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Agriculture Department adds staff, doles out grants

Director also in talks with DOE to get more local food in schools

By Dakota Grossman 4 min read

KULA -- Maui County's first-ever Department of Agriculture is slowly expanding as the new directors begin to hire specialists, build programs and plan for Maui's future in sustainability and food security.

"My role is to develop the department and at the same time address farmers' and ranchers' needs, and food hubbers," said Maui County Department of Agriculture Director Rogerene "Kali" Arce during a Kula Community Association meeting last week. "I've been working closely with all of those stakeholders and I haven't been to every community yet, but we're making our way through."

In November 2020, Maui County residents voted in favor of establishing the Department of Agriculture. An agriculture advisory group was established in 2021 to come up with the initial recommendations and guidance for the establishment of the department, which officially launched in July 2022 as the first county-level Agriculture Department in the state. Arce was named its first director.

Since January, the department has grown from two employees to six. It now includes a grants division, established in February, which involves one grants coordinator and one grants specialist.

More than $300,000 in grants have already been awarded for fiscal year 2023, Arce told a packed Kula Community Center.

To continue to grow the new department, the team is currently recruiting for an ag park maintenance specialist, who would help oversee maintenance and repairs of the ag park grounds; a grant management specialist III, whose duties would include auditing grant recipients, reviewing grant applications and helping nonprofits in the grants process; and a food access coordinator, who would develop, plan, coordinate and monitor a community food system plan within the county, according to the county's job recruiting website.

"Soon my department will increase to nine," Arce said.

Folks can learn more about the job postings online at www.mauicounty.gov/Jobs.aspx. To apply, create a profile at www.governmentjobs.com and submit the corresponding documents via that profile.

A five-year strategic plan is also underway for the department, which is going to be "good news" for a number of farmers because it includes working with the state Department of Education to look at how to support more distribution channels and improve logistics for locally grown food.

Arce said she met with Randall Tanaka, DOE assistant superintendent for the Office of Facilities and Operations, on June 1 to discuss how the state school system needs to spend 30 percent of its annual food budget on local produce, like vegetables and kalo, by 2030.

According to DOE's School Food Services Branch, nearly 100,000 meals are served daily to students statewide.

"He's started to have poi in the schools, but the issue with the poi is he doesn't have consistent supply and he's been getting it from off island," she said. "But he's made progress and is committed to now working with the farmers."

DOE is also open to collaborating with food hubs, too.

"So I'll be working with our food hubs on that and having a discussion on what is realistic and how we can proceed with helping DOE meet their goals and developing a farm service, as well as helping them to convene ranchers and farmers to learn about this plan and help them to form working groups," Arce said. "So be on the lookout for upcoming meetings or gatherings."

Arce also announced at the meeting that fencing at the Kula Ag Park should be completed in about two weeks and lots will be advertised as they become available. Those interested in a lot should contact the office at (808) 270-8276, she said.

She also said that the first Keiki Food Summit, in partnership with the Maui Nui Food Alliance and Maui Economic Development Board, will take place on Nov. 2. Food summits include education of food security and resilience, collaboration with agricultural leaders, workshops and more.

"The goal of the Food Summit is to infuse our keiki with different agriculture experiences through the activities that we will try to have with our participant agencies and help them to see what agriculture is all about and the different extensions of jobs that are available out there that are connected to agriculture production," Arce said. "And the other goal is to build the pipeline for our future workforce in agriculture."

* Staff Writer Dakota Grossman can be reached at dgrossman@mauinews.com.

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