Bill Text: HI HB2462 | 2014 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: DOA; Hawaii Good Agricultural Practices Program; Appropriation ($)
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2014-01-27 - Referred to AGR, FIN, referral sheet 7 [HB2462 Detail]
Download: Hawaii-2014-HB2462-Introduced.html
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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES |
H.B. NO. |
2462 |
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TWENTY-SEVENTH LEGISLATURE, 2014 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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A BILL FOR AN ACT
RELATING TO HAWAII GOOD AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:
SECTION 1. Hawaii's farms and farmers reflect the heritage and diversity of many cultures and people. They are the cornerstones of the State's goals for food security, sustainability, and self-sufficiency and are essential for producing local food for local consumption.
The number of small farms in Hawaii has grown substantially during the last ten years, reflecting agricultural landscape and model shifting from plantations to smaller farms with diverse cropping and marketing systems that create new local food sources and increased employment. There is also a renewed interest in planting school gardens and enabling children to eat and enjoy food grown on campus. This contributes to their school cafeteria system and teaches economic, science, and cultural lessons through an agriculture-based curriculum.
These trends necessitate the development of Hawaii good agricultural practices that are science-based and risk-reducing guidelines to reduce the potential for food product contamination on farms. The Hawaii good agricultural practices guidelines would provide support for farm practices regarding field management, proper hygiene, water quality for irrigation and produce rinse, agricultural chemicals, and the use of animal manure. Hawaii good agricultural practices, like Georgia-GAPs, CanadaGAPs, KenyaGAPs, ThaiGAPs, and the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service's Harmonized Audit, would provide risk-reducing practices such as on-farm and packing-shed best practices for human hygiene; pest and on-farm animal management; field management; pesticide, fertilizer, and soil amendment use; water quality for irrigation and produce rinse; packing-shed operations and maintenance; and product trackback. These good agricultural practices guidelines would cover all crops and all sizes of farms, and would cover the best behaviors for conventionally and organically grown foods.
At the national level, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 authorizes the Food and Drug Administration to develop science- and risk-based criteria for preventing food-borne illnesses and encourages states to establish similar intra-state criteria for the safe production, distribution, and consumer handling of food. However, the current proposed produce rule only covers twenty-one per cent of produce farms in the United States, or 40,211 out of a total of 190,000 farms. Due to economic thresholds in the legislation and other factors, relatively few farms in Hawaii actually will come under Food Safety Modernization Act jurisdiction and the soonest any oversight will appear, starting with the dozen of Hawaii's largest farms, will be the middle of 2017. Thereafter, other farms will come into compliance in 2018 and 2019, based on yet-to-be-finalized criteria. The national focus, however, will be on bigger agricultural states such as California, Oregon, and Michigan. Even when the Food Safety Modernization Act produce rule takes effect in Hawaii and the nation, the rule will not cover the range of important behaviors that are covered under a solid good agricultural practices program. Therefore, it is prudent to install good agricultural practices on all Hawaii produce farms as soon as possible.
The Hawaii state constitution mandates both the preservation and protection of agricultural resources. To fulfill this mandate with safe food in mind, it is important that the State establish a permanent good agricultural practices program within the department of agriculture. Currently, the department has auditors trained in good agricultural practices and an existing auditing rate structure of $32 per hour plus travel. Hawaii's current good agricultural practices auditing program is the least expensive in the nation, at an average cost of $250 per farm per year. This is significantly less than the cost of an organic audit which costs $700 or more, and is not a food safety audit. Besides auditing farms at their request for compliance with good agricultural practices, the department of agriculture also performs egg, seed, and coffee inspections. The legislature finds that the department of agriculture has a successful history of agricultural oversight, which is in its operational mandate.
The purpose of this Act is to establish a permanent Hawaii good agricultural practices program for farms growing local agricultural food products.
SECTION 2. Chapter 147, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:
"§147- Hawaii good agricultural practices program. (a) There is established the Hawaii good agricultural practices program to be administered by the department of agriculture. The purpose of the program is to develop and support good agricultural practices for Hawaii farms growing agricultural food products.
(b) Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, the Hawaii good agricultural practices program shall:
(1) Develop science- and risk-based good agricultural practices that reasonably reduce the potential for on-farm food-borne illness and include, as appropriate, specific considerations and methodologies for farm sizes, practices, techniques, materials, and crops;
(2) Develop and implement programs to educate and train Hawaii farmers to learn and implement good agricultural practices in a cost-effective and efficient manner;
(3) Provide procedures for the voluntary verification of on-farm implementation of good agricultural practices and the subsequent issuance of state compliance certification; and
(4) Develop a consumer information program for publication and broadcast to teach home practices for the treatment and handling of fresh and processed agricultural food products.
(c) The department shall consult as necessary with the department of health, the University of Hawaii college of tropical agriculture and human resources, and other state and federal agencies to develop and implement the Hawaii good agricultural practices program.
(d) The department may adopt rules under chapter 91 to facilitate the implementation of this section."
SECTION 3. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $ or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2014-2015 for the implementation of the Hawaii good agricultural practices program.
The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of agriculture for the purposes of this Act.
SECTION 4. New statutory material is underscored.
SECTION 5. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2014.
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INTRODUCED BY: |
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Report Title:
DOA; Hawaii Good Agricultural Practices Program; Appropriation
Description:
Establishes the Hawaii good agricultural practices program. Makes an appropriation for FY 2014-2015.
The summary description of legislation appearing on this page is for informational purposes only and is not legislation or evidence of legislative intent.
