December 2025

  • DiscussionAtTable
  • Group Discussion
  • Panel with Keoni
  • Discussion at Table
  • OutsideDiscussion
  • Alice Writing
  • Cards on Table
  • Panel with Miwa
View Summit Agenda

Hawaiʻi Food System Summit 2025
December 8 & 9 | 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Theme: Food System Resilience and Disaster Preparedness
Wahiawā Value-Added Product Development Center

Summit Day 1

Morning: Understanding the State of Food System Planning in Hawaiʻi:

  • Explore current efforts across state, county, and community levels
  • Identify vulnerabilities and community impacts
  • Recognize key actors, systems, and shortfalls in preparedness

Afternoon: Learning from Frontline Experiences:

  • Highlight community-led responses to recent disasters
  • Share transferable models, policies, and success stories
  • Foster kuleana through storytelling, connection, and cultural grounding
Summit Day 2

Morning: Bridging Community Solutions, Planning & Policy:

  • Review existing coordination protocols and cross-sector engagement
  • Map who’s doing what and where, surfacing gaps and opportunities
  • Engage in collaborative learning across government, nonprofits, and grassroots actors

Afternoon: Tracking Progress and Emerging Opportunities

  • Co-develop shared actions, commitments, and policy recommendations
  • Build lasting partnerships grounded in kuleana
  • Identify systems for tracking progress and sustaining collaboration beyond the summit
Why the Summit?

The Hawaiʻi Food System Summit convenes stakeholders from across the islands to learn and share recent research findings, planning initiatives and priorities for food and agricultural policy in advance of the 2026 legislative session. For more on the process, people and key outcomes of the 2024 Food System Summit, please visit our Food System Summit Recap page. 

The Hawaiʻi Food System Summit is organized each year to bring our collective focus and problem-solving skills toward understanding and addressing the many food and agriculture issues facing Hawaiʻi, including household food insecurity, building food system resilience, supporting sustainable agriculture practices and the economic viability of local producers, improving the conditions of agri-food labor, and enhancing disaster preparedness, among others.

2025 Hawaiʻi Food System Summit – Objectives & Outcomes

The Summit aims to strengthen food system resilience and disaster preparedness by creating a collaborative space where participants will:
  • Understand the Elements of Hawai’i’s Food System and the State of Food System Planning in Hawai’i: Gain insight into food system and food systems planning efforts at the state, county, city, and community levels—particularly as they relate to food security, resilience, and disaster preparedness.
  • Learn from Frontline Experiences: Explore on-the-ground solutions and policies developed in response to recent disasters in Hawai‘i, including successes, challenges, and transferable lessons.
  • Recognize System Vulnerabilities: Understand short- and long-term vulnerabilities in Hawai‘i’s food system, how these challenges disproportionately impact specific communities, and understand facets of resilience and benchmark indicators.
  • Identify Key Actors and Resources: Become familiar with the agencies, organizations, and community actors leading food system resilience work in Hawai‘i, and assess gaps, opportunities, and resources in play.
  • Engage in Cross-Sector Collaboration: Participate in structured opportunities to build partnerships across sectors and identify shared actions that advance systemic resilience.
  • Foster a Sense of Kuleana and Connection: Cultivate deeper responsibility and relational understanding of food systems resilience rooted in place, people, and culture.
  • Bridge Community Solutions, Planning and Policy: Make meaningful connections between grassroots efforts and formal policy frameworks, identifying how local innovation can shape or align with emerging policy.
  • Track Progress and Share Emerging Opportunities: Identify actionable next steps and systems for monitoring progress and sharing outcomes across networks beyond the Summit.
curated resources to deepen our collective understanding of this year’s Summit theme and support ongoing learning across our community.

summit 2025 Resources

Food System Resilience

Disaster Preparedness

From the Policy Framework

Knowledge Products

Submit Your Summit 2025 Questions here!

MAHALO to our Hawaiʻi Food System Summit 2025 Sponsors

The Healy
Foundation
KALO level
Hawaiʻi Community
Foundation
ʻUALA Level
Ulupono
Initiative
ʻUALA Level
College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience
ʻUALA Level
ReadyZone
HQ
ʻUALA Level
Ke Ō Mau
Center
KUKUI Level
Hawaiʻi Investment Ready
KUKUI level
HHF
Planners
KUKUI Level
Purple
Maiʻa
KUKUI level
Ke Ō Mau
Center
KUKUI Level
Hawaiʻi Investment Ready
KUKUI level
HHF
Planners
KUKUI Level
Purple
Maiʻa
KUKUI level

HFSS Steering 2025 Committee

The Steering Committee brings together a diverse group dedicated to enhancing food security and sustainability. Representing a broad spectrum of sectors, the steering committee members are from:

  • University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu (UHWO)
  • Ke O Mau Center for Sustainable Island Food Systems
  • Hawai‘i Public Health Institute
  • Agriculture Stewardship Hawai‘i
  • CERENE Sustainability Lab
  • HHF Planners
  • Hawai‘i Hunger Action Network
  • Hawai‘i Food+ Policy (Purple Maiʻa)
  • Hawai‘i Foodbank
  • Earth Innovation
  • Conscious Concepts
  • Hawai‘i Department of Transportation
  • Hawai‘i District Health Office (HDHO)
  • Hawai‘i County, Department of Research & Development
  • City and County of Honolulu: Office of Climate Change, Sustainability & Resiliency
  • Office of Economic Revitalization (OER)
  • Hawaiʻi Youth Food Council
  • Supersistence

Mahalo Nui to our Collaborators