a lot of uncertainty.

We have another grant that we're working on for Hawaii County, Maui County and Kauai County. It's only for rural areas. So Oahu doesn't count. It's only for the rural areas. It's focuses on transforming the food system so that it creates security and they only want shovel ready projects.

So we're working with the counties and we're going to submit early again. It's doing much, but what if between now and then they pull the plug? So, you know, it's, it's a hard question to answer but the make America Healthy Again does have options for us because we eat healthy in Hawaii.

If we can get our bananas to produce. You know that. I'm sorry, I know, I see your, your disgust. But that's all we have.

You know, I am like I'm hopeful but yeah, we can move.

I'll come back to you. But let's, let's, let's go to the next person and yeah, Senator, lectures. Go ahead.

Thanks, Chair. Things pretty much at you Amy, on these conversations. We're talking about the increased cost of living, which is a problem here in Hawaii. Cost of food, percentage of the average household today versus a year ago, both Hawaiian compared to continental U.S. do you have those numbers?

I don't have that. Those numbers exactly. I will say that I have been keeping track of the consumer price index for food at home. And if you look at the cost of food at home in Hawaii from prior to the pandemic till now, it's over 30% increase.

So that's the cost of, you know, food has gone up 30% in the last five years.

Okay. So coming back to the food insecurity, I know Big Island's 40% and you made my heart sink when you said it's creeping up.

Beyond that right now coming back to Hunter talking about the cost of our production is going up and then your comment, Amy, about it's cheaper to buy off the West Coast, which is part of the justification of not being self reliant when it comes to food.

We can buy it cheaper elsewhere theoretically, but then there's the resiliency side and we know what happens. So to me this is a bigger conversation. But the food is kind of a signalman of, of the problem of what we're facing with the federal shutdown and all that.

I know the fastest growing demographic of the user of Food Basket Food Bank, Big Island Food Basket. Got to talk about my friends, right? Is the military family, is that ramping up or is that staying? What's happening with that?

So right now about 3% of the people that we serve are military, active duty military and veterans. We do partner with the ASYMCA. We have distributions live on all the bases here on this island. And we are ramping up. So we've increased our regular drops to their pantries.

We have increased our, what we call Ohana but our mobile distributions with produce and other things. So we are seeing that go up. We are also planning additional distributions both for military National Guard. My understanding is National Guard did not get paid yesterday. So only active duty military post guard were paid.

So we are planning additional distributions to support National Guard, Coast Guard, all the other Homeland Security, TSA, the other, you know, 24,000 folks that we have that didn't get paid.

And just follow up, thank you. Got a message from Kristen Frost Albrecht, Big Island. She's a Director of the Food Basket, the National Park. We're seeing massive increase there. What's your best guess?

Based upon the trends you are seeing and you know, listen very carefully to everybody else but you're seeing the sort of the canary in the mind. What's your best guess three months from now?

I think if the, if the federal shutdown continues beyond through this month, I think we are in real, real trouble. If, even if the government reopens and folks get back pay with some of these changes that are going into place with the SNAP cuts and the.

Just the continuing trend that we're seeing, I will say I am concerned about the ability of the food banks and the charitable food network to manage this on our own. We just don't have the capacity. Our costs are going up. USDA commodities are down and the need just continues to rise.

And philanthropy has really come through for the food banks over time and that's getting stretched. So we are committed to being there for our community. I want to say that really clearly we are committed to, to, to ensure that people get access to healthy food. But food banks on the continent are reducing their volume.

They are closing down for certain days. They're letting go of staff because this is a, this is a crisis.

Okay, can I. Okay, yeah, just.

Final question. Give us a number to fill in backstop monthly for all food basket food banks statewide to address it. Give us a number. How much money? I realize this is a hard press and I want to move on, but.

Is it okay if I get back to you on that?

Because I, I would rather give it. To the Chair so they can communicate.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm just going to follow up next week. We're going to have a number regarding SNAP.

Okay.

Okay.

Is it going to include number of people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Is going to include the number of people who. What is it called? Take advantage of it.

No, it's going to be for existing. So it's not going to be projected. If what she is saying is correct, we're going to have an exponential amount of people who are going to be using SNAP who are not in SNAP now. So the.

What we are talking about next week is what we are paying what we are relying on the Federal Government for monies. And I'm not going to say what that money is until I have the Human Services direct. If you'd like to. Yeah, sure.

