State lawmakers proposed almost 240 bills related to the food system as part of this year’s legislative session. Now, as the halfway point draws near, more than 100 remain on the table.

Shipping subsidies, funding for biosecurity initiatives, and efforts to support farmer cooperatives are among the bills that are still alive. They survived the first lateral deadline at the Capitol on Friday, a key point in the session at which bills either die or are passed between the House and Senate. 

Hawaiʻi is facing a financially fraught future, fueled by uncertainty over funding for federal programs. So advocates are tempering their expectations, especially for big-ticket bills and initiatives that will require more time to revise or significant cash injections to get across the line.

According to Hawaiʻi Food+Policy, whose bill tracker is run by students from the University of Hawaiʻi West Oʻahu and the nonprofit Purple Maiʻa, 49 of the remaining bills are related to supporting farmers, 30 focus on biosecurity and invasive species, and 19 are responding to climate change and ecosystem health. Last year the group tracked 322 bills; only 24 were signed into law, Food+Policy program manager Janine Mariano told Civil Beat. 

The past month has already proven to be a “firehose of a session” due to the volume of food- and farming-related bills, said Hunter Heavilin of Hawaiʻi Farmers Union. The agriculture bills often cruise through their subject matter committees, he said, before moving on to the money committees that will ultimately decide their fate.

Time is also a factor for some of the more complex legislation, as the session will end on May 8, said North Kohala Sen. Tim Richards. 

“These are intricate. We just cannot get it all done in the timelines we have,” said Richards, a Big Island rancher and livestock veterinarian who is also the deputy chair of the Senate agriculture committee. “The financial side is a big thing. Because of the place we are in, a lot of stuff is just not going to make it.”

He and other lawmakers are nevertheless hopeful the state will step in to ensure that social services such as food banks continue to serve the people of Hawaiʻi. One of three bills to create a farm-to-families grant program remains alive, intended to allow food banks to tap into state funds to buy food grown and manufactured in Hawaiʻi, as does a proposal to create a $1.2 million Human and Community Resilience Institute at the University of Hawaiʻi. But nothing is guaranteed. 

A Common Cause: Getting To Market

Lawmakers so far appear open to helping more farmers establish cooperatives throughout the islands by ironing out regulations that advocates call outdated and restrictive. Two of three bills under consideration will amend existing laws governing cooperatives to make them more flexible. The companion bills, according to Dana Shapiro of the Hawaiʻi ‘Ulu Cooperative, will allow more sophisticated collectives to form and address broader issues. 

There were seven cooperatives headquartered in Hawaiʻi in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, totaling almost 400 members. Those organizations generally help small farmers and ranchers enter and better negotiate the local food market, as they focus on everything from livestock slaughter to canoe crop cultivation and marketing. 

Proponents say more cooperatives could and should have been set up in Hawaiʻi by now, and the legislation will help pave the way for more innovative groups to boost local food production, one of the state’s enduring goals. 

A third bill, which was initially intended to set up a $750,000 cooperative development and grant program, was killed on Thursday. Cooperative advocates are now working with the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism to find alternatives, Shapiro said. Similar legislation has been introduced in the past, though community support was lacking until this year. 

Richards said more cooperatives could help ease some of the bottlenecks in the local food supply chain. He said food is being produced, but, “we have to get it to market. That’s what we have to focus on. That’s why you keep hearing me say, ‘infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure.’” 

The high cost of interisland agricultural shipments is a good example. It has grown more onerous since Young Brothers, the state’s only barge operator, increased its rates by 25% in 2025. Senate Bill 3256, despite its estimated $25 million price tag, is intended to keep farming profitable and food affordable by reducing those costs, Richards said. 

“Mass transit systems in our state are 90% subsidized,” he said. “So why don’t we subsidize some of our food production? That is a cost-of-living issue, and if we can reduce that, then we’re going to be increasingly taking care of our people.”

The bill will have to be considered by the Senate Ways and Means Committee before March 12, the next legislative deadline.

Bolstering Biosecurity

Lawmakers haven’t pumped the brakes on their drive to mitigate the spread and impacts of invasive species, though some bills are being considered to rectify recent funding gaps. 

House Bill 1601 aims to restore funding for the Hawaiʻi Invasive Species Council, which lost out during the enactment of an omnibus law in 2025. The law centralized all biosecurity duties under the state agriculture department, including moving the council there in 2030. The law also prematurely and inadvertently removed funding for the council in its current home, under the Department of Land and Natural Resources and, in turn, its beneficiaries — including the island invasive species committees. 

Advocates and lawmakers disagreed about the council’s impending move away from the DLNR, with some saying it will overburden an already beleaguered agriculture department. Others believe centralizing invasive species work will avoid overlap. 

Christy Martin, the Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species program coordinator, says the agriculture department shouldn’t have been saddled with more work when DLNR was doing fine. “They have some pretty serious new programs to implement and they have to be allowed to focus,” she said.

Lawmakers are still considering a biosecurity research center at the University of Hawaiʻi as well, with a potential $45 million price tag. That center is slated to help bolster the scant workforce, which lawmakers and officials are keen to strengthen to fill gaps in pest management.

Several other invasive species bills are still alive, including one that would fund additional research by the University of ​Hawaiʻi into how to mitigate the spread of the Queensland longhorn beetle, a pest with the potential to wreak havoc within the emerging ʻulu and cacao industries on the Big Island. The House Finance Committee signed off on the bill on Wednesday. It will now be subject to a full House vote before March 12, when legislative chambers swap bills to consider.

“This is a very important, critical bill,” committee chair Rep. Chris Todd said. “You don’t want them in your yard. They’re very ugly.”

“Hawai‘i Grown” is funded in part by grants from the Stupski Foundation, Ulupono Fund at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation. Civil Beat’s coverage of environmental issues on Hawaiʻi island is supported in part by a grant from the Dorrance Family Foundation. Civil Beat’s coverage of climate change and the environment is supported by The Healy Foundation, the Marisla Fund of the Hawai‘i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.