 Aloha. Thank you for your consideration of the views expressed in this ThinkTech commentary. Feeding Hawaii is saving Hawaii. Hawaii has had a rich and diverse food culture and history. So many great foods. But we lost plantation agriculture and never seriously built a diversified local agriculture industry. Remember that we're an isolated island state, and we now import nearly all of our food, and that's ironic and sad because we do have the land, the water, and the agricultural experience. We talk about building an agricultural industry, but we're way behind. We have Citar to do R&D, but sorry it hasn't made much of a difference. All in all, we've squandered these resources. If we get extreme weather, a drought on the west coast, or a failure in the global food supply chain, we're in deep kimchi. We are at great risk for all of this, and we don't have a plan B. We have not followed through on a statewide agricultural co-op to help farmers sell and bring their produce to markets around the state. And even worse, we dropped the idea of an inter-island ferry which could help farmers transport their goods around the state. While some legislators are passionate on the subject, state government as a whole has not done nearly enough to incentivize agriculture in Hawaii. The coming legislative session might be a good time to take some long-awaited steps to do the work to develop agriculture in Hawaii. But what can we do? And what steps can we demand that our government take? How about some things like this? Incentivize farms and aquaculture, give them state land and ocean leases, long-term. Incentivize capital investment, give tax credits to investors, and guarantee loans. Incentivize farming entrepreneurship, give them free tuition at UH and tax holidays. Incentivize the marketing of local foods, create a ferry, a co-op, and storage and marketing facilities. Incentivize the sale of local foods, reward hotels, restaurants and markets. These are just a few of the things the state can do. There are many other things too. We should do a broad array of these things, with political will and gusto, right away. Of course, all incentivizing an agricultural industry will involve money, lots of it. But it's well worth it, don't you think? We can make Hawaii the food capital of the Pacific. Although this has inexplicably remained at the bottom of the list, it is critically important, and we need to put it at the top of the list. Hopefully, the next administration can do this. The tragic ghost of Christmas future is that we continue to lose our workforce and therefore our tax base, and expose ourselves to the terrible risk, pain and loss of going hungry. No, we don't want to go hungry. Neither do the tourists, the hotels or the restaurants. Without food we can bid a fond and permanent farewell to the hospitality industry and our economy. We're writing to all our legislators, all reps at capital.hawaii.gov and allsons at capital.hawaii.gov. Tell them to drop the secondary stuff and put local agriculture at the top of the list. Let's save Hawaii together. Thanks so much for considering the views expressed in this ThinkTech commentary. Aloha.