Protect Our Communities from Pesticide Drift, and Support Funding the Farm to Families Program, Community Co-Management, & Healthy Soils
Protect Our Communities from Pesticide Drift, and Support Funding the Farm to Families Program, Community Co-Management, & Healthy Soils
Four bills have been scheduled to protect, strengthen, and integrate our communities and food systems for next week!
The House Committee on Consumer Protections and Commerce has scheduled an important bill to ban the toxic fumigant Telone (1,3-D) to be heard on Feb. 18th, 2026 at 2:00pm in Conference Room 329 (and virtually). Testimony is due by Tuesday at 2:00pm (although late testimony is still accepted).
The House Committee on Agriculture and Food Systems will be hearing a bill to establish funding for the Farm to Families program on Wednesday Feb 18th, 2026 at 9:30am in Conference Room 325 (and virtually). Testimony is due by Tuesday at 9:30am (although late testimony is still accepted).
The Senate Committee on Water, Land, Culture and the Arts will be hearing a bill seeking to enact means for communities to enter into co-management relationships with the state on Wednesday, Feb. 18th, 2026 at 1:01pm in Conference Room 224 (and virtually). Testimony is due by Tuesday at 1:01pm (although late testimony is still accepted).
The Senate Committee on Ways and Means will be hearing a bill on establishing a Conservation Agriculture and Soil Health Incentive Program on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026 at 10:30am in Conference Room 211 (and virtually). Testimony is due by Wednesday at 10:30am (although late testimony is still accepted).
Support HB1880 HD1: Ban Telone II (1,3-Dichloropropene)
Support HB2208 HD1: Fund Farm to Families
Support SB2979: Support Community Co-Management
Support SB2110 SD1: Support the Conservation Agriculture and Soil Health Incentive Program
Please take a moment to submit as many testimonies in support as you are able!
If you have not done so already you will need to create an account with the Hawaiʻi State Legislature website to submit testimony.
Support HB 1880 HD1: Ban Telone II (1,3-Dichloropropene)
What Does This Bill Do?
Beginning 1/1/2027, prohibits the use or application of a pesticide containing 1,3-dichloropropene as an active ingredient, such as Telone.
Why Is This Important? Sample Testimony:
Please support HB 1880 HD1 which bans the use or application of a pesticide containing 1,3-dichloropropene as an active ingredient, such as Telone.
Classified as a likely carcinogen in the United States, 1,3-D is currently banned in 40 countries.1,3-D is listed as a Prop 65 carcinogen and a Toxic Air Contaminant by the State of California. It is also a water contaminant.
Analysis of restricted use pesticide (RUP) reporting data in Hawaii reveals consistently high 1,3-D usage by 1-2 users across several years since RUP use reporting was first mandated in 2019. In many years it was the most heavily applied (total pounds) RUP in Hawaiʻi. Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been applied in Central Oʻahu. UpCounty Maui usage has been high as well. Usage occurs near schools, homes and other sensitive areas.
Telone can drift for miles from the application site. Reports have indicated that harmful levels can occur even when tarps are used. As a fumigant, 1,3-D is highly volatile, meaning it turns into gas and moves off-site, sometimes weeks after application.
Air monitoring has detected hazardous levels of 1,3-D more than half a mile from treated fields. One instance in California showed harmful levels from a source over seven miles away.
Support HB 1880 HD1. Please prioritize public health and ban Telone (1,3-D).
Mahalo for your consideration!
Your Name, Town
Support HB 2208 HD1: Farm to Families
What Does This Bill Do?
Establishes the Hawaiʻi Farm to Families Program to alleviate food shortages in the State.
Why Is This Important? Sample Testimony:
Please support HB 2208 HD1. The statistics around food insecurity in Hawaiʻi are staggering. One in three households in Hawaii report experiencing food insecurity. Nearly half (46%) of ALICE households lack consistent access to food. Increasing the ability of food banks to purchase locally grown food is a win-win for our communities and farmers. One major challenge local farmers face is access to markets. This will help grow our local food and agriculture economy while providing our communities with nutritious food. As the cost of imports continues to increase, investing in our local food economy will help bolster our local production and food security in the long term.
Preparing Hawaiʻi’s families in the wake of disaster, food banks rely almost exclusively on private donations and grants, even though local governments rely heavily on them during times of crisis. The Farm to Families program would provide funding for purchasing from local farmers, improving emergency food access for families and opening up a local market for farmers during times of economic crisis.
Mahalo for your consideration!
Your Name, Town
Support SB2979 : Community Co-Management Agreements
What Does This Bill Do?
Authorizes the Department of Land and Natural Resources and community-based organizations to enter into community co-management agreements concerning state lands. Authorizes the Department of Land and Natural Resources to dispose state land through community co-management agreements. Establishes qualifications for community-based organizations that may enter into community co-management agreements.
Why Is This Important? Sample Testimony:
Please support SB2979 which identifies and acknowledges the efficacy of community co-management agreements. We know that grassroots and lineal descendant communities have spent decades collaborating with government agencies to care for wahi pana and the surrounding resources. These efforts would be more effective and sustainable if supported by long-term community co-management agreements established through enacting legislation to do so by the state.
SB 2979 seeks to enter into community co-management agreements with community-based organizations who honor traditional Native Hawaiian concepts of mālama ʻāina and place-based practices for effective management. The heart of this legislation is supported by the Hawaii State Constitution which supports co-management agreements as a means of restoring and protecting biocultural public trust resources for future generations, including for subsistence, cultural, and religious purposes.
Currently, community–government partnerships exist through curatorships, revocable permits, and concession agreements, the lack of statutory authority and a formalized process limits their effectiveness. Through SB 2979, the board may enter into community co-management agreements, by direct negotiation and without recourse to public auction, with qualified community-based organizations for a time period exceeding sixty-five years.
Community-based co-management has established community-based subsistence fishing areas, and additional communities are organizing, all of which would benefit from long-term co-management agreements. This legislation seeks to strengthen the management efforts currently sustained by the organizations performing the work to-date.
Please support SB 2979 in enabling a state supported community co-management agreement between DLNR and partners that would strengthen existing efforts and serve to establish a resilient island of place-based practice and sustained care to the work being done.
Mahalo for your consideration!
Your Name, Town
Support SB2110 SD1 : Healthy Soils Program
What Does This Bill Do?
Establishes a Conservation Agriculture and Soil Health Incentive Program within the Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission. Requires an annual report to the Legislature.
Why Is This Important? Sample Testimony:
Please support SB2110 SD1. Healthy soils provide many environmental and economic benefits, by supporting healthy crops and a productive ag sector, capturing carbon/climate change mitigation, making plants more pest and climate impact resilient and less dependent on costly inputs. Healthy soils are the foundation of a healthy food system.
We must provide farmers with education and technical assistance to implement farm management practices that contribute to healthy soils and issue awards and other financial incentives to implement farm management practices that contribute to healthy soils.
In recent decades we have learned a great deal about the importance of microbial life, soil biodiversity and the potential for our soil to capture carbon, aiding in mitigating climate change. The impacts heavy industrial practices have in depleting our local soil health for over a century, we must move away from the outdated practices of sterilizing lands with pesticides and herbicides and killing the soil microbes and life, and instead support the biodiversity of insects and microbes that are beneficial to soil health. Please support SB2110 SD1.
Mahalo for your consideration!
Your Name, Town
New to Legislative Engagement? Learn more about how to engage in the Legislative Session!
Make sure you have set up your account on the Hawaiʻi State Legislature website. If you are new to the process, see this helpful page on legislative engagement 101 from the Public Access Room including a link on how to submit testimony!