Sharon. Sharon, I appreciate your conversation, especially the part where you said we can't depend on imports as a strategy to feed our people. Where do I want to go? We have a couple rounds.

Yeah, yeah, we'll.

Okay. You know, before I go into that, I'm just curious. I haven't seen you in a while. How are we doing on CRB?

We are doing the best that we can.

You're welcome to answer the question, but it's not really, obviously.

Thank you for the question, Senator, because we have good news on CRB. We are deploying. We're using the funds given to us from 231 and 236. We've done. I think I was ready, getting ready for my Nanakuli neighborhood board meeting.

For what though?

I guess specifically what I ask. I just. How close are we to a solution? Not all the work.

The CRB.

Okay, so I heard on. I heard on NPR today or what HPR, that were the tools that we have. We're doing really well. Well, what we need is an organic product that we can use to kill the CRB. Because when we. The products that we have, although they're approved, they're considered poison.

And CRB being, you know, coconut trees being the tree of life, we get a lot of criticism for poisoning the trees, even though the products that we're using are approved and they effective. Okay, so we are waiting for that. That thing that is organic and not chemical.

Since this really isn't a part of. This, let me make the argument for why it is. Because CRB is going to take out our food sources a long, long time. Way sooner than a lack of funding will. But yes, I can. I understand your point. They're already doing it. I'm seeing it in our community, and.

That's why I asked.

Yeah, we're making. We're making progress, Senator. We did over a thousand trees.

Please just.

We've done over a thousand trees statewide on public lands. If you're talking private lands. That's. We. We really need to be invited onto the property to, to solve that. We need. We're looking for that magic bullet. But right now, with the tools we have, we need being criticized because it is pesticides. Okay, but.

But your knitting idea is good.

The, the alternative to that. How far. The alternative to injecting the, the pesticides into the trees. How far off are we into something else? Whether it's the fungus, the virus or some different form of injection.

I don't know. Uncertain.

Well, yet another layer of uncertainty. Yes, thanks. I can talk to her after. Okay. I did want to start conversation. Go ahead. All right, I'll ask a couple and then we'll do another round. Let's see. I wanted to talk to Ms. Shriner about. So I took just enough economics to be dangerous, probably, but me too.

The, the idea that the Trump Administration is putting a 50% tariff on coffee from Brazil on its face would seem to say that helps our coffee industry because our, our prices are Suddenly way cheaper. Is that not what's happening?

That was our initial expectation and hope too, because it did make us seem quite reasonable compared to previous pricing. But what we're seeing is the, the other costs going up, the eggs, the dairy, the beef, the grains are just putting that inflationary pressure on families as a whole. So that's reducing discretionary income and reducing sales, reducing.

Oh, I see. So people are spending more money on the. Well, it was a question of whether coffee is essential or not. So you can probably live without coffee, but you got to have some carbs and protein.

Okay.

Yes.

And I might debate living without coffee.

But the. So then, but the. But the actual coffee industry itself, is it benefiting from, from it or tell yet or we just don't. This is, this is the uncertainty question again. I mean, if we knew that there was going to be stay 50% for five years or something, that would drive decisions.

But there's not any confidence that that's going to happen.

No, it's, it's, it's been such a moving target. It's been really tough for our customers abroad. We do ship a lot into Canada, for example, and Japan doesn't have a tariff, but it still creates an uncertainty there.

And so buyers are not willing necessarily to place that order because by the time it ships and arrives, there might be a new tariff change.

Yeah. Okay, so Let me ask Mr. Heaivilin. So almost everybody's talked about uncertainty, but no one's really like honed in on what the, the, the why things are being uncertain. I mean, I'm one of the, you know, I worked on a farm when I was growing up and there's a lot of uncertainty in farming.

I know that from even my limited experience. But some of this uncertainty is not caused by nature and climate change or whatever. What, what is the source of the uncertainty?

Well, I think if you aren't able to predict whether you're. Or.

Well, if you aren't able to predict if the cost of your inputs are going to be the same next month, next harvest, next season, if your labor is going to be available or willing to enter into public, even if you're uncertain if, say, programs that have supported farm to school or other, you know, the adoption of conservation practices are going to continue to exist, if your market will continue to be there, if it was in, you know, through some conduit supported by federal funding or maybe a state program that itself was supported by federal funding, it just wipes the board of what I know you guys about.

