STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2997

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.B. No. 2007

       H.D. 1

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Higher Education and Agriculture, to which was referred H.B. No. 2007, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO AGRICULTURE,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds to the local and immigrant farmer education program of the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources Cooperative Extension Service to support the growth and sustainability of the State's agriculture industry.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, Hawai‘i Farm Bureau Federation, Ulupono Initiative, and seven individuals.

     Your Committees find that the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources Cooperative Extension Service has developed the local and immigrant farmer education program to provide useful, hands-on, quality extension education to Hawaii's underserved and socially disadvantaged agriculture producers.  This measure will provide funding to support the continuation of this vital program.

     If this measure is considered for passage by your Committee on Ways and Means, your Committees note that the local and immigrant farmer education program will need $150,000.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by inserting an effective date of July 1, 2014.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Higher Education and Agriculture that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2007, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2007, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Higher Education and Agriculture,

____________________________ CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair

____________________________ BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair