Manoa Valley POI

Moving Forward...

If you consider the beginning of my PhD journey to be August 2009, I have spent almost 3.5 years fumbling around, figuring out my life and finishing up research that indirectly contributed to my research. In this time, I have finished classes, had a child and published one report about Hawaii's seafood consumption and submitted one journal article to the Journal of Food and Agribusiness regarding Hawaii chefs' seafood preferences with a focus on local versus imported and aquaculture versus wild.

After submitting that journal article I have since refocused my sites, formed a committee, have an outline for a proposal which is motivated by a USDA-NIFA Fellowship application due on March 7th, provided they accept my letter of intent which is due January 3, 2013.

I have wiped out all research previously collected and have decided with a blank slate where I am familiar with all the literature and where it stands contextually in regards to my dissertation question:

WHAT IS HAWAII'S AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION POSSIBILITIES FRONTIER? CAN IT FEED HAWAII'S POPULATION?
(Finding regional agricultural production possibilities: The case of the Hawaiian Islands)

These questions will be addressed in the following three chapters:

Chapter 1- Literature Review Regarding Hawaii's Food and Agricultural Production
This will be a documented and systematic literature conducted using the following six search terms:
- Hawaii Food Production
- Hawaii Food
- Hawaii Agricultural Production
- Hawaii Agriculture
- Food Production
- Agricultural Production

A wide breath of sources will be searched:

- UH Voyager
- Amazon.com
- Dissertations & Theses
- Print Indexes (Historical)
- Web Searching
- CAB Abstracts, Agricola, Agril
- Biological/PubMed
- Google Scholar/Scirus/Electronic Index
- Science Citation Index & Web of Science
- Google Reader Account

The list will be categorized based on how it contributes to defining Hawaii's agricultural production possibilities frontier and how Hawaii's population can feed itself. Categories will be organically decided and regrouped as necessary. This literature review will define how the agricultural production possibility frontier is created in order to calculate it for Hawaii.

Chapter 2- Defining Hawaii's Agricultural Production Possibilities Frontier
The approach for this chapter is to basically define the parameters for the frontier as justified by the literature review. This chapter will also discuss testing of the model and required adjustments to the assumptions as the methodology is created. In the end a grid of monthly agricultural yields for a growing lists of agricultural products will be created based on soil, water and climate conditions at the plot level. Hopefully this can turn into an extension tool for UH to collectively catalog information about agricultural crops and growing methods.

Chapter 3- Caloric Requirements of Hawaii's Population
This chapter will explore Hawaii's Population, what it's caloric requirements would be and what the various ways nutritional requirements could be defined. Based on the final model for defining yield, the production possibilities frontier database will be aligned with nutritional requirements.

This is where I stand for the moment. My next step is to create my reading list, submit my letter of intent for the NIFA Fellowship, and sign on my committee members. My committee will consist of:

Adviser: Kim Burnett, UHERO
Ted Radovich, TPSS
Chris Lepcyzk, NREM
Jinan Banna, FHNS
Tomo Miura, NREM?

Food System Assessments/Action Plans

National
- National Integration Regional Food System (NIRF) | MIT Collaborative Initiatives
- Modeling Production, Processing and Distribution Infrastructure for a Resilient Regional Food System | 2011 | Urban Design Lab, Earth Institute, Columbia University
- Sonoma County Community Food Assessment | July 2011 | Food System Alliance, Sonoma County

- Multnomah Food Action Plan | Dec 2010 | Multnomah County Office of Sustainability

• Goals: local, healthy, equitable and regionally prosperous food system
• Measures: USDA hunger ranking, emergency food box access, consumption of locally grown food, obesity %, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, child receipt of SNAP assistance, avg. age of farmer
• Strengths: framed the issues, set actionable goals
• Criticisms: too many goals, no one is accountable, environment?

