The fund’s approval on Tuesday coincides with the recent release of the Oʻahu Food Systems Action Plan, a 154-page document four years in the making and put out by the city’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency.
Billed as “a strategic, implementation-focused action plan that defines the City’s role in O‘ahu’s food system over the next five years,” it outlines strategies to meet goals including increasing access to food, reducing food and helping local food producers and businesses thrive. City officials said this week that it will guide how the new fund is allocated.
Food policy advocates have given the ambitious new plan—which the council is expected to approve this year—high marks.
“It’s an amazing foundation,” said Amanda Shaw, statewide food systems coordinator at Agriculture Stewardship Hawaii, a nonprofit that supports farmers with technical and financial assistance.
The timing is also ideal, said Daniela Spoto, director of food equity at Hawaiʻi Appleseed, an advocacy and policy nonprofit. She noted the plan acknowledges the city lacked the resources to carry out all it aims to do.
“Voters just helped change that,” Spoto said. “Although the new funds can’t pay for the entire plan, several sections of it line up perfectly, giving city officials a great roadmap.”
From the perspective of farmers, the fund is promising, Shaw said.
“To see some actual resources flowing into not just addressing food access, but addressing the production and distribution of food from local farms, that’s potentially really exciting,” Shaw said.
But it will be important, she said, for whoever runs the fund to lay out a clear process so that farmers and others who are directly affected can contribute their views, experiences and expertise.
“This is just the very beginning and opening,” said Shaw, who also urged that equity be taken into account.
“Look at how different producers, whether it’s in terms of scale or the language they speak or whether they’re lineal descendants of a particular ʻāina,” she said, “there’s lots of dimensions to be able to assess and understand how they might require different forms of support.”