Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Environment

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for being here. Opening the joint committees on agriculture and food systems with the Senate committees on agriculture environment, water and land between hearts, and our house energy and environmental Environmental Protection Committee. My name is Corey Chan. I'm the chair of the Agriculture Food Systems Committee.

Next to me is Senator Gabbard, who is the chair of Agriculture, Environment. Good morning, everybody. Thank you

for being here. And for the meeting.

Yes. This is our Wednesday, April 109:30 informational briefing at the State Capitol, and we're in Room 325. And also, thank you for the people who are joining us also on Zoom. I would just like to briefly make note of the new microphone system in the house. So the microphones are now on the ceiling.

So you see those green lights, that means they're hot at all times. So just be aware that any side conversations may be picked up. If I throw it over to Senator Gabbard, just like to introduce the house members with me.

I have my vice chair, representative Kush, chair Kahaoa, and vice chair Amy Perruso. And I would now like to turn over to Soetor Gabert for opening remarks.

Thank you very much. Good morning. Welcome. Mahalo for joining today's AENWLAAGREEP info briefing on the impacts of the March 2026 Kona lows on Hawaii's farming communities. I'd like to introduce my AEN committee members.

We have vice chair, Tim Richards here, and also the chair of the water and committee here. Let's see. With all the damages and threats to farmers as a result of the recent storms caused by Kona lows l one and two after being approached by a couple of stakeholders, I decided it was important to host an info briefing to let folks know the true impact on our farmers and ranchers and what's being done about it. So I appreciate

Amanda Shaw, director of food systems for the state, and Hunter Hevelin, Hawaii Farmers Union advocate for pulling this briefing together with continuing efforts to help our farmers and managers across the state in real time. I look forward to

hearing from all our presenters. And with that, I'll turn it over to Amanda, our moderator. We'll take it from here.

Mahalo, chair Gabbard. Mahalo, chair Chen, chair Loewen, chair Lee, vice chair Kush, vice chair Richards, and vice chair Peruso for having us here. Thank you for taking your time out of this busy legislative season to host us. We really want to be able to share about the Kona Low Storms and the effects on our farming, ranching, and rural communities and on our local food system. So these events carry many immediate safety, health, and emotional challenges beyond the ecological and economic impacts.

When people think of farms, they may think of businesses, and it's true many farms and ranches are businesses, but they often do so much more. Their homes, their classrooms, their soil protectors, their water stewards, their places for community. The organizations gathered here today will share the size and shape of these impacts, what they're hearing from different geographic and producer communities, and how they're stepping up to address both basic needs and farming needs.

Barely an hour goes by that we don't hear about new needs, new stories, new sorrows, but also new reasons to be grateful and proud to stand and support with our farming communities. It's not all about money, but you will hear a lot about money today and numbers.

And collectively, there are an important list of measures before this body in the coming weeks that will be highlighted, many of which request funding for things that support the farming system in blue skies and also in more difficult times.

Where we spend our limited resources tells us who and what we value, and as organizations serving these communities, and there are many more than could fit inside this room that are out there out there doing the work, we really value this opportunity to spotlight some of the realities behind the numbers. So we're at the beginning of a very long recovery process, and one of our first steps in that process is to gain clarity on where we stand.

So what's clear is that as of, I believe, last night, Hunter may have some slightly updated numbers. But as of last night, for the reporting tool that we've collectively put together, more than 380 producers have reported more than $23,000,000 in direct damages.

And we know that more than a thousand producers have applied to the DABs emergency funding, call, and perhaps Dean will share some some updates there. You know, I think that's just the the beginning. Really, when you look at what economic multipliers are used for damage assessment situations, those numbers are two to three times directly reported damages. I mean, that's because the storms don't just damage crops, in the ground right now, but they damage infrastructure, soil, equipment, and the people farming.

So lost income in the future is a real concern.

So when we use that multiplier, we're seeing that losses could be if we just just took the number that's reported as of last night of twenty three million, we're looking at 46 to 69,000,000 if no additional, producers report damage. So to help us understand these impacts and the response effort underway, we'll hear from a number of speakers.

So there will be a lot of information and impacts to understand, but we wanna give everybody a chance to to share first before we move into q and a given the very tight timeline and and briefing. So I will first up, I'd like to introduce Brian Miyamoto, executive director at the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation. He will share a bit about, his liaisons with federal delegations as well as statewide, response efforts and the ongoing needs of Hawaii farmers.

Thank you, Amanda. Aloha, chairs, vice chairs, members of the committees. Brian Miyamoto here on behalf of the Hawaii Farm Bureau. I'm gonna start, and I'm gonna read so I stay on time and stay on point. I'm gonna I'm gonna start with actually my closing statement.

Our farmers and ranchers are resilient. Say that all the time. They're resilient, But resilience does not replace resources. Without timely target support, we risk reducing agriculture production and even worse losing farmers and ranchers. So, again, what are we seeing?

Over the past couple weeks, we've been out on the ground. I know Hunter's been there. Many others have been there with farmers and ranchers across the state, and the impacts are significant. Heavy rains, flooding, high winds, some areas near hurricane force winds, Power outages have all affected farm and ranch operations. Fields have flooded, crops damaged or completely lost, livestock lost or stressed, and infrastructure including irrigation systems, equipment, vehicles, inputs, supplies, fencing, and farm roads have been lost or damaged.

In some cases, entire farms have been wiped out. These are farmers who are just days or weeks away from harvesting, and now they have to start all over. One important thing to understand with, with farming, it's front loaded in terms of cost and expenses. Those farmers have already invested in the land, the water, the seeds, the input, fuel, and labor costs. All costs are paid upfront in anticipation of a harvest.

So when a crop is lost, they're not just losing the income that they're expecting from that crop. They're loo they've lost everything. They already put in that crop. They're in a negative. K?

Many farmers and ranchers have loans already. We talk about emergency loans as that's always the the go to default. However, even loan interest loans may not be a viable option for recovery. With all the assistance, one real outcome is farms and ranches shutting down. They're already in debt.

They can't take on more loans. We're also seeing the impacts across entire scope operations, meaning not just the loss of damage of crops in the ground. As Amanda said, lots lots of crops that were just harvested and maybe were in cold storage, but they lost power. They lost those crops, or they can't get them out because the roads are blocked. Even seeds and seedlings for the next planting may have been lost.

