Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yesterday, I went to a church meeting about Hawaii becoming food independent from the mainland. Someone threw out a figure that Hawaii can totally be 100% independent from the mainland regarding food. We discussed that for a little bit and then the number changed to 80% and they stuck with that number. I gave my reasons why I think that particular number is still far too high. I am currently looking up solid research/figures to try to persuade this person since he is pretty qualified school-wise. (Phd & MD)
I have seen this topic discussed here before and I am sure that there are many extremely knowledgeable members here on this issue so I wanted to inquire about the best online resources that you know of regarding my stance that 80% food independence from the mainland for Hawaii is not feasible.
What do you think about what I have so far:
Proposition: 80% Food Independence for Hawaii outside sources is not feasible
Reason #1 - Not enough available quality farm land to produce enough food to support the population.
Evidence:
The total land of Hawaii is 4,112,388 acres of which 1,926,507 of those acres are being used for agriculture. The rest is urban, conservation, or rural land. So, almost half of all the available land in Hawaii (~47%) is being used for agriculture and imports for consumption are still 93% of our total general consumption figure. The figure for Urban land area stands at 200,434 acres so if we were to utilize some of that land, clearly it still would not be sufficient.
Evidence:
The population of Hawaii is 1,404,054 and growing. This growing population will require housing and this takes precedent over food self-sufficiency. As has happened in the past with the development of Ewa despite there being Ag lands there, ag land will not likely replace urban land. The only other option is conservation land. As is mentioned in Charles Reppun’s article on agriculture (book 1 p23), urbanization is increasing and it is a problem. With more and more people that occupy the island, that equates to more mouths that will have to be fed. In the chart that Reppun posted on p24, he estimates that Hawaii would need to have over six million acres of land dedicated to farming to feed the total population. (2008 population: 1,332,213) This is impossible because Hawaii does not even have this much land period. He adds that if beef were removed from the picture then that number would be much much lower at 228,979. Dr. Lumpkin is his November 10th talk about global security also mentioned the possibility of encouraging vegetarianism as a catalyst to get more research done in the areas of more traditional local foods in India such as beans used for daal. However, Dr. Lumpkin also made clear that it is much more productive to use some vegetables for feed and for humans to eat meat. Also, Hawaii is one of the most diverse places in the United States as is evident by the new Hawaii Language Roadmap Initiative that is going to start in Hawaii soon. Diversity means huge differences in diet for many many different types of person.
Proposition: 80% Food Independence for Hawaii outside sources is not feasible
Reason #1 - Not enough available quality farm land to produce enough food to support the population.
A group of people can be food independent from the mainland if they chose that lifestyle, but certainly not the population. It quite frankly would be far to limiting to most palates excepts for diehard survivalists.
What would the "entire" population eat? I for one wouldn't be interested in just some corn, spinach, sugar, bananas, papaya, coffee, macadamias, etc......every single day.
I don't think Oahu has a chance to feed itself. They have too many people and not enough farm land. They're about three meals away from starvation if the container ships stop.
There's about 1,500 people per square mile on Oahu, they have no hope of feeding themselves.
Maui has about 160 people per square mile, they could probably feed themselves if they had to.
Kauai has about 116 people per square mile, they'd probably be able to feed themselves too.
Hawaii, Molokai and Lanai all have less than 50 people per square mile, they can feed themselves if they have to.
IMHO, the question is, can the rest of the islands feed Oahu?
Are there any folks growing rice? We'd still have to import rice, I'd expect.
I believe the ancient hawaiians population got upto about 800,000 people maybe more and they fed themselves. Heres some interesting articles about that. But can modern Hawai'i do so? Well im in agreement with hotz, everyone but oahu could. Further before to long Oahu wont have any poor people left to work the fields lol. (sorry couldn't resist)
I checked the numbers for persons per square mile for Hawaii as a whole and it is 338 persons per square mile. There are 640 acres in one square mile. That comes to about 1.9 acres per person.
^ Is that kind of how you are looking at this, hotzcatz? I know that how O'ahu is set up changes things greatly but I would like to get an idea of how to word this and visualize what you mean with valid resources to cite.
