> [!warning] Take a look at [[COVID Prompts, Notes, & Ideas]] [](COVID%20Prompts,%20Notes,%20&%20Ideas.md)ndemic in Hawaii Foodways ## Intro %% some powerful story %% ## Hawaii Agriculture Narratives the 21st Century Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Great Recession (2007-2009) was the last major shock to foodways in Hawaii. Inflation and declines in tourism led to a purchasing power pinch felt from households to the halls of the legislature. In response, trimming of the State budget cut all Market Analysis and News branch staff the Hawaii Department of Agriculture [@opdbedt_2012; @jung_2021]. A key source of market and price data for producers was lost, yet at the same time popular interest food self-sufficiency for the islands was growing. Various ideas spurred interest in production localization; from, *inter alia*, energy conservation to biosecurity risk reduction, and nutritive value to local economic multiplier effects [@leung.loke_2008]. Leung and Loke's [[email protected]_2008] multiplier research explored the economic outcomes of increasing the share of select product consumption met by local production. Through two scenarios, doubling the quotient consumed from local sources and complete self-sufficiency, @leung.loke_2008 identified significant economic benefit from select import replacements. Increasing self-sufficiency, import replacement, and economic growth have long been rationales for agricultural development in the islands (see Chapter XXXX). These approaches were centered in soon to be Governor Abercrombie's campaign plan [-@abercrombie_2010], and fleshed out on in a strategy by @opdbedt_2012 aimed at increasing the production of, and demand for, local fare. Though the strategy didn't explicitly set doubling as a goal in its actions and policies, a legislative bill the same year sought to implement a "statewide food sustainability standard" to double (at minimum) food grown for local consumption by 2020 [@haw.statelegislature_2012]. In 2013, Loke and Leung [[email protected]_2013] produced another key study, finding that in 2010 Hawaii had a food self-sufficiency ratio of just 15.7%. In 2014, then Governor Abercrombie, each of the county Mayors, and the head of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs signed on to the Aloha Plus Challenge. Composed of six sustainability targets for 2030, the local food goal set to “at least double local food production – 20-30% of food consumed is grown locally” by 2030 [@hawaiigreengrowth_]. In the 2014 race for governor both incumbent Abercrombie [-@abercrombie_2014] and challenger Ige [-@ige_2014] released plans both mentioning of doubling production. Not to be outdone by his predecessor, in late 2016, Governor Ige announced his Sustainable Hawaii Initiative and, keeping with his campaign plan, made the commitment to double Hawaiʻi’s food production by 2020 [@ige_2016]. Within days this ambitious target was pushed back a decade to 2030 [@cocke_2016]. In 2019, Act 151 [@haw.statelegislature_2019] solidified the 2030 deadline, and directed the State of Hawaii Department of Agriculture (HDOA) to develop a plan to double local production. As a novel addition to the doubling narrative, the act delineated that the plan should also address doubling food exports by 2030. Thus, over a decade, recession food price concerns renewed an interest in addressing food self-sufficiency and growing the local economy; these concerns spurred a renewal of interest in import replacement that research on economic multiplier effects framed as doubling consumption and production of local fare; this doubling became a political narrative by two governors, and finally was recast (in part) through legislation as a goal to increase exports. As 2020 neared, the HDOA report to the legislature, pursuant to the aforementioned Act 151 (2019), highlighted large scale private investments as having promise to soon significantly increase local production [@hawaiidepartmentofagriculture_2019]. None of the listed firms were Hawaii based. Governor Ige's January 2020 State of the State address further muddied the field, on the one hand emphasizing transitioning from plantations to diversified smallholder production, while on the other forwarding billionaire and financial firm backed large scale agribusiness investment as signs of progress [@ige_2022]. The rhetorical power of food concerns spurred executives, public and private, into offices and investments. With this traction however, the self-sufficiency narrative and its ends began to reconstitute one another. In 2008, the then chair of Hawai‘i's Board of Agriculture said that "Purchasing locally grown produce keeps the money flowing through our community" [Kunimoto, 2008, as cited in @leung.loke_2008]. While still true, the new wave of investors lauded by the government makes such a sentiment less true than it once was. Local produced fare and community economic development were cleaved. Local food, ever a site contradictory and contested meanings, had lost its clarity of economic beneficiaries. And then, as questions grew around who benefits from local food development [@heaivilin_2020] and what benefits those actors should be afforded [@janiec_2021], the world ground to a halt. ## Concatenation Process Modeling of COVID-19 Food System Disruption in Hawaii From theoretical and methodological advancement around famine in the 1980s emerged the recognition that no generic theory could explain the complexity of diverse causes and effects of famines [Watts, 