It took a pandemic to reveal which priorities truly serve the community.

When we shifted behaviors to prevent the spread of COVID-19, people still needed to eat. Essential farmers, ranchers, food processors, and food distributors adeptly adapted operations to continue to serve our community. But why is it that we are only giving them respect in the direst of situations?

Year after year, Hawaii puts all of our eggs into the basket of tourism. Meanwhile, infrastructure and support for agriculture is neglected, and it’s no wonder we import more than 80% of our food.

Every grocery purchase is a vote for where you want your food to come from. If people are willing to pay a premium for local beef, then we must also support the ranchers who raise that beef.

We must understand that every cow raised in Hawaii costs $153 more than its counterpart finished on grain in the U.S. mainland. Without economies of scale, the higher costs of processing meat in Hawaii means producing beef costs 60% more per pound than cattle finished on the mainland and shipped to Hawaii for consumption.

It also takes twice as many months for an animal to reach market weight on grass than on grain. This has been the business model ranchers have contended with since the cost of purchasing and shipping grain to Hawaii began to outweigh the cost of shipping calves to the mainland. However, with the growing demand for local, grass-fed beef, Hawaii ranchers have been positioning themselves to fulfill beef demand by growing local herds for local consumption.

Hostile Terrain

The shift to increase local herds cannot happen overnight, and there are many things that need to be in place first. Caring for additional livestock requires at least a 2 to 3 year planning window, access to quality forage and investment in fencing and water systems — this means ranchers need long-term land tenure. Instead, many are producing agriculture without appropriate agricultural lease terms.

Despite this, they invest resources and personnel to allow access for public hunting, removing invasive species, and installing fences to manage rotational grazing, which improves soil and sequesters carbon. They choose to steward the land well so that they can continue the business of grass farming.

The land that most Hawaii ranchers work is hostile terrain, unsuitable for crops, but still able to produce grass. The beef that you eat is the incredible, natural result of a ruminant taking inedible grass and converting it to a high-quality protein.

Some say that transferring the leases to the Department of Agriculture will result in deforestation and loss of endangered species habitat. In reality, lease holders are still required to follow conservation plans under a DOA lease, and the ecosystem services of invasive species management, wildfire mitigation, and protection of open spaces will continue.

On the other hand, an example of a lease on Maui has sat vacant under the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. It could have been used to raise cattle and regenerate the land, but is now an overgrown pasture covered with black wattle and Christmas berry.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started impacting our economy, the Hawaii Cattlemen’s Council coordinated a donation of over 20,000 pounds of beef from local member ranchers to the Salvation Army to feed the community. This large donation is still being distributed to families in need. The Hawaii Cattlemen’s Council gives all the credit to the generosity of Hawaii’s ranchers, quietly doing their part to feed the community.

Additionally, a newly created project through the Hawaii Farm Bureau, in partnership with the County of Hawai‘i and generous nonprofit entities, is purchasing local beef each week to feed the community on Hawaii  island.

If you support agriculture, you should support HB 2035.

Now we have a chance to support agriculture with action, and not just words. A law passed 17 years ago (Act 90, 2003) was intended to ensure the long-term production of lands by transferring them from the DLNR to the DOA. This straightforward law advocates for agriculture and gives ranchers the lease terms they need to succeed, to continue to expand production with confidence in their business models and plans for investing in the land. However, ranchers have been denied this relief with the claim that Act 90 does not have a deadline and pasture is not agriculture.

We thank the Legislature for standing up for agriculture by introducing House Bill 2035 and Senate Bill 2812 to give the Department of Land and Natural Resources a deadline to transfer the leases to the Department of Agriculture and clarifying that pasture is indeed agriculture. If you support agriculture, you should support HB 2035, which simply puts a deadline on an existing law so that it is finally fully enforced after 17 years.