STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3082

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 2676

       H.D. 2

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Higher Education and the Arts, to which was referred H.B. No. 2676, H.D. 2, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO AGRICULTURE,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to encourage farming in the State by establishing and appropriating funds for a five-year energy independent farming community pilot project, within the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources' Agribusiness Incubator program, to provide support to persons who want to be farmers.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Agriculture, University of Hawaii System, Hawaii Farm Bureau, EcoTipping Points Project, NuWayve Unlimited, and three individuals.

 

     Your Committees find that new farmers face tremendous obstacles in starting a farm, including high infrastructure costs to provide water, sewer, and electrical services to the land.  Farmers who lease land encounter difficulties in terminating leases when housing is situated on the leased land, while farmers who purchase private land face the prospect that lessees will demand lease to fee conversion.  Your Committees further find that the State, as owner of thousands of acres of agricultural land, can play a major role in addressing the barriers faced by prospective farmers while also addressing potential infrastructure, eviction, and inefficiency problems for the landowner by creating state-owned small farming communities consisting of agricultural areas with two to five acre lots, each with a clustered off-grid housing unit, leased to the farmer.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Inserting an appropriation amount of $100,000 for the manager position;

 

     (2)  Inserting an appropriation amount of $50,000 for planning of the pilot project; and

 

     (3)  Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2016.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Higher Education and the Arts that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2676, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2676, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Higher Education and the Arts,

 

________________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair

 

________________________________

MIKE GABBARD, Chair