Thank you for your support and partnership in creating a more socially, economically, and environmentally just Hawaiʻi.
2022 was a milestone legislative session.
There have never been as many measures, introducers, and coherence in the bills pertaining to Hawaiʻiʻs food system. We are seeing the years of a collective effort from HAPA, aligned advocates, lawmakers, and the community pay off. Together we are moving political will and priority toward a fair-and-sustainable-food system– and we must persist.
Initially, our advocacy legislation focused on protective measures regulating harmful practices but has increasingly grown to lend support to bills seeking to fix various facets of our broken food local system. We supported over 40 food systems bills advocating healthy soils, composting efforts, food hubs, farmer equity, carbon sequestration, fair coffee labeling, cottage foods reform, state local food procurement– anything that moves us into a more healthy and equitable food system. 12 measures or 30% of these bills made their way to the Governor’s desk, and most recently 7 (18%) of these good food and ag bills were signed into law.
In 2021, reallocated funds and additional general support were used to hire 2 additional positions: a Communications Organizer and an Administrative & Programs Coordinator. With the additional capacity and adoption of more digital tools and organizing practices, HAPA, in 2021, increased attributed testimonial turnout for progressive food system measures by over 200%; in 2022, we attribute an average of 70% of testimonies across 44 food systems bills to HAPA’s digital organizing.
At the core of our campaign for fair and sustainable food systems, this legislative session was the institutional reform of the Agribusiness Development Corporation (ADC).
The ADC is a public-private entity charged with managing the shifting agricultural sector during the decline of plantations in the 1980s. Carrying an imperial legacy (crown/ceded lands), the ADC was tasked with redistributing public agricultural lands for the greater public’s benefit and, by statute, for the benefit of Native Hawaiians. However, “public benefit” has often been subject to political interpretation and influence. Today, those public agricultural lands are home to the most significant footprint of agrochemical tenants, and therefore the ADC lands are home to the state's most frequent use of restricted-use pesticides (RUPs). The agency has operated mainly without oversight, providing a subsidy in the form of tax exemptions and land and water access to the agrochemical companies. In 2019 we were able to lobby for an agency audit successfully. Findings were scathing; Civil Beat reported, in January 2021, that the auditor stated the ADC was failing, and “Jimmy Nakatani, executive director of the Agribusiness Development Corp., reportedly told auditors that a plan (required by law )is not necessary because he has everything in his head.” You can read the full audit here.
In 2022, two measures were introduced to address the audit in this legislative session with contrasting priorities.
HAPA was leading support for ADC Reform through HB 2418 SD2, introduced by Kuleana Academy alumni Rep. Amy Perruso, whose district is home to the second-largest footprint of ADC lands.
This bill called for increased oversight and accountability for the ADC: expanding the Board of Directors' expertise; requiring regular inventory, accounting, and reporting of land holdings and water systems; setting specific metrics by which to measure progress and success; better environmental oversight and management of the public lands under its purview, and the completion of a strategic plan to inform how ADC’s public ag lands can be used for local food production.
HB 2418 SD2 died in the last week of March 2022 when it failed to be scheduled for a hearing in Senate Ways and Means (WAM) Committee by WAM Chair Donavan Dela Cruz; Sen. Dela Cruz introduced the senate’s measure for the ADC “reform,” SB2473. It is worth noting that Sen. Dela Cruz has is of the top number of legislators receiving campaign contributions from the agrochemical industry (Bayer, Monsanto), their lobbyists, and employees. If youʻre interested in the ongoing research into campaign contributions, we are currently recruiting in-kind or supporting donations; please contact our Development Manager.
HAPA strongly opposed measure SB2473 SD2, which will re-house the ADC from the Department of Agriculture (DOA) to the Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism (DBEDT).
Despite the measure being amended to modify the mandate of ADC from “agribusiness for export” and to prioritize local food production, it does not make sense to alienate the ADC from agricultural expertise further. While some business expertise should guide the work of the ADC, it does not need to be moved to DBEDT to access business acumen– under the Department of Agriculture; the ADC would need to purpose lands for successful farming ventures, requiring technical knowledge to support such initiatives. If we’re to prioritize food security and environmental health, the audit findings make a case that the ADC needs to be more connected to and informed by the needs of our local farmers/food producers, not less so.