I know you guys are trying to be polite and I appreciate that. But what it boils down to is Trump Administration not even necessarily their bad policies, are just not sticking with anything long enough to be able to tell what's going on. Is that a fair.

I think that adds to it. But there was already uncertainties in terms of just market information that was available in the state. That was in part due to federal changes, but in part due to state decision making. Right.

So I can tell you how many eggs moved from Hawaii island to Oahu in May 1953 and I can't tell you how many moved last year and that's a result of state changes and information that we chose to collect about our agricultural markets.

Well, that does raise an interesting question and with this one I'll move back to Senator Gabbard, but the do you know whether in previous shutdowns all the economic information, including agricultural information, that all get cut off? Because that that's the excuse that's being used for not providing some of that information at the federal level.

But I don't remember that ever happening.

My understanding is that there are some staffing that is is retained and I don't know if nas anybody else is able to speak to it more with more certainty. But my, my understanding is there is some, I think statistical work that may continue, but the majority of staffing is not operating.

The website is shut down. Yeah, but the staffing went from about 800 to 500 and that staff is no longer available.

Sure, Gabbard, go ahead.

Yeah, just continue with Hunter here. So you'd mentioned in your presentation about the small scale farms that basically are for Hawaii compared to what's happening on the mainland.

So what kinds of state level programs or matching funds would most effectively fill the gaps that are being led by these federal programs that are drying up?

Well, I think the projected state budget being what it is in part a large result of significant shifts by the Trump Administration and how states benefit from a variety of programs. There are again looking historically some opportunities that Hawaii can take that would benefit not just smallholder operations but any farm operation.

The levying of our general excise tax on agricultural inputs is an approach that is distinct from I believe, 37 other states exempt from sales tax or their equivalent, seed, feed, machinery, equipment, fuels, et cetera.

When our general excise tax was implemented in the 50s, studies were done on our agricultural industries that determined it was going to increase the cost of production and those costs only expand through tax pyramiding, which is a known problem in our general excise system. So by continuing to levy those taxes.

While we state that we would like to increase production, we put one hand, tie one hand behind our back by increasing the costs that we put on producers relative to the states that we might be competing with. And that's something that's solely within state jurisdiction.

Okay, Amanda, we're not going to leave you out. So Amanda, in the report that you gave, in your presentation, any emerging recommendations that you have for us based on, on that report?

Yeah, I think this will be a busy season and fall for all the conversations and all the membership based organizations to really hear from their members more about these impacts and, and really we want to hear from the farmers on the ground. You know, I think first and foremost about programs.

That being said, there's, you know, a number of exciting things we can do that are either modeled on previous, you know, federal programs that we were hoping to expand as well as looking around at other states and what they do. So I think a number of those have come up already.

Potential to expand programs like Debux, to expand Farm to Families and continue to resource that. We also have things like the transportation cost reimbursement program, which is something that, you know, Hawaii has been able to benefit from at the federal level, but it's very small.

There's options to think about a state level program there to help, you know, address the cost of inputs. For example, you know, shipping is a conversation that's been ongoing about how, how to deal with that in terms of, you know, agricultural producers locally getting through, getting their products to market.

The Department of AG and Biosecurity has got a great Climate Smart Resilience grant, I believe in the works that was previously introduced that, you know, would really help fill a gap because the national level federal Climate Smart Commodities grant has, has go or at least, you know, is uncertain in terms of if it will come back.

So there's a number of infrastructural investments.

I think what we saw in our program, looking at what's been cut is that a lot of the work that people had identified over the last several years to invest in the infrastructure and processing and all the kinds of facilities that will enable projects such as the regional kitchen and others to really take fruit and blossom have been really hauled out.

So the lack, you know, the kind of the regional food business center, for example, was really focused on that middle of the, of the value chain.

So without those federal money is what can we do locally to really help invest in those kinds of programs that really have been proven to work across other states or that were, you know, part of federal programs in the past. So I think there's a menu and I think it will depend on the farmers.

I mean, I would depend on the farmers to help us prioritize that list and really see what rises to the top in addition to the very clear need around food insecurity that I think just think is on all of our minds and hearts.

And I would just add that, you know, getting out of our silos, which is what we're doing now, and you guys working together, we're three months out from the session starting. The sooner you help give us that information, it's going to really help us in terms of any bills that might be introduced this coming session.

