From university to farm to market, Hawai'i food specialists agreed at a forum yesterday that the state is far away from reaching food self-sufficiency, but can take steps to improve.

Currently, Hawai'i imports about 80 percent of its food, said William Kaneko, president and CEO of the Hawai'i Institute for Public Affairs, which sponsored the breakfast forum at the Hawaii Prince Hotel along with Hawaii Business magazine.

Kaneko said consumers can help local agriculture thrive and produce more by buying local products. By supporting local business, consumers can help them "weather the storm of local forces."

While large sugar and pineapple plantations have been closing, other forms of agriculture have been emerging, sometimes replacing products that had been imported.

Andrew Hashimoto, dean of the University of Hawai'i's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, said Hawai'i's favorable climate helps most crops thrive. "In Hawai'i, we can grow almost anything," he said.

But the high cost of fuel, feed and other costs make it difficult for farmers to recover their higher costs in what they charge to consumers. "I don't think it's realistic to become totally self-sufficient," he said. "We will always be limited."

MAKING STRIDES

However, he said the state had made great strides in growing certain foods and can do more. The state Department of Agriculture tracks production and has seen an increase in self-sufficiency on some products, according to Matthew Loke, administrator of the department's Agricultural Development Division.

Based on the most recent data from May, Loke said livestock production remains low in many areas. He said Hawai'i produces 30 percent of the eggs consumed here, 25 percent of the pork, 18 percent of the milk, and 10 percent of the beef.

Loke said Hawai'i is already at 100 percent production for pineapple and papaya, and exporting. He said watermelons are at 70 percent; bananas, 60 percent.

And he notes that the state now grows 75 percent of the tomatoes it consumes, a vast improvement from the picked-green, taste-free imports of more than a decade ago.

"Fifteen years ago, all the tomatoes we had were the rock-solid kind," Loke said. If one more farm adds another 25 acres, he said that number can be up to 90 percent.

Both the number and the variety have increased to offer: beefsteak, roma, vine-ripened and grape tomatoes, all locally grown.

Loke said organic production has skyrocketed from 655 acres planted in organic products in 2000 to 5,186 acres planted by 2005.

And he said the number of certified operations went from 90 to 137 over the same five-year period.

"On the organic side, we have made some real progress," he said.

Mae Nakahata spoke as vice president of the Hawai'i Farm Bureau. She also works in agriculture large - Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co. - and small - a family vegetable farm in Kula.

CONSUMERS' DUTY

One way to increase Hawai'i's food self-sufficiency is to buy local, she said, whether it is in a farmers market or in a store.

She said farmers have seen their production costs increase 100 percent in the past two years. "I promise you no farmer is doubling his cost."

And consumers can reconsider what they buy. For example, she said people can buy salad greens that they wash at home rather than only buying pre-washed greens. That convenience in the kitchen can come at a prohibitive cost for farmers who would have to install more sophisticated processing to compete with the pre-washed masses.

Derek Kurisu, executive vice president of the Big Island's chain of KTA Super Stores, is a walking advertisement for buying local. He toted a bag of locally produced items to the breakfast meeting.

While most supermarkets typically carry four to seven days worth of fresh food, Kurisu said, his markets have more. After living through shipping strikes over the last three decades, he said they have committed to about a month's supply of food.

"We feel it's an obligation to our community to have food available on our island," he said.

And he pointed out that some of the growth has come by developing new local products made from items that weren't valued before. They include "Pava Nectar" a juice drink that sells for less than orange juice and is made mostly from grade-B papayas and locally grown guavas, along with some smaller amounts of pineapple juice and sugar from Maui.

The half-gallon container features local art that includes an erupting volcano, a rainbow, a waterfall and a voyaging canoe. Kurisu said the idea even came from a UH student.

He said his stores feature local products as much as possible. He also produced Ryoshi's fish scaler, billed as "da best you'll ever use" and is another use of materials that otherwise went to waste.

It's made with a waiawi branch (otherwise known as the imported invasive plant strawberry guava) a couple of old beer bottle caps and a couple of nuts and bolts with a cord run through the branch as a handle.

It sells for $3.97. "It works!" Kurisu said, but admits that Japanese tourists buy a lot of them as a novelty gift rather than a kitchen necessity.