Now, the department and its growing staff are expanding their focus from the grants and funding that took priority in the first year to the agricultural park operations and food security efforts they hope to tackle next.

“I’m totally blown away,” Director Rogerene “Kali” Arce said of what the department was able to get done in one year. “I’m definitely proud of the accomplishments that we made and really looking forward to year number two and greater capacity and functionality.”

In November 2020, Maui County residents voted in favor of establishing the Department of Agriculture in hopes of boosting food security and offering assistance to local farmers. An agriculture advisory group was established in 2021 to come up with 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, a Molokai resident whose career spans more than three decades on various islands in farming, agricultural education, agroforestry, land conservation and ecosystem restoration, was tapped as its first director during the Michael Victorino administration. She was kept on under Mayor Richard Bissen’s administration and confirmed by the County Council.

Kula farmer Leonard Yamamura talks with Annette Niles (left) and Bobby Pahia during an open house in Wailuku on July 20 to mark the one-year anniversary of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. Yamamura said his family has been farming on Maui for generations and he remembers when Kula farmers grew nearly all the cabbages sold in the state. The former county agriculture specialist now lives in Waikapu and raises meat goats on the family’s Kula land. He says he would like to help the new department return Upcountry’s rich farmland to agriculture. “I know what it used to look like,” he said. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

In the past 12 months, Arce’s staff of two — which included herself and former Deputy Director Weston Yap, who did not carry over from the Victorino administration and has since been replaced by Koa Hewahewa — has now expanded to seven.

There is now a grants development team of three staff members and two administration office personnel in addition to Arce and Hewahewa.

Arce said the public services they offer include giving information on grants and funding opportunities or technical assistance to get farmers prepared to apply for a grant.

Moving forward, Arce is seeking an agricultural park maintenance specialist, which will signal the start of the department’s agriculture parks operations division. She also is seeking a food access coordinator, which will establish the food security division.

“We are trying to juggle so many of the things that have to do with expanding the capacity and functionality of our department, so we have not really developed any real programs except for the grants division, that was number one on my list,” Arce said Wednesday. “So now that it has been implemented and established it’s a feather in our cap because it provides the funding opportunities that is so vital for many sizes of agriculture operations, which includes livestock and food hub, large farmers, small farmers. I think that is a big win for our department.”

Kali Arce was chosen as the Maui County Department of Agriculture’s first director under the Michael Victorino administration and was kept on by Mayor Richard Bissen’s administration. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

Some of the grants they manage include $92,000 to Kauahea Inc. for its Papa Hana Pa’akai project that focuses on salt and $60,000 to Polipoli Farms for an on-farm food processing hub.

For the department’s second year, Arce said the effort “is to continue developing the department’s framework to build capacity and function in order to carry out big initiatives that derive from the five year Strategic Plan.” She said that framework means the support divisions in the department like the agriculture parks and food security divisions that they are working to develop.

Over the past year, the department has held listening sessions, during which they gathered input from farmers and ranchers that will be used for the department’s five-year strategic plan, a draft of which is expected soon.

Arce said areas they focused on during the sessions included infrastructure, grants and funding opportunities, education and advocacy, pests, regenerative agriculture, workforce, transportation, market distribution, theft and new forms of sustainable agriculture.

The department has also assumed some capital improvement projects related to the Kula Agricultural Park expansion, such as the development of more agricultural lots and a booster pump relocation to the expanded area to get water there.

Arce said there is no exact timeline for when lots in the future expansion will be available, but estimated it could happen in about two years.

Farmers can also be asked to be placed on a waiting list for a Kula Agricultural Park lot, which is currently full with 31 lots.

The department is also working on two initiatives — one addressing marketing and distribution, for which the department is planning a meeting to convene agriculture producers to learn from state Department of Education Assistant Superintendent Randy Tanaka about his Farm Service Plan and develop the marketing pathway to get locally grown foods, produce and meats to the department.

The second initiative addresses education, as the department is part of a planning committee for the first Keiki Food Summit for Maui County middle school students.

Some of the objectives for the summit includes increasing the numbers of students taking agriculture courses and participating in agriculture programs in high school as well as introducing agriculture production, agriculture technology and food security.

* Staff Writer Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.