- Assessing the San Diego County Food System: Indicators for a More Food Secure Future | Dec 2010 | San Diego Food System Working Group

• Goals: 1) "Better Health and Well-bing of San Diego County Residents," 2) "Agricultural Stewardship of San Diego County's Environmental Resource Base," 3) "Thriving Communities and Sustainable Economic Growth."
• Stems from involved processes, rather present info then get feedback

- Exploring Food Security in the Islands Trust Area | Nov 2010 | Kaitlin Kazmierowski, Island Planner

• Thoroughly qualifies definitions and broadly gathers information about food system
• p. 7

• p.17

• p 29-31 attempts to list all food initiatives 
• Layout potential policies

- A *FEAST* Planning Manual: Community Foods Organizing | Oregon Food Bank

• Goal: To help plan community organizing events
• Activities are already being held in Hawaii through foods like SlowFood, Food Bank Hawaii, etc. (collect list)

Hawaii

- Diversified, Localized and Sustainable Agriculture on Kauaʻi | Sept 2010 | Malama Kauaʻi
(p. 17, pp 29-31, pp. 45-49 - as numbered on the bottom of the pages).  Check out the sample food charters in Appendix E

• Assessing opportunities and Addressing barriers
• explains benefits of diverse, sustainable and localized ... how to encourage it
• Goals: identify farmers' barriers, resilient island
• Long living document that could be translated into website

- North Shore Food Systems Study: Findings | 2008 - 2009 | Malama Kauaʻi

• Also highlights opportunities
• Strengths: Lots of natural resource justification ("agriculture can be ecologically destructive or regenerative, ...)
• Asks what we value...

- Island of Hawaii Whole System Project, Phase I Report | Mar 2007 | Rocky Mountain Institute

• Goals: reduce dependence on food imports, impact locally produced food's market share on the largest possible scale, be profitable, increase farmer profit, complement other ideas, have more than one positive impact, have meaningful impact of food behavior
• Benefit from tourism, but serve local community at reasonable prices ("Mitigating Unintended Consequences")
• Whole System Diagram (Section IV)
• Strengths: identified barriers, highlighted leverage points & opportunities, used many examples, quantified local market share of specific fruits & vegetables
• Criticism: wants to mesh with other ideas, but solely to improve local market share (what about health, jobs, improved infrastructure/environment); 

NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY FOOD COUNCIL CAN...

- map and publicize: 

• local food and agricultural resources and 
• systems 

- persuade government agencies to:

• purchase from local farmers and to
• invest in protecting agricultural lands

- organizing networks of:

• community gardens, 
• agricultural parks, and 
• farmers' markets

Webinar Review: "Food Hubs: Viable Regional Distribution Solutions"

Coordinator: National Good Food Network
http://ngfn.org/resources/ngfn-cluster-calls/food-hubs-viable-regional-distribution-solutions/webinar

Food Hub Definition
- "A centrally located facility with a business management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/or marketing of locally/regionally produced food products."
- Core components: 1) Aggregation/Distribution- Wholesale, 2) Active Coordination, 3) Permanent Facilities
- Many different types of models: 1) Non-profit. 2) Producer/entrepreneur, 3) Retail driven, 4) Consumer driven (online buying clubs), 5) "Hybrid" market model (wholesale/retail), 6) "Virtual" Food Hubs (online matchmaking platforms)
- Hubs have goal of working with small size farmers/producers

Supply Chain vs. Value Chain
Transaction vs. Relationship
Short-term vs. Long-term
Commodity vs. Highly differentiated products
Communication only with next step vs Transparency & Communication throughout
"Everyone for themselves" vs. "We're in this together"

Pricing
- Prices set in wholesale market
- Provides opportunity for processing to reduce high-low price risk

Funders' Perspective
Existing Foundations
New Philanthropists
Opportunities
USDA: Rural Business Enterprise Grant (RBEG), Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG), Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP)

How to start
- Definitely need a business plans
- Be weary of buyers (requires building relationships)
- Investors, start-up capital
- Requires more than $300,000 (compare to Local Food Hub)
- Best legal model: majority non-profit or partnered with non-profit, multi-stakeholder co-ops (producer, processors and buyers) dependent on mission and funding streams
- Logistics software (Local Orbit, etc.)
- Personal connections are important for upsale

Resources:
** http://www.ngfn.org/resources/food-hubs
https://sites.google.com/site/mgfwpublic/conference-resources
http://localfoodhub.org/our-food/how-we-work-with-buyers/
http://www.detroiteasternmarket.com/

Hawaii Food Issues

I have become a member of the Hawaii Food Council list serve which seems to have amassed the truly passionate parties and citizens. In an effort to address real concerns I will list and summarize various concerns heard on this list serve and maintain a list of activist, not commercially-oriented, stakeholders ....

Issues
Access to (Local Food) Food
- Jim Hollyer posted article (http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Science-Nutrition/Localized-food-production-should-be-a-strategy-not-a-goal-says-UCSB-professor/?c=71VcYO0ZfgUbRVmcA%2FsJaQ%3D%3D&utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily) on May 20, 2011, at 7:51 AM pointing out that grown local does not always mean consumed locally. In the end making the point, localization is a strategy for a larger goal, not the actual end in of itself.

What is "Food"?
- Kim Coffee-Isaak widened the scope on Jim's article on May 20, 2011, at 12:30 PM by pointing out that when people talk about localization they are mostly talking about fruits and vegetables, but "Food" goes much more beyond this to include dairy and animal proteins.
- Hawaii needs to "grow all the food for a complete nutritional picture locally" including rice according Melanie Bondera to on May 20, 2011, at 4:01 PM. This would also need to include the dairy and animal proteins stated above.

Food Security
- George Kent states on May 20, 2011 6:58:41 PM that it is not feasible or wise to grow all necessary foods for complete nutrition locally, but to have a diverse array of food sources.\
- Stuart Scott rebutted on Fri, 20 May 2011 22:55:48 that "Food security must include a greater ability to produce more of our food locally."


Important Agricultural Lands (IALs)


GMOs

Activist Stakeholders
http://www.kohalacenter.org/

Staying on top of news...

In my ongoing effort to describe Hawaii's food distribution system, 1) The Weekly, 2) the Star Advertiser, 3) Hawaii Business News, 4) Pacific Business News. Another blog post will be started for national issues. Other sources may be referenced, but not monitored on a regular basis. Stories will be blogged about on an on-going basis, but to build a foundation all sources will be checked at least to the beginning of 2011.

Entry format: Headline - Author Source
Primary Publication Date (Publication)
Other publications: Author- (alternative take)
Objectives:
Results and conclusions:
Assumptions
References?
Meet stated objectives? Criticisms?

Impact on field of food distribution environmental or nutritional impacts?
Opinion

Source descriptions/Monitoring policy:
1) The Weekly
2) the Star Advertiser
3) Hawaii Business News
4) Pacific Business News

Review: (Hudgins, 1980) Per Capital Annual Utilization and Consumption of Fish and Shellfish in Hawaii, 1970-77

Linda L. Hudgins (Honolulu Laboratory, Southwest Fisheries Center, National Marine Fisheres Services, NOAA, Honolulu, HI 96812)

Marine Fisheries Review, 1980, p. 16-20

Objectives
- Attempt to quantify actual fish and shellfish consumption in Hawaii between 1970-77

Methods
- Order of computation:

1) total supply

2) adjust to edible weight

3) divide by population

- attempted to calculate per capita methodology used in "Fisheries of the United States" (Bell, 1978)

- 3 major sources of commercial fish and fishery products for human consumption in State of HI:

1) local catch (round (live) weight as reported by vessels to State of Hawaii, Division of Fish and Game)

2) imports from foreign countries (net product weight as recorded at port by U.S. Customs officials and published by the U.S. Bureau of Census)

3) interstate shipments from the mainland United States (net product weight as recorded at port by U.S. Army Corp of Engineers)

- Per capita utilization determined using total supply of fishery products without adjustment for beginning or ending stocks, foreign exports or defense purchases.

- Hawaii consumption is adjusted for foreign exports of 1) fish and shellfish and 2) shipments of canned tuna and fresh and frozen fish to the mainland US.