Are there any folks growing rice? We'd still have to import rice, I'd expect.
Rice was grown by the Chinese in Hawai'i in the 1800s, but when the Japanese became the majority, they preferred short grain rice, like they grow in Japan and California, instead of the log grain grown by the Chinese, so the rice cultivation declined, and was pau by the beginning of the 1900s. There's very little chance of reviving it, because the suitable land for flooded rice fields is gone, and there's nobody to do the work. It's grown experimentally by the seed companies, but only as seed for other areas.
Hopefully the day will never come where Hawaii needs to feed itself - no liquor, no Italian, no Mexican, no potatoes, no Chips, no Sushi, no Yogurt, well - you get the picture.
Yesterday, I went to a church meeting about Hawaii becoming food independent from the mainland. Someone threw out a figure that Hawaii can totally be 100% independent from the mainland regarding food. We discussed that for a little bit and then the number changed to 80% and they stuck with that number. I gave my reasons why I think that particular number is still far too high. I am currently looking up solid research/figures to try to persuade this person since he is pretty qualified school-wise. (Phd & MD)
He may be looking at what is theoretically possible if all the available ag land in the state is cultibated, but I think it's a classic case of "can't see the forest for the trees." For us to get from where we are now, growing 15% of our food, to growing just 30% would be a Herculean task.
The percentage of food grown and eaten locally has been in decline since the early 1800s, and there are a number of key factors involved in that which I'll bet he's not looking at besides Avalable Land... Available Workers, Available Equipment, Food Variety, and Food Prices.
Availability of Workers - the Census Bureau says that 2.4 workers per thousand of the general population work in agriculture, farming, food cultivation and food processing. Now let's say half of them work with export crops that don't affect the local fresh food supply... such as flowers, coffee, macadamia nuts... that leaves 1632 currently involved in growing and processing about 15% of our food. At that rate, producing 100% of our food would require 10,171 workers - a gap of 9,139 from what we have now. But wait, farmers are already complaining they can't find enough workers to get the job done, so they bring in contract workers from Asia to do the stoop labor and picking, in an echo of the old plantation days. Even to double our current food production to 30% would require another 1632 farm workers. Where you going to find them?
Availability of Equipment - to grow more of our food, we have to grow more kinds of food, and that will require more kinds of equipment. I remember seeing big combine harvesters in Eastern Oregon when I was riding my motorcycle through the area, and I was told when I asked they were harvesting green peas. While inArizona I saw a strange machine with long cantilevered "wings" and men lying on them, suspended a foot off the ground cutting broccoli with hand knives, and tossing them on a conveyer belt which took it to central processing stations to be boxed up. That and more, obviously, and where's it gonna come from? 6.6X as much, for 100% food independence. Even gearing up for twice as much food production will cost a fortune.
Food Variety - We grow a nice variety of crops in Hawai'i ... you can read a pretty good list here... Hawaiian Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables - Alphabetical List... but take a deeper look at what ISN'T there. Going for 100% local food production, think about all the foods that people would have to give up... Washington apples come to mind immediately, and cherries, and raisins and walnuts and pecans and much more, obviously. Peanuts, I think.
Then factor in that there would be no rice, no bread, no pasta, no pizza no cookies, no cereal because we're not going to be able to grow wheat or oats, and even if we could do that the last flour mill in Hawai'i is about to close, so from now on local bakers will have to import all their flour from California. Chedder cheese? Give it up, it's not going to get made locally. Market size pigs are imported to Oahu for slaughter because they're cheaper to raise where the food is. Same with chickens.
And since a lot of the foods we eat are processed, canned, boxed, bottled, frozen, etc. we'd have to face loss of all the convenience foods that Hawaiian households are just as used to using as mainland families. Spaghetti and Ragu Sauce? Not on the local list. Mac and cheese? Not on the local list. Spam? Need I say it? And Wheaties and corn flakes don't grow on trees, you know. And you can only eat so much poi. Or at least, I can't eat that much.