1987, as cited in @devereux_1993]. Among the suite of approaches developed to characterize these idiosyncratic contexts is Currey's concatenation process modeling, which traces how "Events and processes ... come together in time and space" [-@currey_1984, p. 187] to cause crisis. Concatenation modeling thus aligns with a "realist approach to social science" by framing how "factors become causes" [Sayer, 1984, as cited in @watts.bohle_1993, p. 123]. As these factors change over space and time, unique explanations are needed for each crisis [@blaikie.etal_2014]; and geographers are especially suited for such analysis [@currey.hugo_1984]. In a concatenation process model the interactivity of events, concomitant and cascading, elucidate how structural forces and vulnerabilities connect to become causes and conditions of hunger. Such sequences of events [per Alamir, 1981, as cited in @blaikie.etal_2014] concatenate as the trigger of food crises [@watts.bohle_1993]. So to commence this section on COVID-19 let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). ![[concatenation process template @currey_1984.png | Crisis Concatenation Example from @currey_1984]] %% write a concatenation explanation that touches on the key things you’ll cover in the narrative%% ## Narrative Timeline ◌ Timeline of Narratives COVID-19 spreads the globe Tourism tanks - Unemployment spikes - In March 2020, Hawaii, at 2%, had the lowest unemployment rate in the nation. US average at the time was 4.5% - By April 2020, Hawaii unemployment spiked to 21.9%, third highest in the country. - Maui County 32.9% - Maui island 34% - Kauai County 32% - Hawaii County 21.9% - Honolulu County 18.8% - Source: **Labor Force and Unemployment Rates (Not Seasonally Adjusted)** - Q2 2020 decline in state GPD over 40% - 2021 Act 175/176 - stats and extant data - food insecurity - NASS 2017 - popular concern? - import dependency Import disruption export disruption GE Tax Base from Production ## the actors - How has the COVID crisis been narrated locally by: - government - funders - planning policy - farmers - community members - food banks - networks - etc > [!todo] > Tell us what you did in your job, the different networks you get engaged in, the common objectives people had, the day-to-day challenges, activities, and resources during the covid era. >[!note] >What did different groups/networks try to accomplish? >How/did they go about it? how did their governance differ? >critical review of response orgs and efforts > The development of networks in and for emergency response is a recognized emergent trait of community based emergency management (CITATION). In response to COVID-19 impacts on Hawaii's food and agriculture systems various networks emerged to tackle various facets. Some groups were already in existence, while others arose entirely during the pandemic. This chapter will explore the variety of emergent networks, some of their motivations, efforts, and outcomes to highlight the diversity of perspectives and opinions at play in COVID response. This work is informed by the author's experience working within and between myriad networks engaged in agrofood systems response. To some degree auto-ethnograhic, this chapter aims to articulate the spread of perspectives, governance, and efficacy of selected groups. Finally, this work will demonstrate, through social network analysis, the development of relationships between actors engaged in food system response. ### March 2020 Reached out to HI-EMA to, naively, ask who the state point of contact for emergency food response is as an overwhelming amount of private/third sector food response was underway. The response given was that things were functioning as they should be.. > The supply chain is in tact [sic] and food bank and other groups are functioning as they are supposed to My intent was to work to connect some volume of the community response work into the incident command system of the county and/or state. Having had a little background familiarity with the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS) I was hoping to enable community work to socket into government response. Having hit a wall I reached out to an old grad school peer who headed up the local Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD). From her I learned that the Salvation Army (SA) holds the Memorandum of Understanding with the State of Hawaii for emergency feeding and was furnished with contact info for the Director. After some back and forth, I learned that SA's planning for food response derived from a FEMA statistic advising that 20% of a population may need food assistance in a disaster. SA shared their maths approach, taking the state population as ~1.4M and factoring that by 0.20, or in case or serious calamity factoring by 0.40. Put delicately, I was struck by the realization that the state designated response entity had no spatial sense of vulnerability or projections of potential need based on population data. SA was, however, interested in having such information to aid their work, so I was enlisted in the Army, essentially said I could say I was pursuing this interest on their behalf. So I started shopping the idea around, similar to how I'd functioned in previous disasters, seeking the greatest utility for my time and application of my knowledge base. In short order it became apparent that a risk model alone would be of marginal utility, comparing vulnerability (read: projected food insecurity) against distribution efforts would be an ideal approach