So thank you very much again.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll go back to Senator Richards.

Okay, I'll leave you out, Amanda, because we are talking about the systems and we talked about how we're going to do this with agriculture and comment was made about subsidies. I'm not wild about subsidies, but I would argue that food is a necessity in our communities. Right.

So how do we support it? And it's housing, labor, infrastructure and transportation as the biggies in my mind, which all ties into our cost of living, which comes back to our food systems. There are other. When you're elected, you view other societies differently because you see how they're handling situations.

It's not a direct subsidy, but I see when government steps in to help stand some things up and then back out. Being an island state, transportation, Inter Island transportation is a big deal in your food systems. Have you looked at other communities that suffer with the same challenges and how might they address those?

That's a great question. Actually, this has come up recently in conversations with the Department of Transportation. And I know others, probably Brian and Hunter have looked at this for a longer term than I have.

But one thing that did come up recently was other like places not just in the U.S. but beyond that have island geographies that have agricultural communities. So we've just in the very beginning of starting to explore that. The Philippines have some examples. I think Alaska was also on there just for looking at that complexity.

So I think it's something we need to look at. We need to look beyond the states as well for how places outside the US have dealt with those challenges. But I would kind of defer to those folks to talk more about shipping.

Thank you, Senator. Yes, Transportation issues have come up before Legislature for a number of years, especially for neighbor island producers. Right. As I said earlier, we import our inputs also so if the inputs come into Honolulu and you're on neighbor islands, it needs to ship over to you on any runs at additional cost.

And then if your market's back here on Oahu, you need to ship it back. So, yes, you heard Amanda reference the rtcp, the federal program. We're looking at one.

And I think it's been proposed before at the state level to offer some relief for neighbor island farmers and ranchers, but also for Oahu farmers and ranchers from those inputs that we have to bring in from the mainland or internationally. So transportation is a huge issue.

So Senator Gabbard, you had asked Hunter, you know, what are the other issues? Again? Transportation, definitely reducing our energy costs. Right. Labor. Right. Labor is going to be a huge issue. These are all the issues.

But for transportation, 100%, and I know the Department of Transportation is working, Director Sniffin is working on proposed legislation to provide some relief for our farmers and ranchers across the State of Hawaii from transportation costs. Again, what we need to focus on is import replacement.

And how do we do that reduce the cost reduction for our farmers and ranchers. That's the only way we're going to be able to grow our industry and remain competitive versus those imported products that are coming into Hawaii. So comes. Go ahead.

Can I add to that? Only because I recently had occasion to speak to Director Scoresby and we do have a very close problem with geographic disadvantage. Just this morning they had a big flood over in western Alaska.

I was going to call Director later today because not only did their transportation system the only way you can get in is air, a boat, and both of those are can't do it right now because of the climate. And not only that, but the flood took out their winter reserves.

All the moose and meat and things that they had frozen were wiped out. The freezers just were washed away. Now what are they going to do so that the transportation infrastructure, how do you prepare the Alaskan, you know, the tribes, they store their food, they keep it, they know how to live. And that was wiped out.

So I'm going to call Director this afternoon and say, what are you guys going to do? We want to come up with a program Alaska and Hawaii to help us with these climate impacts that even in our best case scenario we get wiped out. So it's a tough call.

Well, and gets down to the again, we need food, we need the production. Transportation, mass transit, which is important for our economy, is heavily subsidized just to get people to where they need to be.

And because of our transportation challenges, Is this the point where we start looking at that to keep our food self reliance, food security and I don't know what that looks like but I know we have the marine, the Daniel Okaka marine highway system within our state.

Do we need to look at that big policy looking at me to talk.

About Senator Richards, I failed to mention the PUC does allow for and YB does offer an agriculture discount 30%. However with the rate increases that may result in not really any benefit.

We do appreciate that discount to agriculture but again yes, any efforts that the Legislature can provide to reduce that cost of transportation would be very helpful for agriculture sector again especially for neighbor island producers.

Just to add to that the industry has been advocating for some type of relief for that Inter Island transport. I have a list of bills here I'd be happy to share from 2009, a few in 2012201317232425 that have consistently come fledge to ask for.

I would ask you to get it. To the chairs and look very. Yeah, thank you Senator Wall.

