McKelvey, Angus L.K. (Mac)

Office Seeking: State Senator, District 6 (South and West Maui)

Party: Democrat
Website: mac4senate6.com

Food security is defined by the USDA as "access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life." How will your platform address food insecurity in Maui County?

My platform calls for the creation of a Hawaii farm to food bank program. This would be a partnership with Maui County DOA and state DOA as well as local non-profits to fund state food banks to purchase, store, and transport food grown or produced in Hawaii to local communities for distribution. This program would not only serve our local food needs, but also provide local food producers with a market to support their operations and keep moneys circulating within Hawaii to boost our local economy.

Please list any initiatives you have supported in Maui County to increase food access and food production that you are proud of:

I have been a supporter of numerous measures to increase food production, but my biggest accomplishment was sponsoring the legislation for establishing the Maui Food Innovation Center at UH Maui College and funding critical resources for the programs staffing and equipment needs. This successful program provides commercial kitchen, financial education and training to Maui farmers and food producers to not only give them the tools to bring their products to market but also create new markets beyond Hawaii and expand their product line by developing collaboration networks with other Maui food producers. The program also created re-combinate manufacturing opportunities for Maui food producers which not only helped them create new food products from waste stream materials but also expand their market reach even further around the globe. This past session I also pushed several measures to increase food access and production for Maui and the rest of the state of Hawaii including a measure to allow composting and co-composting operations in agricultural districts, under certain conditions and appropriated $55,200 towards the effort. I also helped advance a law last session to finally establish a Food Hub Pilot Program which will increase access to local food by awarding grants for the construction of critical infrastructure through the state DOA. Since food sustainability also starts with healthy soils, last session I worked with my colleagues on a Healthy Soils Initiative. This program requires the Department of Agriculture to establish a Healthy Soils Program that creates a statewide soil health assessment, provides farmers with education and technical assistance to implement farm management practices that contribute to healthy soils and appropriates funds to carry out this new endeavor.

Hawaiʻi imports roughly 85% of our food supply. How will your platform address increasing local food production?

Besides the measures I helped pass in the previous question, I also helped co-sponsor legislation that would mandate that all state agencies procure a majority of their food from local sources. This year as the former chair of the House committee that oversees procurement, we amended the existing local food procurement law that I had con-introduced last year to set percentages in law and expand the state agencies that would fall under the law including adding the state Department of Defense to these other agencies that were already under the mandate.

Please indicate your position on the following policies:

Creating County funding mechanisms to support DA BUX Double Up Food Bucks. SUPPORT
Increasing local food procurement for Maui County schools. SUPPORT
Increasing Farm to School initiatives including school gardens. SUPPORT
Pursuing County Farm to Food Bank Funding. SUPPORT
Developing regional organic waste and composting services. SUPPORT
Restructuring the Department of Water Supply and Department of Wastewater to encourage strategies for conservation, efficient water use, storage, and growing water resources. SUPPORT
Increasing the budget for the Maui County Department of Agriculture. SUPPORT
Offering subsidies to local farms that have shown the ability to sustain production. SUPPORT
Supporting policies that allow for increased affordable housing for farmworkers. SUPPORT
Improving policies around hunting and utilizing invasive protein sources. SUPPORT
Funding updated shared processing facilities, including slaughterhouses and food hubs. SUPPORT
Implementing new inspection policies to reduce the spread of invasive species. SUPPORT
Establishing local control of water resources through a Maui County Community Water Authority, with the ability to establish regional community boards. REQUEST FOR MORE INFORMATION

Please elaborate on any of your above positions here.

While I agree with increasing the funding for the Maui County DOA, as a State Senator we would not be in a position to do that because that is solely under the purview of the County Council and the Mayor. Also, while I support #6 I think it would conflict with #13. Also, I believe that West Maui being placed under a Water Management Area by CWRM addresses the policy aims sought by #13 and that this model should be the one used for other areas.

Are there other issues, County-wide or within your own residency area, about food security that concern you, and how do you plan to address these issues if elected?

Lack of affordability for working Maui families to afford locally grown produce. Because of rising inflation costs many are forced to choose unhealthy imported foods over nutritious locally grown products. We need to give the tools to both farmers and local consumers so that locally grown foods can be affordable by beating the prices of cheap imports and extend the purchasing powers of our lower income residents. Some ideas I have for this if elected include the aforementioned in question 1 as well as establishing a general excise tax (GET) exemption for the gross proceeds or income from the sale of locally grown food products that are eligible under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Unlike other GET exemptions because it is limited to SNAP and WIC participants there is no ability for either visitors or wealthy individuals to also get the exemption which is a concern with other GET exemption programs. We also need to collapse some the exorbitant tax credit programs to special industries that have not only provided a windfall to Mainland millionaires but also not created any meaningful long term local jobs and use these funds to help create a refundable tax credit for local farmers to underwrite the cost of production. By doing this they can sell their products at a lower price point and still generate as profit and now their goods are priced better then offshore imports and our local families can afford to include them in their grocery supplies.