These are the impacts on and there are impacts on livestock and feed. And so livestock you heard from the cogulosity leader as well as aquaculture operations or flooding, contamination of their waters, and more oxygen levels have led to fish losses. If you get a chance, we have some pictures on Hawaii fish company out of Mokalia of our larger farms. Lots of losses. There's also damage to infrastructure and equipment, irrigation systems, fencing, farm vehicles, tractors, barns, greenhouses, sheet houses, and pool houses.

Everything that farmers and ranchers need to farm and ranch, somebody lost. In some areas, wells have been flooded, irrigation systems are down, and there's limited or no access to clean water for crops, for processing, or for animals. Beyond the immediate damage, farmers are now dealing with secondary impacts from the flooding, including disease, mold, Root Rot, runoff, soil contamination, and erosion. So this isn't just a single loss. It's a cascade of impacts affecting every part of farming operations.

When we talk about crop or livestock loss, it's not just a season's harvest. It can also mean losing future production from the loss of those trees that will no longer produce more crops, plants, and animals that may take years to cover. At the federal level, there is a clear pathway for support, but it hinges largely on securing a presidential disaster declaration. And my understanding, I think the governor had submitted that on March 24. Our congressional delegation has been engaged from the start.

I know they've communicated with many of you and many of us sitting on this side. James Chang from Senator Schatz's office, Jen Burt's, and Megan O'Connor from Senator Hironos, congressman Tokuda herself, and congressmen Ed Case's office. Again, we need them to help push through and

help us with this emergency disaster declaration. All of them is shared pretty much the same thing that the declaration unlocks a range of federal programs, including FEMA assistance, USDA disaster programs, SBA emergency loans, HUD recovery funding, and other federal resources. We we believe or we understand that FEMA has been in Hawaii working with the state and to assess the damage for the declaration. Without that declaration, programs must be accessed individually, agency by agency, which slows down delivery assistance.

It can happen, and we've got JB Martin here from NRCS again.

Some of the farms and ranches already know how to access this. K? In terms of the USDA program, some are already available to our farmers and ranchers, and I think, Susanna can go a little bit more detail. Here's just a real quick list. FSA emergency loans.

ELAP, emergency assistance for livestock, honey bees, and farm raised fish. Tap, tree assistance program, LIP, livestock indemnity program, Nap, non insured crop disaster assistance program, federal crop insurance, EWP, emergency watershed protection program, and equip environmental quality incentives program. Okay? However many of these programs are limited scope, take time to access or require producers to already be enrolled. And it's important to know not all forms will qualify for these programs.

Fact many Other degree requirements and prior participation can limit access, especially for smaller operators. In Hawaii, many farms don't cut carry crop insurance. I think majority don't have crop insurance. We're also still early in the assessment process, and there's uncertainty whether we will receive broader federal disaster funding, especially given that there are multiple disaster events occurring across the country competing for limited federal resources. At the same time, there's been strong coordination across state agencies and partnerships again, folks that are here and our state agencies.

We wanna acknowledge the governor and his administration for the leadership and coordination across the state. Also, really wanna recognize Will King. He's been very instrumental in connecting with many of us, from administration side. DOT, Ed Sniffin, Department of Defense, Major General Logan, Haima, mister Barrows. Right?

They've been assisting with debris removal, road clearing, and restoring access using their heavy equipment and personnel. Just yesterday, we heard that, the army the national guard was supporting farms in Wailua. We also know some of our our larger farms that have capacity are using their heavy equipment to help community and their fellow farmers and ranchers.

Something that hasn't been talked about a lot, deputy director Kathy Ho and administrator Matt Carano at Department of Health have been engaged on environmental health concerns, including standing water, mosquito control, vector control, and food safety risks. We wanna prevent our public health issues from compounding the challenges farmers are already facing.

At department of agriculture and biosecurity, chair heard and her staff, along with the governor's office and senator's office, mobilized emergency farmer relief grant program with lightning speed, and the board of AG have already activated emergency loans at 3%. You'll hear more from the deputy about that. CTAHR has also stepped up. Dean Grewal has offered CTAHR to do soil and water tests at no cost for the next three months. Normally, we have to pay for this.

Testing for nutrients, heavy metals, and plant pathogens, and also deploying their extension agents to provide post disaster best management practices and recovery guidance. They also have the capacity to go into communities and assist with sample collections. Instead of having the farmers come to them, they're proposing to go off. We're also hearing significant concerns from farmers about what can be safely harvested after flooding events and what must be discarded. So clear practical guidance is critical right now.

North Shore EVP, Chad Buck with HFA, DAB and CTAHR are helping to provide guidance to producers on food safety protocols that have been impacted by flooding. And then there's Haima and Fafima doing ongoing assessments. I'm I'm gonna try to rush through this. Wanna acknowledge everybody that's been working on this. All you state legislators, county officials are called out, governing, lieutenant governor, visiting farms and ranches firsthand.

And and, again, we wanna make sure I said it. Requiemann, he doesn't like me to say tip of the spirit. He's been embedded in community down on the North Shore, really doing a lot, and we know others are doing that. Not just supporting the broader community, but also the farm and ranch community. K?

Farmers are the first to step up on disasters impact their communities. Even when they themselves have been affected, they still donate the the food supporting neighbors help where they can. We saw the COVID behind the fires and even during the Federal Government shutdown. Farmers and ranchers don't typically ask for help. That's why we're here today.

We're asking for help for them. K? Again, to Amanda and Hunter, really start off really well with that survey and really boots on the ground gaps. I'm gonna get through this. As you can see and you hear from others, there's a lot of coordination and activity underway.

There's still some fundamental gaps. There's always a lag between damage and a time for assistance to reach farmers and ranchers. They're experiencing immediate loss. Ongoing costs continue. They still have to pay their lease rents.

They have to pay labor costs, feed inputs, debt obligations. They need the help now, and help is money? Programs can be complex, though, always aligned with Hawaii's small and diversified operations. Not all farms are avail are qualified for programs. There's still uncertainty around timing, eligibility, and whether we will really get the federal programs.

Also need to recognize about our different farming communities, language barriers, cultural differences, and familiar with programs to make it more difficult for producers to access assistance. This includes our immigrant farming communities such as our Southeast Asian farmers, Thai, Lao, Cambodian, Vietnamese producers, even Filipino and Latino farmers. Again, we need to connect with them and make sure they're part of the recovery. Pacific Gateway is a great place to look. K?