Earned media coverage of the failed efforts to reform the ADC reported shared concerns throughout this process; the latest Civil Beat article “ ʻBusiness As Usualʻ for Embattled Agribusiness Development Corporation? A 2021 audit of the agency was scathing. But instead of fixing it, critics fear lawmakers are poised to let it off the hook”, was featured in their special reports segment covering food systems and security in Hawaiʻi called “Hawaiʻi Grown.”
In the first week of April, the House Committee on Finance (FIN) voted to pass SB2473 SD2 HD2 with a few minor amendments but maintain the ADC's transfer to DBEDT– despite the majority of testimonies in opposition.
Sadly, despite the overwhelming public opposition, the bill SB2473 was recently signed into law by Governor Ige.
State of Regulatory Capture
Simply, too many of our legislators are beholden to corporate interests.
HAPA has furthered food systems and public health equity legislation each year. With more than a decade under our staff's belts, our partnerships with legislators, aides, agency staff, and intersectional advocates have deepened, and more proactive and progressive policies are being introduced. Yet HAPA continues to confront insufficient support within the legislature despite the overwhelming support from the community and voters for our measures.
This year the frustrations and allegations of many tenured activists and advocates were aired out in the coverage of corruption charges of two serving lawmakers. Civil Beat reported how “Two Hawaiʻi Lawmakers Charged In Bribery Scheme Over Cesspool Legislation”, J. Kalani English and Ty Cullen accepted thousands of dollars to alter the course of certain measures in 2020. Federal prosecutors alleged that the owner of an industrial cleaning business, Milton Choy, paid English more than $18,000 to introduce and then kill a cesspool removal bill that would benefit his company. Meanwhile, Cullen allegedly received more than $22,000 to influence a House version of the bill (Martinez, 2022).
Hawaiʻi’s recent history of corruption investigation (Star-Advertiser Staff, 2022) has brought more insistent questioning of corruption and unethical practices among lawmakers. Hawaiʻi News Nowʻs political analyst Colin Moore believes there is more to uncover he states, “I have a hard time believing that no other elected official had any idea that this sort of thing was going on, rumors spread pretty quickly in institutions like that[;]more [legislators] need to take a stand and probably call out their colleagues,” (Martinez, 2022). Former Prosecutor Randy Lee agrees; he said “the cases could be the tip of the iceberg. If this was a common thing that was happening at the legislature, I would be rather worried if I was a senator or representative” (Martinez, 2022). Moore and Lee point out that these actions are a product of unethical professional culture rather than exceptional actions.
HAPA’s Board President and former state senator Gary Hooser asserts that this kind of unethical professional culture in the legislature is systemically incentivized by the concentration of power. Hooser explains, in the guise of expediency, legislative committee chairs were granted unilateral decision-making power over what bills assigned to their committee are heard. If a bill is not heard in committee by hearing deadlines, it dies.
Hooser posits, “People come to the chair, to [persuade] the chair, or to ‘influence’ the chair, or to encourage the chair to kill or pass certain bills. And then, committee chair's worldview dominates instead of having a collaborative collective discussion and weighing different opinions, the chair's opinion and worldview dominates.”
The committee chair's worldview dominates instead of having a collaborative collective discussion and weighing different opinions, the chair's opinion and worldview dominates.
Furthermore, because of this power concentration it encourages staying in favor with committee chairs. There's a reticence from colleagues and advocates to challenge committee chairs. Hooser outlines, “They second guess challenging committee chairs because they don't want their bill to be killed or not scheduled. Some of those chairs, Ways and Means [senate committee], for example, and Finance [house committee] the ‘money chairs’ have tremendous power because they control the budget.” In other words, any bill with a funding appropriation must pass through those committees.
With the public increasingly distrusting of the administrators, legislators, and law enforcement; HAPA continues to seek solutions.
“There are states, state legislatures that don't operate this way, [state legislatures] that require a vote [by committee on what bills to hear]--- diminishing unilateral power or the concentration of power,” Hooser offers.
