Bill Text: HI HB2703 | 2012 | Regular Session | Amended

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Bill Title: Food Sustainability; Department of Agriculture

Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 32-6)

Status: (Enrolled - Dead) 2012-04-26 - (H) Conference Committee Meeting will reconvene on Friday 04-27-12 11:30AM in conference room 224. [HB2703 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2012-HB2703-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3310

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 2703

       H.D. 2

       S.D. 2

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred H.B. No. 2703, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO FOOD SELF-SUFFICIENCY,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to make increased local food production a key priority for the State so that Hawaii may diversify its economy, create new jobs, advance long term economic stability, and boost food security.

 

     Specifically, this measure establishes a statewide food sustainability standard program for the purpose of doubling, by the year 2020, the amount of food grown in the State for local consumption, using the year 2014 as the baseline.

 

     Written comments in support of this measure were submitted by Sovereign Mokupuni Council O Maui; Sovereign Mokupuni Council O Molokai; Sovereign Mokupuni Council O Kauai; Sovereign Councils of the Hawaiian Homelands Assembly; and six individuals.  Written comments in opposition to this measure were submitted by the Land Use Research Foundation of Hawaii.

 

     Your Committee finds that Hawaii is dangerously dependent on imported food due, in large part, to geographic isolation from other states and, as a result, must import approximately ninety-two per cent of all food consumed in the State.  Your Committee further finds that each food product imported to Hawaii is a lost opportunity for local economic growth.  Research shows that replacing even ten per cent of current food imports with locally grown food will create two thousand three hundred local jobs, keep hundreds of millions of dollars circulating within Hawaii's economy, and ensure that state food supplies are more resilient when disruptions in the global food supply occur.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by making technical nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of style, clarity, and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2703, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2703, H.D. 2, S.D. 2.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

 

		____________________________ DAVID Y. IGE, Chair