Summit 2027

5th Hawaiʻi Food System Summit 2027

Proposed Theme: Biocultural Restoration
& traditional Food Ways

About the Summit

Taking place in Summer 2027, the 5th Annual Hawaiʻi Food System Summit, an initiative of Transforming Hawaiʻi’s Food System Together, will convene practitioners from food and agriculture, Native Hawaiian organizations, health, education, conservation, government, philanthropy, business, and community organizations to explore how biocultural restoration and traditional foodways can inform policy, practice, and collective action toward a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable food system for Hawaiʻi.

Building upon the momentum, partnerships, and shared learning cultivated through the previous four Hawaiʻi Food System Summits, the 2027 Summit will serve as a statewide forum for assessing progress, strengthening collaboration, and aligning strategies to accelerate food system transformation. Grounded in the understanding that ʻike kūpuna, healthy ecosystems, thriving communities, cultural vitality, and resilient food systems are fundamentally interconnected, the Summit will examine how biocultural restoration can strengthen food security, improve public health, enhance climate resilience, revitalize Indigenous knowledge systems, restore ʻike kūpuna, and support community well-being throughout Hawaiʻi.

Transforming Hawaiʻi’s food system requires genuine relationships and coordinated action across communities and sectors. The Summit aims to foster generative relationships, knowledge exchange and inspired collective action among practitioners, researchers, policymakers, cultural practitioners, community members, funders, and public agencies to identify shared priorities and opportunities to further the emergent and expanding collaborations already taking place.

Through curated knowledge sharing sessions, intentional discussions, creative interactive activities and delicious, locally sourced food, participants will explore grounded and innovative models of bicultural restoration and traditional food ways that demonstrate measurable progress and meaningful community impact, and how policy, investment, governance, and institutional strategies can strengthen the enabling conditions necessary for short and long-term systems change.