And then finally, that we need the timely presidential disaster declaration. We need flexible funding for farm to bridge the gap. We need the cap. I'm going to skip over because I wanna give other people time. We need immediate recovery funding, grants, not loans, fast deployment.

We need to bridge the farmers and ranchers to sustain business while they're waiting for this federal aid, and we need long term resilience investments in water sys infrastructure, soil health, and recovery. These disasters are more common, more frequent. We need better ag emerging planning to include a farming rainy day fund. Again, thank you. Thank you, Amanda.

Thank you, Hunter. Thank you, legislators. We need this now.

Thank you, Brian. Next, we'll hear from Hunter Haviland, advocacy director at the Hawaii Farmers Union who will present on the disaster reporting tool on HFU outreach efforts and farmer needs.

Amanda. Chairs, vice chairs, members, I'm Hunter Haviland, advocacy director with Hawaii Farmers Union. You've often seen me here in that role representing our the policy interests of our membership. I also happen to be an agricultural planner with a background both professionally and academically focused on the nexus of food agriculture and disasters.

Thanks,

As a result of some of the efforts there over the recent years and, collaborative efforts between Amanda and myself, after the Maui fires, we had actually, in that period, created a survey tool that would route information to multiple agricultural organizations.

So if you go to the next slide, that that tool became the prototype effectively for this current one, which was a demonstration tool until March 15 when we converted to turned it into a live data collection system. Part of the thinking for this comes from agricultural sector support activities in various Australian states that have learned about the value of having a standing impact survey for agricultural operations to go and report on their impacts.

We've learned from that and also converted it into ensuring that it is embedded in civil society and membership organizations that can then have access to that data to support their membership. As you see the top line numbers there that Amanda also spoke to earlier, 23,000,000 in impacts. The far right there is 2,700 livestock lost, nearly 3,500 acres reported.

We know this is significantly underreported. Just on the North Shore here alone, I can say from having reviewed the current agricultural dedications and their overlap with some volume of what was previously the evacuation area that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of underreported or unreported losses. The primary data collection that happened for this or at least the day that had the most reporting was before March 20.

And as a result of having triage information, ourselves at Hawaii Farmers Union and Ag Stewardship turned that day to focus on relief. So we have not actually been sharing this particularly widely since the twentieth.

So it's important to not understate the volume of extent need that we do not believe is actively captured in this survey. What the survey does is a respondent can report some of their immediate triage needs and then some of their gross economic impacts.

That information is then used to filter out and recommend some of the myriad state and federal programs Brian mentioned as well as this, the state's program, which once it was stood up for EFR, which, again, lightning speed, and I really applaud the department for that. As we dig into these numbers a little bit more, here the next slide, we can see that the vast majority of reported damage, is here on Oʻahu. Right?

We know that the the images and the the impacts across the the island have been significant. And, while the North Shore has, you know, received a significant volume and efforts like those of Rep Caruso, Councilman McGuire, and others, I think it really helped to ensure that our communities are are well supported. We know that the impacts are broader than just the North Shore and broader than just Oʻahu. We can see that the crop damages is where a lot of the impact is.

And as Brian highlighted, that is a loss of current income, previous investment, and future earnings.

So the necessity to ensure that we have good policy that will support things, support producers in their recovery going forward is is, you know, part of what I'm hoping to reinforce here. So on each of the following slides, you will see a bill that is currently within the legislature that I think could aid in the recovery efforts. And this one is HB 1707 which, we'll be having a hearing about eight minutes. We'll see if that goes well. But this is about interisland transport costs.

It reproduces some volume of a federal program to help reduce the cost of interisland transport for agricultural operations here. Unlike the federal program, it does not distinguish between your farm size. And so I think it's something if that program were to go forward, we wanna ensure that the distribution of benefits somewhat closely matches the distribution of farm operations across the island and does not solely accrue to larger operations who have the ease and capacity to participate in programs that require filing and reporting.

As I said, crop losses are significant. But when we think on the next slide there about who has coverage to manage that loss, The answer is very few.

4% of reported folks, on Oahu said they had losses, and the most coverage was in Hawaii County. And Suzanne will speak to this, I think, a little bit further, but these tended to be larger coffee and mac nut operations. Significant volume of, reported responses had no insurance at all. Only eight percent said they did. While there are USDA programs, that, you know, are are out there for providing at least some form of minor subsidy for cost coverage for insurance.

The USDA's Whole Farm and Micro Farm program had one participant statewide in 2025. So while these things may exist on paper, they are not functional and accessible or at least well sufficiently advertised for agricultural operations across the islands. HB 2594 needs a WAM hearing and that would require the Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity to study insurance coverage for small agricultural operations across the islands. This is critical.

Sorry. Forgive me. I have to run downstairs to vote on that very bill that you've been talking about, as well as the Senate or the budget. So I'll be back as soon as that's done. Right?

Like that. Yeah.

Just say yes.

We will.

So, on the next so some of the the digging in into the the scale of impact, the greatest number of reports were for vegetable operations. However, the largest acreage was for macadamia nuts. And as I think Suzanne will also speak to, we still believe these to be underreported. In terms of the distribution of loss, there are some farms that have reported, I think, at at least a couple, though it's not represented in this this, chart that reported over a million dollars in loss.

Much of the impact seems to be hovering under 50,000, but, again, much of this data was or at least some volume of this data was collected before the second wave. And while we have begun distribution of letting folks know that if they took taken the survey once, they can take it again. We will use the most recent version we get. We definitely want to highlight that there are, significant impacts.

Policies like SB 2110, one of Farmers Union's long standing goals to establish a soil health and conservation, practice adoption incentive program is, in need of a thin hearing, and this would help incentivize producers to adopt practices that, you know, are are already supported to some degree at the federal level, but that would further incentivize the adoption of of climate smart and conservation agriculture that could help reduce the potential impact of future future storms.

In terms of farmers union response, and this is nearly impossible to encompass in a slide or rather actively impossible to encompass. We've been participating in the state emergency coordination. I've been part of the emergency support function six on mass care since COVID as well as with volunteer organizations active in disasters and liaising them.