HAPA has witnessed how corporations and corporate lobbyists have seeded interests within government both through legal campaign contributions and expensed meals, but moreover, we continue to consider the worldview that dominates our elected offices; this intractability is what informed HAPAʻs strategy to address the root–cause by rebuilding trust in our government's institutions by identifying, training, and supporting rising leaders that are community-accountable with Kuleana Academy in our Reclaiming Democracy program area. HAPA and our partners and allies Common Cause Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi Appleseed, and ACLU Hawaiʻi continue to look for ways to improve our government transparency for more democratic outcomes.
Our history shows us that our local governments are not always responsive to community needs even in the face of powerful community testimony and ample data.
While HAPA was organizing, building support, and advocating for the regulation of pesticide use by agrochemical corporations, in late September 2014 activists on Maui passed ballot initiative to temporarily ban pesticide intensive GM crops. According to Civil Beat’s Anita Hofschneider, it was “the county’s first-ever ballot initiative targeting global agriculture companies Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences”. Despite these international agrochemical corporations spending of 8 million dollars to counter the ballot initiative, it passed.
This generated a pause for HAPA; despite more than half the voters wanting more regulations and transparency related to the industrial pesticide use by agrochemical corporations for GM test crops, why were voters not electing leaders in support of these measures, and who shared their point of view and values?
HAPA’s conclusion was that there were community-aligned candidates running for office but they didn't know how to run a campaign, or good people were thinking about running but chose not to because they didn't know how to run, or build the coalition base they needed to be effective in office.
From this insight, HAPA’s leadership accelerator, Kuleana Academy (KA), identified, trained, and resourced rising leaders from affected communities on running for office, serving on boards and commissions, and in advocacy and movement building. In addition to the skills training, participants learn about an array of policy issues from our education alliance partners (lead advocacy orgs in their respective issue areas), and do an 360-degree analysis of their leadership style. This in-depth political leadership training is grounded in values of community accountability.
HAPA will launch its next Kuleana Academy cohort in the first part of 2023, but listening sessions with alumni have informed additional break-out modules that allow to refresh and dive deeper into specific skill sets, such as electoral campaigns, parliamentary procedure, and community organizing. While HAPA is developing support to hire and Organizing Director (more about this in our last segment of the report), we plan to incrementally work toward this goal by convening our KA alumni and their network for “community organizer training” and tap our KA network in further identifying organic leaders in their respective regional communities and helping us centralize collected contact data.
In the 2022 election year, KA launched and ran 2 “bootcamps” to provide a campaign skills refresher for our KA alumni and their networks. Given that districts have changed and all seats are up for election, the election year ahead is fertile ground for many of our community's rising leaders to run for office, support campaigns, or deepen their civic engagement. Our Kuleana Academy Electoral Campaign Bootcamps focus on the skills and training for campaigns: canvassing, district analysis, public speaking, etc. * HAPA is non-partisan and does not support candidates or campaigns.
To date, Kuleana Academy has completed 6 cohorts; we have 98 graduates, 8 hold elected office at the county and state level, and 20 alumni are running for elected office in 2022. 8 graduates sit on Oʻahu Neighborhood Boards, 70 are currently leading community or civic projects or regularly engage in activism or advocacy, 5 sit on nonprofit Boards, 3 sit on State Boards or Commissions, 55 have worked on election campaigns, and 39 have led policy initiatives at the county and state levels. *Kuleana Academy is the only program of its kind in Hawaiʻi.
If youʻd like a full detail or media kit regarding our Kuleana Academy program, please contact our Development Manager and visit our Kuleana Academy webpage.
in Partnership with The Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi
In the first half of 2022, HAPA has been supporting and amplifying the community policy demands at the legislature to shut down the US Navy’s Red Hill fuel tanks. In partnership with the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi we are reporting on the systemic problems and demands with the Water Protectors Rising panel series around Kapūkakī (Red Hill) water contamination.
In November (2021), a 14,000 gallon fuel leak at the U.S. Navy storage facility contaminated the largest aquifer on the island of Oʻahu. Initially, the Navy denied reports of the leak, saying the water was safe to drink. Shortly after, military families and residents began reporting illness and pet casualties. Later tests showed contamination 350 times above safe drinking levels. This coverup scandal brought decades of tensions between the community and the Navy to a head– as many from the community had been warning of this very crisis for decades (Malji, Allen, Machain, 2022.) In fact, it is estimated that leaks from the Red Hill fuel tanks released a cumulative 180,000 gallons into the aquifer. The Washington Post reported in January how “[f]or years, Board of Water Supply Manager Ernie Lau has warned that an accident at Red Hill could irreversibly contaminate Oʻahu’s largest aquifer.”
