HILO — East Hawaii lawmakers want to beef up Hawaii Community College’s agriculture program.
Rep. Richard Onishi, D-Hilo, and Sen. Kai Kahele, D-Hilo, are sponsoring companion bills in this year’s legislative session that, as originally proposed, request $43,000 in state general funds to hire a farm coordinator for the ag program and $165,600 to purchase new ag equipment.
HCC’s 21 agriculture students use a portion of land at the University of Hawaii at Hilo Agriculture Farm in Panaewa to grow fruits and vegetables. Ag students also partner with the community college’s culinary arts program to provide produce for menu items served at on-campus dining facilities — a partnership known as “farm-to-table.”
Farm production currently is unable to fully meet culinary program demand, however, and new personnel and equipment would help change that, Onishi said.
“The UH-Hilo has a farm manager position and that person manages all the different activities and areas under the UH-Hilo,” Onishi said. “HCC on the other hand, their instructor has to manage the area that they are using on the farm. So I thought it was appropriate we provide a position for Hawaii Community College to have a full-time farm manager at the facility who could work hand-in-hand with the UH-Hilo for the whole property.”
The ag program also is battling little fire ants on the property, Onishi said, and funding could be used to help mitigate the issue. Funding also would be used to purchase equipment such as shade panels, a two-row disk seeder, a two-row cultivator, greenhouses, a skid steer with attachments and fertilizer injectors, according to information from HCC.
Onishi said bolstering the program also would help it more easily expand in the future — for example, if it wanted to begin offering courses on raising cattle and goats or slaughtering.
“This is sort of the first step to try and develop a more robust agriculture program,” Onishi said.
Onishi’s bill, filed as House Bill 480, cleared a second reading Wednesday by the House Committee on Finance and now heads to the House floor next week. Kahele’s bill is awaiting a second reading by the Senate Committee on Ways and Means.
The proposal has garnered support from UH Vice President for Community Colleges John Morton along with Scott Enright, chairman of the state Board of Agriculture, and Randy Cabral of the Hawaii Farm Bureau.