We've had direct outreach ourselves and ag stewardship, use the initial survey data to communicate about evacuation and identify immediate needs in North Shore and followed up with those who would also express triage needs statewide based off the survey data. We're in the active development of as I've mentioned, you know, this was a demonstration tool two weeks ago.

So we are learning about what it offers and what it does not. It collects triage needs and gross impacts, but there is an, tool that now we're looking at a joint intake tool with Lahui Foundation and our Hawaii that will collect the immediate sort of material needs so that we can help understand and better route what is currently being collected in large part by folks who are on the ground via text message and phone call and all manner of different systems.

And we'd really like to highlight our, chapter president on the North Shore there, India Clark, who's been leading a lot of this in our community. Farmers Union Foundation, similar to After the Fires, does have, funds stood up that we'll be releasing producer grants, and we'll continue supporting our our membership across the islands. To conclude, on this last page, this is a landscape scale problem.

Right? We were already losing farms and farmers before these storms. 700 fewer operations in 2022 than 2017. And over the last ten years, farmers and fishers had a suicide rate three times higher than the general population in the islands. And for males 40, the highest rate of any occupation overall.

This is significant potential to impact not just the production, but the producer. And as Brian highlighted and I hope others, we'll continue to bridge funding to sustain an operation is critical. The presidential disaster declaration success rate for blue states in this administration, this second, Trump administration is 23%, down from around ninety.

So the state needs to actively be considering how its resources can be deployed to sustain our farms as businesses and our farmers as the key to unlocking the potential for at least broader scale landscape management that can ideally, through partnership with state, federal, and county parties, start to look at how we can have agro ecosystem based disaster risk reduction. This is not just about farms.

It is about the lands and the homes and the communities that they're adjacent to. I could definitely go on, but appreciate the opportunity to share my piece, and we'll hand it over here.

Thank you, Hunter. I'd like to introduce Lee Matsukawa, the deputy director of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity to share about the emergency funding, that they've been able to provide.

Good morning, chairs, vice chairs, and members. Lee Matsukawa, deputy Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity. I guess what's first up is our agriculture loan program. The first thing we're reaching out to our existing borrowers and offering them payment waivers. That's kinda on the initial thing, and then we'll figure out later on extensions and permanent fixes for that.

So that's immediate permit payment relief that we're offering them. Last week, the board of agriculture activated the emergency loan program. And I think our my second slide has the, the terms that we're offering for that. It's a $100,000 maximum loan amount at 3%. The terms in the collateral will be figured out on a case by case basis as needed, and no denials for loans 50,000 or less, and one from 50,000 to 100,000.

We will be accepting applications for six months under this program. We've been getting inquiries pretty much statewide from Kona all the way to Oahu, North Shore, where immigrant farmers that are out there. Existing borrowers are looking for additional funding from us also. So it's pretty widespread. The funding is limited under this program.

We do have the funds, but it's we're limited by the budget ceiling. So the ag ceiling bill for selling the loans and everything, if we could get that increase up to 10,000,000, that would help us a lot. So right now, we're talking to BNF and we're talking to Finn to see if maybe an emergency appropriation for this year could get it raised immediately because this is something we need because we do have we don't need additional general funds. We have the money. We just need CE.

So that's what we're working on that. The department also activated something very innovative on the on the chair heard in the governor's office. We did an emergency relief grant program of 1,500, which we opened a couple of weeks ago. We closed it last week, Friday, but we had 1,700 applications. Of that, we had 500,000 available in funding for these award these grants.

So I think we're looking at about 333 that today we should be getting notified that they got the funding. The ones that we couldn't, we're already we're still taking applications on this program. We kinda when we close it, then at least we can get data and we can kinda figure out how much people are out there.

And so right now, the as we send them out and advise them that they got it, we just need them to submit a w nine, and then they confirm their name and address and that type of thing. And then we can start issuing checks once we receive those.

Basically, from that information, we are also asking for damage data. We kinda did it like the US census. It was kind of a range, but from what we got, it was, like, 12,405 acres up to 23,782 acres damaged. The total estimated loss was 23,060,000 up to 40,083,578. We hope to close it again.

The second round, the ones that we're still accepting, we're gonna probably close it tomorrow or Friday. Sorry. On Friday, we're gonna close it, and then we can tally up those numbers and get updated figures added on to this. So we expect it to grow pretty significantly from that. Funding wise, we're in discussions to secure additional funding to put out more grants because, like, as Brian says, they struggle with loans and everything else, especially our smaller farmers.

So this you know, even our larger farmers, 1,500, it may not be a total panacea, but it does make a big difference in in their operations. Couple other things we're doing, we're working with, as Brian said, Department of Health on farm recovery. So we put out guidance for farmers on food safety, what they need to do as far as cleanup and that type of things. So that was a great thing to do. But yeah.

So and as Brian said, either a presidential declaration or even a secretarial declaration for agriculture would activate a lot of the emergency programs that are out there. And because of so much damage to the land, the emergency conservation program is a big program to have activated because that would help with technical advice on drainages and that type of grading type of thing.

So and as Brian said, either a presidential declaration or even a secretarial declaration for agriculture would activate a lot of the emergency programs that are out there. And because of so much damage to the land, the emergency conservation program is a big program to have activated because that would help with technical advice on drainages and that type of grading type of thing.

So if we could get that program activated, I think that would be a great thing to have done in addition to all the other federal programs that are out there. Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions.

So if we could get that program activated, I think that would be a great thing to have done in addition to all the other federal programs that are out there. Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Next, we have Suzanne Schreiner, executive director of the Synergistic Covaiya Agriculture Council, who will provide insights on farmer impacts and some ongoing work they have on a disaster guide.

Thank you. [Unintelligible] represents coffee, cacao, floriculture, papaya, and mac nuts, most of the export crops. But in disasters, we primarily focus on on federal programs, but in disaster instances, we're on the ground with everybody else. And to follow-up on Dean's comment about the ECP, the FSA program, I just got an email alert that it's been funded.

That's the emergency conservation program, which is huge because that provides 75% of cleanup cost to farmers, debris removal, chainsawing, things of that nature, basically restoring to your farm to where it was before.

So really happy to see that. Talking about some of the damage, South Kona, West Hawaiian got hit very hard as well as Paola and Ka'u, as you know. A lot of the crops there are the specialty crops. Coffee and Cacao had extensive defoliation and flower destruction. We expect to see significant yield declines in the coming year.

