The Kaua‘i Food Industry Forum is sponsoring an open meeting from 8:30 a.m. to noon Sunday at Kaua‘i Community College cafeteria to discuss a proposed master plan for increasing food self-sufficiency on Kaua‘i. The Kaua‘i Food Industry Forum has
The Kaua‘i Food Industry Forum is sponsoring an open meeting from 8:30 a.m. to noon Sunday at Kaua‘i Community College cafeteria to discuss a proposed master plan for increasing food self-sufficiency on Kaua‘i.
The Kaua‘i Food Industry Forum has been in existence since 2004.
“We work behind the scenes,” said Glenn Hontz, director of the Food Industry Career Pathways program at KCC. “This is one of our first public meetings.” The Food Industry Career Pathways program provides seminars on gardening, the campus garden and entrepreneurial opportunities for farmers to learn the business side of the industry.
The event is being conducted in recognition of an impending food crisis and as a way to engage Kaua‘i’s residents in helping shape plans to mitigate its impact on an isolated island. The meeting is offered at no cost to interested organizations and individuals.
“We have to start taking personal responsibility for our food,” Hontz said. “We have to create our own industry here on Kaua‘i.”
The need for local self-reliance is seen as an essential factor in engaging neighborhood volunteers to participate in the development of home and neighborhood gardens. Hontz hopes to see generous community participation.
“As this movement grows it will be much larger then one organization can handle,” he said. “It’s about encouraging more people to go into gardening and having more government and foundation participation. We are open to ideas about any food enterprise you can think of.”
Public participation is encouraged regarding ways to achieve greater control over food supply and to reduce the current 90 percent dependence on imports. The agenda will include presentations and discussions regarding a strategic plan to revitalize Kaua‘i’s food production industry; the importance of home and community-based gardens in achieving a suitable level of food self-sufficiency and as a pathway to careers in farming; plans for a farmers market weekly event at the college; goals and activities of the new Kaua‘i Agriculture Initiative and training opportunities to insure successful agricultural enterprises including an upcoming program focused on permaculture systems.
“A preliminary assessment of Kaua‘i’s food production capability has revealed that there are not enough farmers to provide the food we need,” Hontz wrote in an e-mail. “Accordingly a system is being proposed to recruit existing farmers to train residents in successful practices of home and neighborhood gardening.”
The focus of the meeting is to examine recommendations contained in a strategic plan for the revitalization of Kaua‘i’s food industry. The plan developed by Kaua‘i’s Food Industry Forum calls for establishing a leadership council to coordinate the design and implementation of a process to gradually increase the level of local food production. Public participation and inter-agency cooperation will be key factors in achieving genuine success for this cooperative venture.
For more information call, 246-4859.