to scope a sense of the ratio of need met to extant food insecurity. ### AgHui See [[AgHui]] Process: - Ag Working Group > ARRWG > AgHui - 'North Star' and goals development - Internal process development Outputs: - white paper - surveys and dashboards - funding matchmaking - policy development and advocacy 2021, 2022 ### April 2020 https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/04/12/editorial/insight/pandemic-reveals-food-supply-fragility/ #### HIPHI & KFSC After further networking and forwarding the idea of a unified statewide dataset of household need and feeding resources across the state I began a contract with the Hawaii Public Health Institute as their Oahu Food Access Coordinator focused on emergency food access. In this position I supported the work or the Kupuna Food Security Coalition (KFSC) "to ensure that vulnerable kupuna in City and County of Honolulu have access to needed food resources during and after the COVID-19 pandemic". The coordinator will organize stakeholders and resources to maximize food distribution with an emphasis on healthy, locally-grown foods, and analyze the strengths, gaps, and barriers of partner organizations to distribute food items as widely as possible, with minimal duplication. a. Use preliminary data analysis of the Kupuna Food Security Council (attached) b. Coordinate with County Elderly Affairs Division, UH Center on Aging, state agencies, and Kupuna Food Security Coalition to obtain additional needed data. c. Ensure partner organizations working directly with kupuna have access to data and information to distribute the food based on greatest need. d. Collaborate with agricultural and other food systems entities to help develop local supply chains. 3. In partnership with the Kupuna Food Security Coalition, will identify further partnerships, funding, and other resources available to advance identified interventions and sustain them. 4. Identify strategies for food system interventions focused on improving food donations, increasing access and promotion of healthy food consumption among low-income and/or homebound kupuna. 5. Help the coalition coordinate and execute communications plan for media campaign and strategic plan for implementation of goals of Kupuna Food Security Coalition 6. Participate in multiple weekly coordinating calls with the steering committee and general meetings of the Kupuna Food Security Council 7. In partnership with the Obesity Prevention Task Force, Hawaii Appleseed, existing Food Access Coordinators and Food Policy Councils in the state, Oahu Farm to School Network, and other stakeholders, will start to develop a strategic food system development plan for City and County of Honolulu including the Hawaii Foodbank and other partner agencies that increase access to healthy food, with an emphasis on locally-grown foods. The long-term plan will include goals, objectives, policies, programs, outputs, outcomes, roles, implementation actions, timelines and responsible parties. 8. Participate in calls or webinars with the Hawaii Department of Health SNAP-Ed coordinator and the other counties’ Food Access Coordinators as appropriate. ### Kupuna Foods Security Coalition The Kupuna Foods Security Coalition KFSC formed to respond to specific needs of elderly. did initial data production to estimate population in need ### HIPHI - 1.0 support KFSC - 2.0 support FACs etc ### Food Access Coordinators ### HHAN - HH engaged in May 2020 - started w/ mtgs June 2020? - 4/2021 Lessons Learned debrief session with mass care/community feeding stakeholders - https://supersistence.notion.site/SUMMARY-Emergency-Feeding-Lessons-Learning-Gathering-04-28-2021-380b8c9cab2f43d9abc4b0c406815050?pvs=4 - [[Hunger & Feeding Organization Infrastructure Survey, Fall 2021]] #### Food Bank Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) & Emergency Response Plans At the nexus of community and county scales is the development of emergency planning for food banks and other key community feeding organizations. An Emergency Planning Cohort, composed of 12 organizations representing each county, has met monthly since January 2022. The process has led each group to develop their own custom Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) or Emergency Response Plan. | Organization | County | | ----------------------------------------- | -------- | | The Food Basket | Hawaii | | Malama Kauai | Kauai | | Kauai Independent Food Bank | Kauai | | Hawaii Foodbank (Kauai branch) | Kauai | | Maui Food Bank | Maui | | Sustainable Molokai | Maui | | Aloha Harvest | Honolulu | | Hawaii Foodbank | Honolulu | | Kokua Kalihi Valley | Honolulu | | Lanakila Pacific | Honolulu | | Salvation Army | Honolulu | | Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center | Honolulu | The cohort effort was brought together through developing relationships between Anna Swardenski of Swardenski Consulting, a California based emergency planner and trainer, with the Hawaii Hunger Action Network (HHAN) and Hawaii Community Foundation (HCF). In the end, HCF provided the funding, HHAN the relationships with key organizations, and Swardenski Consulting provided the training. ### TFS - Origins - Research - Vulnerability analysis - Scaffold? - Social Network Analysis - Integrated Food Policy Framework - Network of networks? - Governance questions [[TFS review]] - ### PPP in Hawaii - Demonstrate the findings of collecting the data? ### Others Actors and Activities? - HIR - County CARES & ARPA Funds - HDOA Mini Grants ## References