Food Security And Self-sufficiency: Voicing The Realities Of Hawai‘i’s Small Farmers Who Produce Food For Local Consumption

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2019

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University of Hawaii at Manoa

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Over the last twenty years, planners have reclaimed interest and involvement in food and agriculture planning with the goal of enhancing community food security through strengthening the local food economy and addressing people’s access to affordable good food. However, solutions for growing small-scale farmers and the local food supply has been lacking. Planners have addressed food insecurity in urban areas but not food supply with rural farmers. This is partly because planners have not felt “at home” in farming and rural communities. Hawaii grows less than ten percent of all the food its residents and visitors consume. Since the decline of plantation era agriculture in Hawaii, public policy objectives have transitioned from promoting diversified agriculture i.e. “any other industry than sugar and pineapple” to promoting “local food grown for local consumption” i.e. agricultural self-sufficiency. The State of Hawaii has created policy goals and objectives to double local food production by 2020 but implementation has been slow. This dissertation research provides a range of new insights to community food security through the value driven activities of alternative farmers in Hawaii who produce food for local consumption. The study proposes that it is important for planners to work directly with farmers to improve community food security and identifies several policy initiatives for planners to support farmers to scale-up local food production. The project was conducted using an ethnographic approach with the author immersed with Hawaii’s alternative farmers. Research design and results bottom-up, participatory, action based, and validated by farmers. The findings suggests three priority areas where planners can support the implementation of State goals and objectives by working closer with farmers on the ground level and develop targets that support increased local food production. In particular, the conclusion offers pathways for planners to increase production through policy priorities for workforce development, food hubs, local markets, and agricultural tourism.

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Urban planning, Sustainability

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