And this is kind of a slow moving disaster for these crops because seed to foliate the trees, the shaking back and forth causes cracks in the roots. These wounds allow fusarium, fungus into the tree, and it frequently kill the tree over long term. So you look at your trees and you're like, wow. They survived, but they're starting to turn a little yellow. Farmers are aware that these disaster numbers are gonna go up considerably for them.

Same with macadamia nuts. As As Hunter mentioned, over a thousand acres are currently reported. We estimate probably another 5,000 acres that are not reported either large companies that are declining to participate in the survey because they don't want their numbers perfectly known or just the widespread small farmers throughout South Dakota. Probably, I'm estimating based on my neighborhood, four to five trees per acre just fell over with the MacDams, the saturated soils. They they just tend to to flip over on their side.

So a lot of last lost trees in the mac nuts. And with all these crops, you have a combination of of widespread and combined damage. The loss of topsoil soil is a long term yield decline for our growers. We're also going to need to rehab the soil because of the nutrient leaching. There's a lot of lost nitrogen there.

And when we talk about the $1,500 per farmer, one fertilizer event for coffee is about $1,500 for a five acre farm. So and we're gonna have to fertilize even if we were in good space with our soil health, gonna have to fertilize to replace that leaching. So that's that's where that money will go for a lot of coffee farmers is is the

fertilization as well as the chainsawing and the arborist and everything else that will come on board with that. So I wanna talk about some good news, and that's the Schacht received some act 310 funding. Thank you to the legislature for that. We were already in works to prepare an agribusiness disaster prep handbook. Most of you have probably seen the HECO, HELCO handout.

It's designed to be something similar like that, but designed for businesses so they can come into a storm prepared, and that's knowing what resources are out there for them before the event happens, what they need to do for prep, minimize loss, and then speed the recovery. We have funding to get that printed so they have something in hand as well as online. And we are very open to bringing everybody on board with this.

Hunter and Amanda have already done a lot of legwork around the resources that are out there. We're gonna put everybody's logos on there.

We're gonna have everyone hand it out and have ownership of it. Another thing we're doing under this funding is crop specific protocols for post storm recovery. We have a five page document for coffee that we're issuing today that talks about the root wounds, how to recover, how to get your foliage to come back quickly by certain nutrients. We're gonna move on to MacNuts yet next and and try and get these out to the community in a timely way so they can respond quickly.

So talking about some of the federal programs, I I don't wanna duplicate duplicate what's already been touched on.

We are going to be applying for a USGA rapid response grant. This is 300,000. When you think about a storm event of this size, 300,000 is not very much, but what it will get us is survey of invasive species movement. We know spittlebug probably moved across the pastures wildly in North North Hawaii. Little fire ant and residential pests probably moved around on floodwaters as well.

And it's good to know that is going to do soil sampling because we were we were gonna provide funding for that, but I will team up with to get some of those costs covered. E coli and other pathogens and heavy metals and pollutants going forward. So my last two slides, I wanna talk briefly about steps forward and looking at soil as infrastructure. When you see the picture on the right, that's Tom Greenwell's farm in in South Kona. $10,000,000 in damage.

He lost his house. He probably lost 20,000 trees, and it's really shattering. You look at that. FEMA comes in. They say, oh, you lost a warehouse.

We'll rebuild the warehouse. You lose soil. Everyone goes, oh, we don't know what to do. But this is our long term sustainability for food security, climate infrastructure, flood control, you name it. Soil is the baseline of farming, and we don't protect it here in Hawaii.

We have very strong rules under our constitution for the public trust doctrine, for the integrity of our air and our water, but we don't address soil even though it's classified in there. So Hunter talked about briefly a a bill. He has a there's a path forward. It's been looked at multiple times. Our land use commission uses a soils classification system from 1965.

That's sixty years. We that should be updated to include ways to prevent degradation. A healthy soils program would be important as well. And amending HRS 205 to include, more protection for our soils under two under important ag lands. And I'll leave it there, but I know when I say there's only three bills to do, that's really a heavy lift because I've taken twenty years to get one bill through.

So but there's a path forward, and we need to look at it for the long term health of our public good around soils and cropland. Thank you.

Thanks, Sam. Next, I'd like to hear from Nicole Galase on Zoom, the managing director of the Hawaii Cattlemen's Council, who will speak about rancher impacts and livestock needs.

Thank you, everyone. Nicole Galase on behalf of the Hawaii Cattlemen's Council. I appreciate this time to very generally share the impacts that we have seen from our ranchers, but I do stress that not everyone has reported their losses and damages as they're still assessing. And some areas might take, you know, a couple of days, even weeks time to even access.

But what we are doing is ensuring that the producers document and take photos before cleanup happens so that they can use it for potential USDA programs that are in place, as the presenters before me touched on.

What HCC is being mindful of is that there's a lot of work on the ground being done, and so reporting comes secondary to ensuring the safety of personnel and animals. But overall, there are reports of damages from all counties. This includes both wind and flood impacts, which caused damage to buildings and fencing and also caused impassable roads. One of the most critical outcomes of this was a need for supplemental livestock feed for some producers. Next slide.

In an attempt to show the scale of damage that some producers faced across the state, I'll share a few photos. This here is what used to be the main road to a corral that the ranch uses often. You can see that it has become a river, and a lot of the road has eroded with the high bank showing where the road used to be. It's several feet down. Next slide.

On another ranch, here's an example of more erosion taking large amounts of land and downed trees.

Nicole, I just wanna let you know that we're not yet seeing the photos on the screen. So we're working to get the tech up to be able to

Okay. There we go. I think you can

I can see it on my end?

Okay. You should be able to

Did you see the the one of the road before?

Nope. That's

Okay. So so this is the the road to the corral, and you can see that it's a river, and that those high banks on the side, that's where the road used to be. So it is eroded that much down. Next slide. Here's another ranch.

This is an example of more erosion, taking large amounts of land, and there's a downed tree damaging fence lines. Managing grazing is ongoing and it never stops. So in these cases, ranchers are focusing on ensuring the fence lines for the next paddock is fixed right before the herd needs to be in it. So they're fixing it right before they move into it. Next slide.

Here's just a quick example of debris that is moved by flooding. These are really heavy, logs and trees. Next slide. So one positive I wanna highlight is that while there is massive amounts of work to be done to clear debris and remediate the land and fix infrastructure that's been damaged, that includes roads and buildings and barns. Many ranchers have the heavy machinery and experience needed to get this work done.

And this is a clear reason why we should be ensuring that agricultural land stay in agricultural production. Of course, food production is an outcome of that, but it also fosters the development of resources like this that the ranch needs, but also helps the surrounding communities. Next slide. Going forward, this shows that more investment is needed to be made in practices that retain soil, that encourage healthy groundwater infiltration and reduce erosion.

One of these practices is well managed grazing, and we actually have a rainfall simulator that shows the difference between different land management and how that impacts runoff and ground infiltration.

But even with that, no matter how well someone cares for the land, we are seeing that these catastrophic events are expected to become more common and more severe. And so while ranchers can play a positive role, I'm not saying that the ranchers don't need help. Any support from the state, the federal government, and local community organizations goes to show that the work that they do truly does impact everyone, and there are definite needs.

The the immediate need is for animal health and well-being, and that comes up as supplemental livestock feed due to the loss of forage. I reached out to Chair Hurd at DAB about this early on, and she was able to ask Ulupono Initiative to provide funds producers in need.

So the swiftness of this is much appreciated and currently underway, and mahalo to Ulupono for working quickly on that. This storm event also highlights the need to keep ag lands and ag production like we keep saying. The long term needs for this are to be factor the decisions for our state. Without truly allowing our ag producers to be successful, they won't have the ability to invest in infrastructure like solid roads, access ways and reservoirs, and equipment for maintenance.

And assisting with things like invasive species, encouraging climate smart practices through incentive programs, keeping ranchers in business by deterring agricultural crimes, and giving proper lease terms under act 90.

These measures will grow expertise in the field and encourage the long term land stewardship needed to build resilience in this time of increased catastrophic events. And it was brought up before I was ready, but the support in these areas ensures a rancher can continue to play their role in helping out their community by being a good neighbor. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Nicole. We'd like to pass it over to Amy Miller, president and CEO of Hawaii Food Bank, who will cover food access needs and assistance, which are a critical part of the food system, and we're really trying to connect the production side through to the consumption and access side.

Thanks so much, Amanda. Aloha, Chairs, Vice Chairs, Members of the committee, and Amy Miller with Hawaii Food Bank. You've all probably heard me say this before, but just from a contextual setting standpoint, we are already seeing extremely high levels of food insecurity. 32% of our households in Hawaii are food insecure. This is even more critical on the in rural areas and neighbor islands.

43% of our households on Hawaii Island are food insecure and this is pretty consistent. We see this on the continent as well. People in rural areas are more, susceptible to food insecurity. 11% of our households are not eating for whole days, some are most months of the year. This is happening on a regular basis, and this is before we see disaster.

Something you might have not heard me talk about before is our marginally food secure population. So these are folks who are considered food secure, but they are just one disaster away from being food insecure. 14% of our households are in this marginal category. So something like this happens and all of a sudden they can't afford enough safe and healthy food for their households. So we're thinking now about the Kona low, started saw a lot of power outages.

So many, many households that that, you know, totally between our food insecure and our marginally food secure population, that's almost half of our households. They probably cannot afford to refill their refrigerator, refill their freezer. So now we have folks that are needing additional support. And then you have people that lost everything. And you heard Brian say this, you heard Hunter say this, our farmers are our families.

These are our families in community doing the really important work of growing food so that we have enough to eat, and they are at risk. I will channel my friend, Kristen Frost Albrecht from the Food Basket, Hawaiian's Food Bank for a minute. Heard her say this over and over. Many times, the very people that grow our food are the same people in the lines. Farming is a really hard business and many folks are not able to make it day to day.

That's exactly why your charitable food system and emergency food network is there to step in and help people when they need help, but, we are not sized appropriately to be able to manage these back to back disasters that we've been seeing. Our rural and farming communities are also have, additional issues that might make them more vulnerable. So lots of language access issues.

We've had folks coming into the community assistance center and they might have one person with that household that has enough English to translate and it is hard. So, we're seeing folks maybe go to one or two tables and then they they just can't do it.

They gotta go home. So, I think the more that we can provide additional assistance to our most vulnerable neighbors, folks that might not have English, I think that's another thing that we really need to think about. What we're doing right now is we're working with both our established partner agencies, also community hubs. We've all seen the huge out outpouring of support to ensure that people are getting access to the food we need. What we're seeing though is, like, very kind of hyper local impacts.

So some areas are okay. Right next door, it may not be okay. And again, some of our most vulnerable families are immigrant farming communities that might be without transportation on their farm, without potable water, without the infrastructure that they need. Just in at Hawaii Food Bank alone, we've been averaging about 80,000 pounds of food a day into community. That is just a fraction of what's going out because so much food is going out directly from retailers, from wholesalers, from partners that are neighbors, helping neighbors.

We've had our trucks, our small truck, our van, our mobile pantry out into community and continuing to find folks that do need assistance. We have also some of our trusted partner agencies, key project, Lahuli Foundation, going into talk to farmers, you know, India, a bunch of folks have been out there. But I think the thing that we'd really like to stress is that this is gonna be a long term recovery. Our farmers need long term support.

Water is still in the field, so you have folks who they can't even start fixing the infrastructure.

It'll take another two to three months to to fix your your integration systems if you have the money to do that. And then another two to three months before that product begins. So that's six months where people aren't getting any income. And as Brian said, they've already expended in the ground, and all of that is lost. So you know what we're hearing?

No crop, no money. You know, this is the things that we're hearing kind of over and over. And I just wanna share a story with you guys. A man, a neighbor farmer showed up at one of our partner agencies distributions. He had a little bit of English, but not a lot.

He lived in Laie and has a farm in Kahuku. His home in Laie destroyed. Six the flood levels reached the six foot mark inside his home. So he went out to his farm. He's living in his produce shack in his farm in Kahuku.

Imagine a shack in a field that's completely flooded. He has no water. He has no access. And this is happening over and over. No way to get income for months.

We have other communities that our teams have encountered who are extremely vulnerable, don't have English, already not living in conditions that we might consider acceptable, no water. They're asking our teams for not only food but for diapers and wipes because they have babies in these places. So, we really need to invest and I think we have to invest over the long term. Again, our farmers are our families.

We know from a study we did two years ago, after the Maui wildfires, about 50 of I think it was 49% of our, households who are affected by the Valley wildfires were food insecure a year later.