HAPA in partnership with Sierra Club Hawaiʻi, organized a cross-national Water Protector Panel digital convening series. The first panel was held this past June, “Lessons from the Fight for Water Justice: From Camp Lejeune to Red Hill,” which discussed through a critical lens how powerful government institutions, such as the US Navy have contributed to widespread water crisis and the ways grassroots organizers and communities are calling for and creating change. Panelists from Camp Lejeune, Hawaiʻi and Alaska shared stories and strategies for creating change. Watch the full panel here.
In July, we co-hosted the second panel, “Watering the Buds of Solidarity,” which focused on water protectors across island communities who are standing against ongoing threats to their water and their home. Our panelists from Guåhan (Guam); Vieques, Puerto Rico, and Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi shared the stories of occupied islands impacted by water contamination caused by the US Navy presence and shared the context, histories, current status of respective water threats. The parallels across each account was striking, and the panel built bridges and solidarity amongst fellow Islanders struggling to protect their water sources. You can watch the full panel here.
The panel was the first step in building a common understanding of the respective stories, and in identifying ways to stand together in demanding change and restitution from the systems that treat communities, their water, and their ways of life as expendable.
This September 25th - October 1st 2022, we’re heading into our 3rd annual ʻAi Pono (Eat Well) Kauaʻi Challenge.
The ʻAi Pono Kauaʻi Challenge seeks to celebrate the abundance of ʻono (delicious), locally grown, raised, and prepared foods on Kauaʻi. In doing so, we hope to inspire Kauaʻi residents to eat and support locally sourced foods as part of their daily lives.
For this 7-day challenge, participants are encouraged to eat as locally as possible. Scavenger hunt cards are utilized for prizes, while prizes were also given out for social media engagement, where participants shared and recommended great solutions for eating locally while maintaining a budget.
Restaurants, value-added product (CPG) vendors, local organizations, and farmers partner to feature locally sourced ingredients. This campaign encourages the community to eat locally sourced foods while providing tools and strategies. The project provided a proactive and positive solution-oriented approach to supporting our local food producers.
HAPA offers the ʻAi Pono Kauaʻi Challenge annually in partnership with Pesticide Action Network and our many co-sponsors (below).
There were 68 local-provider partners in total in 2021, #aipono2021 had 173 posts on Instagram, approximately a 56% increase, and #aipono has reached 3.7k posts. ʻAi Pono Challenge is a way to introduce the “ʻono” (deliciousness, affinity) to our local food systems community– bringing in new members and potential supporters of our advocacy efforts.
LOOKING AHEAD…
Deep Base Building
From late 2021 to early 2022, HAPA’s board and staff engaged in a strategic planning process. As part of our planning, we conducted a stakeholder survey seeking feedback from our partners across our four main program areas. Incorporating feedback from this Stakeholder Survey* and the following board and staff strategic planning, HAPA is committed to ramping up our community organizing work.
If youʻd like receive a copy of the Stakeholders Survey Report, email our Development Manager here.
While we will seek to ramp up with the current staffing, our goal is to fundraise for a more robust organizing program that will build capacity for community leaders across the pae ʻāina (hawaiian islands) to respond to emergent threats and to build an engaged base. Our approach will seek to build off the momentum and growth in Kuleana Academy.
The goal is to coordinate with coalitions and program partners to build political power and “cover more ground.” By combining resources and efforts between issues and using the success of the Kuleana Academy model to train more organizers from frontline and affected communities, HAPA will accelerate the base-building process.
HAPA is committed to investing into an Organizing Director in order to consistently convene stakeholders and a deeper base-building program which centers frontline leadership and voices. Ultimately, we are seeking to build more people power needed to deliver tangible wins for our communities and environment.
We are actively seeking financial partners in this endeavor. If your organization, you, or someone you know aligns with our mission — please put us in touch.