Any other questions? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't call me off this time. Sorry.

Nothing. One thing that the federal Administration had put out over the summer that caught our attention was Department of Agriculture. They said they're going to work with all 50 states to ban foreigners from buying and they went from certain countries and they went further and said they're going to look into the lands that were already foreign owned.

It's Mike's Bill. Pass it through the Senate. Died in the House. He was against it. How's everybody feel about that? Will it help?

I can say as this time around and as one of the groups that had worked on certain versions of that Bill, what we've seen as of a trending approach nationally that you highlight right is a number of states have passed some form of control or at least tracking of foreign acquisition of agricultural lands.

And talking with producers here, some of the cost effects of this are acute. So speaking with a small farmer in Waianae who had put multiple offers on properties that were all purchased cash over asking for increasing of basil production for export by foreign owned companies.

So it's not a matter of a xenophobic concern as I think animates some other interests around it. It's more about trying to ensure that we are supporting producers here who are in particular at least from the bent of our organization are focused on production for here.

And as a result of not actually tracking much of that at the federal level and certainly not tracking it at the state level, we're Unable to even understand the extent to which we may be further distorting already meteorically high land prices as a result of not governing something that the state does at least have the ability to be aware of.

More. More clearly.

Senator VI can add, on a national level, it's a mixed review. There's a law library that dandles with that question and takes input from states. It's a mixed review.

But on a national level, the threat is not only foreign, the threat is domestic as well because a lot of the conservationists and philanthropists are buying up huge swaths of land.

Yeah. We cannot stop that. We tried to think.

I don't want to say I want to stop it. I'm just saying the competition is everywhere and they take this land for the buffalo. Who can. Who can say that's a bad cause? Right. But then it's creating disruption within the agriculture community. So there's factors everywhere for land ownership that we need to address.

Not only foreign, but domestic as well.

Did have questions for chair about. As you're probably aware, the Attorney General has filed. Well, when they appeared before us a couple months ago, they had already filed 27 lawsuits having to do with one federal administrative action or another. Have any of those lawsuits involved the programs that we've talked about today that more.

The grants were, I guess to shorten. The question is, have you been coordinating with AG's office about areas where it would appear that the, you know, the money had already been appropriated for something that was supposed to come to ag here in Hawaii and it had been stopped. And the attorney's Journal's opinion would.

Was that they weren't supposed to. It was. It was already money that had been appropriate by prior Congress and had already been voted on. And how can you. What. Under what legal authority are you stopping that? Do you work with the AG's office on questions like.

His office has been busy, very busy with those types of questions. But the CODEL is more. More close to that type of a fight. Our AG's office, apparently the Blues. There's a coalition of AGs in the nation and they've assigned the different issues to the different ags. Reg does not have.

I believe the Department of Agriculture talks to the AG on these issues.

Thank you. Yeah, every day.

Every day. So. So that the AG is aware when there's something that you think has been cut that was already. It already. That had already been approved by Congress that we were supposed to get just every day. Okay.

Yeah.

I'm not really sure who to ask this. I'm going to ask Brian. You know, there's been some cuts to NOAA that does the weather forecasting and of course, weather is incredibly important in the AG sector. Has that, if any of those cuts, can we tell yet where has that had any effect on agricultural planning at this point?

Or is it still too early to know? Or does anybody know?

Yeah, I mean, the Water Resources Research center at the University of Hawaii, and I'm not sure if it was the NOAA funding in particular, but that forecasting work and historical weather tracking work, I can say, at least for some efforts I've been involved with that are assessing crop suitability and the likely shifts that we are going to face as a result of a shifting climate envelope have been invaluable to try and understand and better plan for agriculture.

Those were cut, shut down. And there, I believe, and Amanda and I had spoken about this some months ago, I believe there is at least some. Some heavy wavering and. And I believe maybe subsequently some actual cuts, if you're able to.

We'll have to get back to you on that one.

Okay. But some discussion, at least with folks in those circles, had brought up the extent to which the state may need to step in to try and support the continued operation of Mesonet or similar, similar efforts that have been enumerating our climate and making publicly available products for time.

All right, I think we're about the end of our time, so thank you all presenters for coming and giving us your manao. It was a lot to digest, no pun intended, since we're talking about food. But thank you again and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Do the best we can to navigate the uncertainties that are before us for being here. Thank you, guys.