Hawaii
Naka Nathaniel: The Voyage to Becoming the Breadbasket of the Pacific
Hawaii has some of the best food-growing conditions on the planet, yet it’s well known that we import more than 80% of what we eat.
Importing jacks up prices, contributes to climate change and puts everyone at risk if there’s a disruption to the supply chain.
It qualifies as one definition of insanity that a place as abundant as Hawaii imports so much food at higher costs and greater harm and risk to ourselves and the planet.
We can continue to lament how we fell into such a precarious place or we can find ways to feed ourselves in ways that are healthy, affordable and delicious. Hawaii can become the breadbasket of the Pacific.
It’s a challenge to wean ourselves off of imported food. But it’s doable.
Keala Kahuanui is up for that challenge.
In 2007, when she was a young crew member on Makali’i’s voyage to the far-western reaches of Micronesia, the leadership of the double-hulled sailing canoe designated her to be the cook.
Makali’i, slightly smaller than the Oahu-based Hokule’a, was stocked with canned goods from Costco and supplies from food banks. This was an important and symbolic voyage. Makali’i was to travel to the home island of Mau Piailug, the Micronesian navigator from Satawal who taught Hawaiians the lost skills of long-distance voyaging.
Every six hours, Kahuanui would prepare for the crew shift changes. This was when everyone aboard would eat together. She was responsible for nourishing her crewmates.
When a crew member didn’t care for another meal of Spam and decided to pass on eating and chose to sleep, Kahuanui understood that as the cook, she needed to up her game. Crewmates skipping meals meant that they’d go 12 hours without food and that could impair their abilities to effectively carry out their tasks and jeopardize the safety of the voyage.
Using what was available, she made a mixed vegetable stir fry with Spam and shoyu sugar and her crewmate was nourished.
She fed her crew for 27 days, however one part of the voyage to Satawal was incredibly painful for her. Every other day, when she had the stamina, she’d take a 5-gallon bucket of empty cans and opala and she’d throw the trash in the water and hope that the refuse would quickly sink.
When she emptied the bucket, she worried about the dolphins, malolo and squid she saw swimming alongside the canoe.
“It was so eha (painful),” she said. The alternative was worse: bringing their trash to a tiny Pacific atoll with no refuse station.
Kahuanui resolved to do better next time.
And she has.
This is why voyaging is so important to Hawaii. We are saltwater people and being on the ocean helps us more clearly understand who we are and what our roles and responsibilities are.
Kahuanui and the Makali’i crew, which sails under the umbrella of the Hawaii island nonprofit organization Na Kalai Wa’a, took up the challenge of its renowned navigator, Chadd Paishon.
Five years ago, before a voyage to Mokumanamana, an island 500 miles northwest of Makali’i’s home harbor of Kawaihae, Paishon asked: Could Makali’i be provisioned for a long-distance voyage solely with food grown and gathered on Hawaii island?
Kahuanui, and the island community, stepped up to the challenge.
As food raised on the island arrived, she studied various food preservation techniques.
“I get on YouTube and I listen and learn,” she said. And then she came across warnings of deadly bacteria.
“I need a kumu, I need somebody real to teach us this,” she said. “I can’t be learning this on YouTube. We could kill people.”
With the help of food preservationists, Kahuanui not only learned how to can meals like luau stew, but she has also learned to freeze dry foods grown on Hawaii island. With a little hot water, she can feed a crew with foods that are both nutritionally and spiritually nourishing.
She says it gives her chicken skin to think about what her work represents.
“It’s hope in a jar,” she said. “We would not get the same effect with a can of Spam. These jars (of locally grown food) are the confirmations that I want for our people — this is what they need.”
Kahuanui has become so skilled in provisioning that she will be traveling to Turin, Italy, at the end of September to speak at the Slow Food Terra Madre Conference.
“Slow food” was a movement started in Europe to counteract fast food. It’s dedicated to creating a culinary situation that is beneficial to both the food provider and the consumer.
Before she shares her manao with the Italians and the rest of the world, she will present at the Council of Native Hawaiian Advancement conference, in Waikoloa, Sept. 17-19.
Kahuanui already shared her knowledge with other canoe families from across the Pacific at this summer’s FestPAC in Honolulu. Na Kalai Wa’a’s canoe, Mauloa, was the centerpiece of the exhibition at the convention center.
The canoe was there to embody a proverb, an olelo noeau: The canoe is an island and the island is a canoe.
What has happened on the canoe now needs to happen on the island.
Kahuanui responded to a vision and made something significant happen. She fed a canoe crew with food exclusively raised on Hawaii island. Now, the island needs to feed itself.
A new vision is for Hawaii island in the coming decade is to make true strides toward not only feeding itself, but being able to share its abundance with the rest of its oceanic neighbors.
For those who live above us in the Northern Hemisphere, this is the season of harvest, so I’m going to spend the rest of this month writing about the steps needed to make our island home the breadbasket of the Pacific.
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Gov. Josh Green today issued a statement regarding a federal lawsuit challenging the eligibility requirements within the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act.
“The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act was established to address the historic dispossession of Native Hawaiians and reflects a longstanding commitment to them by both the federal government and the state of Hawaiʻi,” said Green.
“This lawsuit threatens that commitment. I have directed the Department of the Attorney General to vigorously defend the Hawaiian Homes program. We will fight this lawsuit with everything we have,” he said.
The lawsuit was filed by Eric Ryan, an Oʻahu resident who is not Native Hawaiian and tried to apply for a lease, but was denied due to the 50% Native Hawaiian blood quantum requirement, according to Hawaiʻi News Now and court documents published at Courthouse News Service.
The Class Action Complaint argues that the “explicitly ancestry-based requirement” establishes a “permanent government mandate for state officials to engage in outright racial discrimination, perpetuates stereotypes, and limits housing opportunities for most Hawai‘i residents. The blood-quantum requirement thus violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the complaint alleges.
Green said the administration “stands firmly with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and the thousands of Native Hawaiian beneficiaries who rely on this program and its promise for future generations.”
Attorney General Anne Lopez also issued a statement saying the state of Hawaiʻi has both a legal and moral obligation to uphold the commitments embodied in the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act.
“This lawsuit seeks to dismantle a program that has provided opportunities, stability and hope to generations of Native Hawaiian beneficiaries,” said Lopez.
Solicitor General Kalikoʻonālani Fernandes, who has extensive experience handling complex constitutional litigation on behalf of the state, will lead the legal team in defending the state against the challenge.
“We are prepared to vigorously defend the Hawaiian Homes program and the promises it represents,” said Lopez.
Under the Green administration, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands has accelerated the delivery of homestead opportunities and expanded pathways to homeownership for Native Hawaiian beneficiaries.
In 2025 alone, DHHL offered more than 2,500 lease awards and continues to advance major housing projects, including Hale Mōʻiliʻili on Oʻahu, which will provide 278 affordable rental units for beneficiaries.
“These efforts reflect the administration’s commitment to reducing wait times, strengthening Native Hawaiian communities and fulfilling the promise of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act,” according to the governor’s announcement.
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Concrete fell from the exterior of an Ala Moana Center parking structure Monday afternoon near the Kapiolani Boulevard exit, damaging a vehicle.
No injuries were reported.
Security blocked an exit lane as debris scattered across the roadway. Ala Moana Center said they are grateful no one was hurt, and the lane will remain closed while structural engineers and construction professionals assess the damage and make repairs.
Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
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