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+--- Thread: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding (/showthread.php?tid=23577)
RE: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding - randomq - 07-20-2025
USDA Cancels $30 Million Grant Intended To Boost Hawaiʻi Food Production https://www.civilbeat.org/2025/07/usda-cancels-30-million-to-boost-hawaii-food-production/
Whether or not you think the cuts are justified to balance the budget etc, it's going to be another economic hit to Hawaii. From the article Hawaii has lost about 55-60 million just in USDA funding so far this year.
I hope the state considers something like farm boxes as a substitute for some of these programs, to keep a lifeline going for small farms and keep kids fed.
RE: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding - punikahakaiferret - 07-20-2025
Sort-of related but not necessarily about funding cuts...
It breaks my heart to be out driving around and see producing fruit trees everywhere, on people's properties, or near the roadsides, but nothing is being done with them and the food is just falling on the ground and rotting.
It seems like there should be more of an effort made to legitimize and organize a gleaning project, some sort of a clearinghouse to get prople together with produce*...if you've got producing trees you let people come on your property and pick it so that it can be distributed to people in need...something like that. To see so much food going to waste? Is a crying shame.
*Before anyone asks, "Hey, 'Ferret, if this is such a great idea, why don't you start working on something like that?"
Well, I'm pretty much an introvert. I like to come up with ideas and solutions (call me a "solutionary"!), but I'm not a people person...not outgoing and outwardly social enough to be able to organize.
RE: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding - HereOnThePrimalEdge - 07-20-2025
It’s hard to know whether the USDA Food Production cuts will affect coffee farmers, but the newly proposed tariffs will according to people who would know, coffee growers:
Hawaii at first glance might seem the obvious beneficiary of tariffs on coffee. It is the only state in the country where the tropical goods grow, with the vast majority of java imbibed by Americans imported from South America and Vietnam. Higher priced foreign imports should, in theory, make the island state’s products comparatively more affordable. But growers say the opposite is true: rising prices across the board will hit consumers already struggling with inflation, curbing demand on everything from popular everyday roasts available at grocery stores to luxury Kona beans.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-tariffs-spell-trouble-hawaii-140000557.html
What the USDA Food grants will affect are the ulu growers who worked hard for years to get ulu into Hawaii school menus, so kids would have an additional source of real food in their diets, rather than ketchup as their vegetable. Not to mention ulu as a viable local food crop.
RE: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding - kalianna - 07-20-2025
Kokua Harvest will come get ripe fruit and distribute it.
https://kokuaharvest.org/
RE: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding - HiloJulie - 07-20-2025
"What the USDA Food grants will affect are the ulu growers who worked hard for years to get ulu into Hawaii school menus, so kids would have an additional source of real food in their diets, rather than ketchup as their vegetable. Not to mention ulu as a viable local food crop."
I had written about this a few pages back:
Combat Climate Change with ‘Ulu Agroforestry – Hawaiʻi 'Ulu Co-op
"Ulu is one of the most climate-friendly, nutrient-dense foods you can put on your plate. That’s because of the unique, carbon-storing nature of breadfruit trees, especially when planted as part of diversified agroforestry."
So, in addition to being a very easy to grow nutrient rich food, it also helps fight the climate change issues and it makes the soil it is grown in "more better!"
I am sure some will STILL poo poo that fact.
RE: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding - punikahakaiferret - 07-21-2025
Kalianna,
Mahalo for that info about Kokua; that is amazing to know! But do the people with the overburdened trees know about it? Wonder if I can "report" trees to Kokua and they can contact the owners? Hmmmm...
RE: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding - MyManao - 07-21-2025
Kokua.. overburdened trees..
Sounds like a job for an influencer.
RE: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding - HereOnThePrimalEdge - 08-29-2025
Thankfully no cutbacks here (or not enough to affect this rescue), so NOAA staff are able to help monk seal pups:
Due to quick action by the NOAA team and partners, both pups—RU28 and RU99—are now receiving life-saving care at The Marine Mammal Center’s Hawaiian monk seal hospital, Ke Kai Ola, in Kona, on Hawaiʻi Island.
https://mauinow.com/2025/08/28/two-endangered-hawaiian-monk-seal-pups-receiving-life-saving-care/
RE: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding - leilanidude - 08-29-2025
I know of a farm on Oahu that just planted 400 ulu trees. It is a start.
RE: Big Island Organizations & Programs Losing Funding - ironyak - 10-06-2025
That's a real nice attempt at stabilizing your electrical grid and expanding its renewable energy capacity - be a shame if anything happened to it, blue state.
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2025/10/04/hawaii-news/funding-for-6-hawaii-energy-projects-terminated/?HSA=8f27b3c64caaf996e82da4d39f44ff0502a0adfc
"At least $67 million in federal funding for six Hawaii energy projects appears to have been pulled by the Trump administration over qualms about worthiness.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced Thursday that it was terminating 321 awards totaling $7.56 billion supporting 223 energy projects across much of the country after a review that began in January to examine merits of more than $15 billion worth of federal energy awards made during the administration of President Joe Biden and approved by Congress.
Funding being severed now apparently includes a $39 million award to in part enhance energy resilience and reliability for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam under a partnership between Ameresco Inc., the U.S. Navy and Hawaiian Electric.
The Pu‘uloa Microgrid and Backbone Project is designed to draw power from a planned renewable energy project called Pu‘uloa Energy in the event of a grid outage to supply the base and some civilian communities with electricity.
U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii) said in an interview that the cancellations are an outrageous attempt at political retribution that, if upheld, will cost people jobs, result in higher energy costs for Hawaii residents and forego improvements in national security and more independence from foreign fossil fuels.
“These are all well-thought-out, well-researched projects that align with what this country has always talked about in terms of reducing its energy dependence on fossil fuels, reducing costs for American taxpayers and national security,” she said." (more at link, or here)