STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2422

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 3027

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2024

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Agriculture and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 3027 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE STRATEGIC PLAN TO INCREASE FOOD PRODUCTION AND FOOD SECURITY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Require the Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the Office of the Governor, to update and supplement the strategic plan to increase production and food security pursuant to Act 151, Session Laws of Hawaii;

(2) Require the Department of Agriculture to submit a report to the Legislature twenty days before the Regular Session of 2025; and

(3) Appropriate $600,000 to update the strategic plan.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Agriculture; Hawaiʻi Farmers Union United; Hawaii Food Industry Association; Hawaii Cattlemen's Council, Inc.; Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau; Local Food Coalition; Kanalani Ohana Farm; and one individual.

Your Committee finds that although the Department of Agriculture's 2020 "Report on the Strategic Plan to Double Local Food Production and Exports by 2030" provided suggestions to achieve substantial individual or cumulative increases in local food production and export, it must be updated with quantitative and qualitative goals and benchmarks for the State to achieve goals related to the doubling of local food production by 2030. The updates and supplements to the strategic plan proposed in this measure will address the changing landscape of the agricultural industry, especially considering the changes to global and local food systems resulting from the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

Your Committee has amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Agriculture and Environment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3027, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3027, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Environment,

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MIKE GABBARD, Chair