And cooking oil? Canola, soybean, corn, peanut, and the rest... even if we could grow the crops, where would we produce the oil? No, 100% food independence seems like an impossible goal that most people would not support, even if they could afford it. Which they couldn't.
And that slides naturally into the final consideration...
Prices
Local eggs are $5 -$6 a dozen at farmers markets, while California eggs at the supermarket are half that. Why? Because chicken feed is expensive to ship. Milk from California is maybe $5 a gallon, while local milk could be double that. Why do we import large quantities of pineapple and bananas and sugar, and even Folgers and Maxwell House coffee? Because it's cheaper than than the local grown. Imported beef is cheaper than the local. Lots of families can't pay the difference.
The about to be former Governor's task force estimated that we normally have about 10 days supply of fresh food and 30 days supply of all foods on hand. That's the "insecurity" part that leads to the desire for more "food independence" in case of some extraordinary event that interrupts our supply lines to the mainland. And yes, we can do better, and should encourage entrepreneurs who wish to improve our situation, but clearly even getting to 30% would be a huge, expensive effort, while getting to 100% is nothing but an exercise in fantasy.
Not that it sounds as if the guy is likely to listen to you...
I'm fairly optimistic that Hawaii could feed itself, and I believe it should be a goal to strive for (something like that 80% seems possible without much change in diet).
As far as pure acreage, the OP said it clearly: for a vegetable diet, the entire population only needs 229K acres, which I believe certainly exist as "quality" ag land (ones the state designates as prime ag lands--the flattest, best irrigated, and most productive). So the rest of the ag acreage (not all prime land, harder to grow crops) can be used for livestock crops and grazing to provide plenty of meat.
Hawaii has tons of prime ag lands that are fallow--I know this is the case on Kauai with all the closed sugar plantations. Fortunately, this land hasn't bee all developed yet, and people are fighting to keep it that way. So that would skew the OP's numbers because current ag land does not equal current ag land in production.
I have very little doubt that, with a little thinking and planning, Hawaii could produce all the mainland foods whtviper1 lives on. The problem is certainly one of processing, not growing. Hawaii would need to create a few factories and warehouses to process and store and ship all the replacements for packaged foods you get in the supermarkets: ketchup, TV dinners, ranch dressing, etc.
However, the economics of it all would be prohibitive. For example, huge industial farms on the mainland provide GMO soy oil to make all sorts of junk food (ranch dressing, etc.) at incredibly low prices, due to economies of scale. Hawaii, being a much smaller market, would not get those economies of scale. What we do have are healthier alternatives (e.g. Coconut oil), though more costly so they couldn't be used everywhere. Everything would cost twice as much, but be twice as healthy (very, very roughly :-).
Unfortunately, there is no capital to invest in food processing, since it competes with cheap food from the mainland right now. So it is impossible to build up a food infrastructure that would perfectly replace the goods we get from the mainland. But there is an even larger problem: property speculation and land development, driven by population growth. All of these make it currently impossible to grow food and make more money than building housing. That's why we need ag policies and strict zoning (especially on the still-rural neighbor islands) to protect ag land. Because someday, oil will go up in price again, and you won't be able to eat your house plants, Bermuda grass, or strip mall perking lot landscaping.
What we do have are healthier alternatives (e.g. Coconut oil), though more costly so they couldn't be used everywhere. Everything would cost twice as much, but be twice as healthy (very, very roughly :-).
Yeah, so let's say you pass around a petition saying the state should achieve food independence by restricting everyone's diets to only local, healthy foods of limited varieties that will cost twice as much as groceries currently cost. How many people do you think would sign it? I see that as being the ultimate hard sell.
BTW, something that often gets dropped out of these conversations is that much of the ag land that was previously used for sugar cane is unsuitable for growing food crops due to heavy arsenic contamination from the rat poisons they used.
There were also mercury fungicides used, and lot of other nasty chemicals that cannot be used any longer, but which will persist in the soil for lifetimes.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
No, 100% food independence seems like an impossible goal that most people would not support, even if they could afford it. Which they couldn't. 