So this is this is going to be a long haul, and the charitable food system is already very, very stretched. We are on pace this year even before this to distribute more food than we did during the height of the pandemic. We're already serving more people than we did during the height of the pandemic and we could barely make it. We are our infrastructure is stretched. Our warehouses are too small.

We don't have the staff. We don't have the trucks in order to meet the the need that we're seeing, let alone what we see going forward. So if we think about connection between food production and sweeping the whole system perspective, I think the more that we can really invest in our people, ensuring that they get access to safe and healthy food, whether it's farmers, general members of the community, that's really what I'd like to share today. Thank you so much. Thank you

so much, Amy. I'm aware of time. It's rapidly slipping away. We'd like to leave, those last few minutes for you folks for Q and A.

Well, actually, we're gonna extend a few minutes for q and a. So we'll extend to 10:45. We'll have a hard stop to 10:45.

So okay. Questions?

So I'm concerned about the mental well-being of the farmers, and I know that you folks are really focusing on material impacts. But I'm wondering if there's any attention being paid to kind of the psychological impacts, because what I've seen on the ground is pretty complete devastation for many farmers. And, there's a lot of trauma there.

Like, to get Hunter and then Brian.

Yeah. So part of the outreach we've been doing, including community events and elsewhere, has been sharing about various resources, many of which have already been compiled by the seats of well-being program. They've been able to offer up trained therapists or rather professional therapists who have been specifically trained in agriculture. And there are free sessions that are available for that We can forward along the information and make sure it goes out.

And I know that some volume of that outreach also, I believe, comes with additional language access considerations as has been part of you know, our thinking about what the next phase of the survey, and it's certainly been integrated into the the outreach for needs assessments by a number of organizations.

And as we consolidate, into, you know, future steps, I think having that embedded in all the outreach is critical. And I would I would definitely laud the Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity that their their form system was readily provided with additional support for translation.

I've got a question for for Brian. Brian, you had mentioned the presidential disaster declaration and that the governor had filed that on the March 24. Can you give an update on where that is right now and that, you know, what factors may affect getting it quickly approved? And

Again, there's these processes right here, the assessment. That's why FEMA's here. Governor, submits the request. Our understanding is requested go in. And then there are factors that could limit, competing resources.

Maybe our our lost income threshold is not high enough. We also have some changes at the administration with the secretary, the cabinet member. Right? I think it's secretary Mullins, so that may play into it. Kinda looking up disaster declarations, I believe the current administration, the average is around 34 days after it is submitted with, I believe, I saw a low at one day and a high at 67 days.

So, again, I think our message is, yes, we wanna expedite that because as you heard from many, that will help trigger some additional resources. And so we are, very hopeful. And I I I believe I heard the governor say that he's on constant contact with the new secretary. So we're hoping that we can get that declaration so that we can get assistance and resources to our farmers and ranchers. So, again, I think there are factors that play into it.

Don't wanna bring anything political up, but we're just wanting to do what we can and depend on our call bill and others, you folks, to help get that through. We know the governor's doing a lot of work in that space, so I have confidence, but we wanted to see that sooner than later. Okay.

I'll just go back and forth between the house and the Senate. Okay?

Thank you, Chair. Maybe for Dean, thanks for all of your guys' information. It's very helpful. Is there any talk at the administration level to unlock the aptly named rainy day fund in lieu of a FEMA designation, or does that jeopardize FEMA funds? Or do you have any knowledge or information?

I don't think we jeopardize the FEMA funds, but there is discussions on the 5th Floor about using additional monies.

Okay. Accessing that

site. Roughly a 100,000,000 Is being looked at for this disaster.

Okay.

Thank you. Did any Hunter or Brian, anybody else have further information on that or anything, Tadd?

The Reindeer Fund? Yes. Aptly named. I'd love to see it. You heard the the deputy talk about the level of losses right now, 40,000,000.

Right? With if you add Amanda's multiplier, maybe a lot higher. But even 40,000,000, I believe, it's, like, 6% of our agriculture output. Right? Our farm will give value right now.

Sixteen1,700 farms. I think that's 25% of our farms that we have on record with census of ag, so we need additional support. If I may, ma'am, so they didn't cover that that I know Department of Agriculture and USDA may be working on is deferrals on loan payments that farmers already have. Again, what we're trying to do is free up capital. So deferral on loan payments at the USDA level, FSA, Department of Agriculture, even private lenders that said, come talk to us.

So we encourage our producers to go talk to those that you're getting loans from. And then also, we've seen in the past with disasters reaching out to the counties for maybe relief, at least deferrals on property tax, utilities, water, EWS, or even energy or or electricity. Right? We just they don't have any money. As you heard Suzanne say and Amy say, they're they're running on zero.

Raise it in March to begin with. So we just need to get them the resources. We truly gotta get it to them fast or they will shut down, and we've seen it before as Kauai when those floods came, but you never hear about it. How do we achieve our our agriculture goals? Only food production, farm to school, regional kitchens, institutional purchasing, farm to food bank when we have less and less farm.

I think everybody has said what really the impact is. We don't even know truth. But it if it just stopped now, it is devastating devastating. Millions for just individual farms and ranches as Hunter's data suggests.

So, Andre, you mentioned a few bills that are forced right now. So and what else can the state be doing right now? I mean, given the story that Amy showed with some lots of time.

I would add a Right now.

What can we do? The bill

that we did not list is the Farmers Food Bank, a Farmers Families program. Right? Another one that we've been advocating for for the past five years. Beyond the actual the legislature, you know, some other ideas that have been proposed are, related to having more resilient relief and a rainy day pot that's focused on whether it's allocating resources to support community feeding efforts from local agriculture or conceivably to help sustain agricultural operations.

A barrel tax carve out that returns it to its original purpose, at least in title around food security, I think, is something that should be considered.

Be broader than just the the state legislature, part of the interests, and I think, say some of the ground that's been gained is better integrating agriculture into our emergency response and our recovery planning. We have an emergency support functions that focus on mass care, as well as one that's focused on agriculture and natural resources.