- Cured fish for consumption includes: canned or uncanned dried, salted, smoked or kippered fish - Raw inputs for local production are counted under fresh, frozen or chilled

- Foreign import value is unadjusted and reflects customs values which generally represent value in foreign country

- Supply of canned fish for consumption includes fish of all preparation in airtight containers (mostly cans)

- 3 variable components of population in State of Hawaii outside of civilian population (can account for 20% of actual population at a given time):

1) Military= those who serve in armed forces residing in HI or stationed aboard a ship homeported in HI, including dependents

* dependents are approximated at 1.15 per military member

* since 1971 military population stabilized around 6% of those actually present in State

2) Visitors

* estimated by Hawaii Visitors Bureau

* during 1978 estimated around 9% of total population based on annual average number of visitors present

3) Foreign immigrants

* approximately 8% of civilian resident population in 1970 were foreign born from PRC, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and the Philippines (all have higher per capita fish consumption rates than US according to  Bell, 1978: 74)

- imports broken into fresh, frozen or chilled

Hypothesis/Importance of Research

- Speculated that per capita consumption of fishery products in the State of Hawaii is considerably higher than U.S. average, no studies have been done to prove this

* In 1977 U.S. per capita consumption of edible (meat-weight) fish and shellfish was 5.82 kg (12.8)

- provides valuable input to research and policy planning

- have implications in particular for:

* HI fishing industry

* aquaculture development program in HI

* State of HI Fisheries Development Plan

* Regional Fishery Management Plans

Results and Conclusions

- 1977 per capita consumption rate is 77% higher than U.S. average

- 1977 foreign imports are approx. 54% of total supply of fish and shellfish in Hawaii

- Top 5 countries of origin for quantity and customs value are: New Hebrides, Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and Panama

- Shellfish and anchovies are major products in cans or airtight containers

- in 1972 major sardine exporting countries were Brazil, UK and Denmark, in 1973 Denmark was the only exporter to Honolulu custom district which explains lower figure in 1973

- Tuna, fish fillets and shellfish compose over 90% of total fresh and frozen imports to Hawaii for 1976 and 1977

- Salmon, Anchovies, Sardine (not in oil), Tuna, Bonito and Yellowtail, Clams, and Shrimp were 60% of total canned import quantity in 1976 and 78% in 1977

- US per capita total consumption followed slight upward trend from 1973 to 1977, varied between 5.45 and 5.91 kg

- HI per capita consumption followed unclear trend between 1970 and 1977, decline from 1972 to 1974, but has since followed a solid upward trend

- Per capita consumption of fresh and frozen fishery products in Hawaii has ranged from 206% (1971) to 87% (1976) above national average

- Per capita consumption of canned fishery products in Hawaii since 1973 has been below U.S. average

- Per capita consumption of cured fishery products in HI has been above US average, since it does not include local HI production the rate is even higher

- 1972-1974 decline occurred in fresh and frozen category, possible factors:

* change in tastes due to public concern over high mercury content in large pelagic fishes

* observed reduction in quantity of local supply possibly result of decline in demand due to change in tastes

* 1972 visitor population grew much faster than civilian resident population and may exhibit differential consumption rates higher or lower than resident population

- fresh category may have declined due to unreported catch from recreational fishing (recreational landings are not reported)

Questions about experimental design, statistical analyses or analytical approaches

- How does U.S. Bureau of Census import data differ from USDA-FAS data? Same?

- Are Local (State of HI, DLNR- round weight), Foreign (U.S. Bureau of the Census- net product weight) and Interstate (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers- net product weight) data sources comparable?
* How accurate is Army Corps of Engineers interstate shipment total? This is only questioned since the foreign data for 2008 does not match USDA-FAS import numbers.

Assumptions

- Cured fishery products does not include local production

- Foreign import values excludes U.S. import duties, freight, insurance and other charges incurred in bringing merchandise to US, does not reflect actual transaction value

- Recreational fishing catch is not included

Opinion

According to Web of Science no one has cited this paper. However, it did meet its stated objective of attempting to quantify actual fish and shellfish consumption in Hawaii between the years 1970-77. I need to further investigate how the data was used by the HI fishing industry, the aquaculture development program in HI, and the State of HI for fisheries development plans or regional fishery management plans.

This data can be useful to understand current consumption of fish and seafood, especially at the species level. Using this data management for the highest consumed species can be considered for fisheries and aquaculture ventures. Local suppliers can also consider import substitution. Marketing for under-consumed or more sustainable species can be imporved.

Further Research

- specific determinants of consumption are not addressed in this paper

Useful References

Bell, T. (editor). 1978. Fisheries of the United States, 1977. U.S. Dep. Commer., NOAA, Natl. Mar. Fish. Serv., Curr. Fish. Stat. 7500, 112 p.