As many of you know, on Wednesday the house committee on Ag heard HB2703 - A Food Self-Sufficiency Bill drafted by folks the Sierra Club, Kanu Hawaii, Kokua Foundation, and the Hawaii Food Policy Council.  Mahalo to everyone who submitted testimony. I can personally attest the committee members were impressed with the response.

I know this bill is not perfect. No bill can be because we can't legislate away the industrial food system's hold on Hawaiʻi.  It is our personal choices, our businesses, our farms, our social enterprises, our community groups, our non-profits, and our food and ag projects that will most likely drive the fundamental changes necessary for a Hawaiʻi Food Revolution. But our policies should be doing something - they should be guiding our economy away from its dependence on foreign food, foreign energy, and foreign investments - because its simply not sustainable. As I've said before, policy is one tool in our toolkit - and it can be a weapon if we wield it right.

I said I’d let you know when you could do something to help push our food sustainability bill, well now’s your chance!

If you are a member of the Sierra Club you will have already received this alert – please forgive the duplication.  But if not, here you go:

If you can live on air alone – don’t read this!

But if you need food, then you need to check this out:

We have a real chance to commit Hawai‘i to substantially increase the amount of food we grow – which would help preserve farmland and boost our economy.  At the moment, according to the USDA, we import at least 90% of everything we eat.  Let’s face it: that’s dangerous and unsustainable.

So here’s a great piece of news – a bill that would require Hawai‘i to double the amount of food we grow by the year 2020 has been formally introduced by no fewer than 38 of the 51 members of the House of Representatives and by both the Chair and Vice Chair of the Senate Ag committee. This is a truly extraordinary level of support in the Legislature and gives us good reason to hope that our state may soon make food farming a priority and slow the sprawl of suburbs over our best farmlands.