I think expanding how robust the response capacity is the resourcing for that response in both the emergency planning side, and we're now actively in discussion with Office of recovery resilience about how to you know, our participation can help build out that, recovery planning. Some volume I think some of what this really highlights is that there are are many layers of jurisdiction, of planning, of land ownership. And while there are entities responsible for mitigation planning at the state level, HEMA, that planning work,

the more

of that that we can do ahead of time, the better we will be able to actually respond and make use of federal programs, should they become available, to reduce the risk faced by our agricultural operations in the communities they're a part of. And so I think ideally seeing us participate more in these formal governance response systems is critical.

Thank you, Chairs. Question for the the probably for the Department of Ag and Biosecurity. You mentioned that there's an opportunity to go directly to the USDA to ask for declaration. I know just at a statewide level, we've been waiting on FEMA declaration and the governor making those requests. Have farm entities or Department of Ag and Biosecurity collectively ask the secretary of the USDA for support versus just to FEMA Yeah.

I I'm not aware or to the president.

I'm not aware. I know we are providing damage data to state civil defense to get up to the federal level, but I don't think we're for our side, we're just reaching out to the hotel, I think, from the department, and we haven't gone directly to the secretary.

Just my thought from hearing all the amazing data and presentations you provided, if we can call some of this farm perspective data that came out in every one of your presentations. I don't know who would send it, if it is on behalf of the governor or if it's the department or collectively with all of your organization's logos. But I think we need a a joint letter and statement going directly to the USDA as a part of this request for support package.

So however I can help with that, please let me know. Thank you, Chairs.

And, let's see first for also for Dean. What's the current status of DAB's emergency support structure? And, you know, how are you integrating the data from the rapid statewide assessment tool into the, you know, funding decisions and also the response of priorities?

So, yeah, we're we're kinda taking that amount, and we're looking at the total amount that we want the additional funding that we're looking at for the grant program. So I think right now, we're looking at about 5,000,000 for the total request. Right now, another 2,000,000 will cover all the initial ones that we weren't able to cover for the rest. And then the second week that we're opening it up, we're anticipating another 2,000,000. So it'll be about $2.22 and a half.

So we've got another 4 and a half million trying to get into this program, and that's what we're discussing to get the additional funding.

Alistair? I have a question. So the I I know the counties are very involved in the cleanup efforts. I'm just curious how you folks coordinating with the counties to sort of help on this issue as well, and if there's enough that going on between the

state and the counties. I would I can at least speak to meetings yesterday with city council for for a while. Some I think the the the song we've all been singing, at least in recent days, is funding is needed. And so I believe there is at least an openness to learn more at the the city council here about what that could look like, how that could be structured.

I think one of the things that we're still trying to figure out the best way to move forward on is that there are civil society groups, right?

All disasters are are local, if you will, and they tend to the the organizational and the response structure is structured that way. However, when we collect data, we are able to share it with an aggregate, for example, with other partners. If that data is solely collected by government partners, they're generally limited in their capacity to share it with civil society and agricultural membership organizations who are, in many cases, on the ground doing that.

So hopefully, we'll be able to see if there are opportunities with counties going forward if these programs merge, that they can either be integrated with some of the existing data collection so that the response efforts

because a

lot of people respond when there's money online. But if that data then gets locked up and we're not able to route that to the organizations who are helping on the ground with a lot of the response, it just sits there. And usually not everybody is able there's there's probably not gonna ever be enough resources to go around to see, you know, the the extent of need. So I think that's 11 potential opportunity, especially as counties are standing up their own responses.

Are you

Okay. Sure.

something like, yeah, just because we have JV Martin here from the USDA and our CS office. There is a program that NRCS has the emergency watershed Program, and that requires a county to request assistance. So some of our colleagues have been working with the city and county of Honolulu and others to try to see if we can, get this program activated, and that would really help with flood and sediment control efforts, debris removal, slope stabilization, fencing, or restoring access roads.

So again, we have there are federal resources that can be activated through the NRCS, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the SSA, as we heard from Suzanne. That will be open from today, April 1, for farmers to apply for so they can contact their local FSA agencies.

But it's also about knowing these things and having folks like JV and others that are are willing to work with us, which we do have locally. And so some of the counties can really come into play and actually be a critical bridge to federal resources.

Yeah. I think it depends on the the counties. For example, here on Oahu, it's OER, Office of Economic Validation. Some of the other counties, it's bag is run through the office of economic development. And then on Maui in Maui County, you have a department of agriculture.

So so, again, I talked some about some of the things that counties can do, with some property taxes, Even at the DPP level, maybe some expedited permitting to help with the rebuild and recovery. You know, water, if you're on county water, again, some deferrals maybe on some of your water bills. Counties, again, it depends on what the county and how much resources they have to bear. Kinda heard. Yeah.

That's the state has more resources and Federal Government is more, but we do depend on the comments, especially because they're grassroots and and at the ground level knowing what the needs are, But it it's limited to what they can truly offer, and we know that they're working with our bank producers to try to offer whatever they can. But a lot of times, it takes us saying, hey. Would you consider this? So

And we we're working with Hawaii County on the EWP program and and JB's, chief engineer, also talking with counterparts here in on County Of Oahu. Sorry. City and county. Part of the issues is with Kamehameha Schools or other lessees, lessor relationships. They have to sign on to the program too.

But there's a lot of complex discussions that need to happen to bring some of these programs at the county level, but they're absolutely necessary. But they take a lot of volunteer time to massage and and work through. The counties have to be willing to carry that 25% cost share too, which can be just storing the debris somewhere at a disposal site, but absolutely necessary.

Some of the disaster rules allow us to waive some of the federal procurement requirements, which make life easier, but still a lot of a lot of challenging issues to work through and a 45 timeline before we have to submit that request. So

Like you should sit in county, right, with all the trucks and all the debris removed and put it in Central Oahu and and sorting through all that. So there's a lot that counties can do. I think that, really showcases why we need what Suzanne is doing and what Ulupon is proposing with many of us here at Farmers Union, Farm Bureau Externship, and the Cattlemen to really put together the playbook because these things keep coming, and then we just keep being reactionary.

Let's already have a plan in place. And when it does come, we know exactly what to do.

A, b, c, d, e, what steps to take, where the funding's coming from instead of we forget about the natural disasters, yesterday's news, then another one comes and then we have to do this again.

Okay. Thank you very much. Aloha and to all of our presenters and to all of you who tune in either in person or online. If you have any additional questions, you can contact me here at Capital One, Chai, and then we'll get back to you.

Yeah. Thank you all for being here.

Yes. Thank you.