STAND. COM. REP. NO. 85

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 86

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2023

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Agriculture and Environment and Water and Land, to which was referred S.B. No. 86 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO FOOD SUSTAINABILITY,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to require the Department of Agriculture, in coordination with the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development, to prepare and periodically update the State Agriculture Functional Plan to include other agricultural economic updates, including seafood sustainability, that expand the State's priority on food by including wild seafood as a viable food source.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawai‘i Farm Bureau and one individual. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development.

Your Committees find that the State's Agricultural Functional Plan was last updated in 1991 and that since then, Hawaii's agricultural industry has transitioned from a predominantly plantation-based sector to a more diversified agricultural sector that offers a wide array of products ranging from macadamia nuts to goat cheese, tropical fruits and vegetables to roasted coffee, and grass-fed beef to wild seafood. Your Committees additionally find that Hawaii's aquaculture industry in particular, continues to be one of the fastest-growing segments of agriculture in the State as Hawaii's residents consume seafood at twice the national average. This measure will support food security in the State by building upon this demand for seafood to include wild seafood as a viable food source in the State Agricultural Functional Plan and authorizing food sustainability and economic data research on the wild seafood industry.

Your Committees acknowledge a concern raised in testimony of the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development that this measure outlines an extensive research program to collect data and research the economic impacts and actions needed to increase food security and food self-sufficiency by ensuring that the wild seafood system can reach its full potential and that to comply with sections 226-55 and 226-56, Hawaii Revised Statutes, the Department of Agriculture will need to convene an advisory committee and work in close cooperation with the officials and people of each county, for which the Office is willing to provide guidelines.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Agriculture and Environment and Water and Land that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 86 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Agriculture and Environment and Water and Land,

________________________________ LORRAINE R. INOUYE, Chair

________________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair