Report Title:

Managed Cacao Germplasm Center in Hawaii

RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, the Legislature in partnership with local citizens, the Department of Agriculture, the University of Hawaii, the United States Department of Agriculture, certain Hawaii and other states' congressional offices, the United States Army, through the Hawaii office of the Small Business Administration, the Rural Economic Transition Assistance - Hawaii Program, and after reviewing selected farming and business research over the last several years concluded that Hawaii's physical, biotic, cultural, and social environment is capable of serving the country's chocolate food needs by establishing a uniquely aligned full continuum of cacao farming and chocolate industry in Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, work by the private industry and state and federal governments to date has resulted in the scientific selection and planting of cacao trees of different varieties to match Hawaii's unique multi-climate environment and soil conditions that is conducive to growing high quality varieties of cacao trees all year long; and

WHEREAS, it is recognized that Hawaii's unique geographic location, climate, and biotic environment qualifies it as the nation's only state that can grow different varieties of cacao all year long; and

WHEREAS, there are forty seven cacao growing countries worldwide that currently harvest 3,000,000 metric tons of cacao beans annually to supply the world's growing chocolate industry worth $50,000,000,000 in annual sales; and

WHEREAS, our nation's current and growing dependency on foreign cacao sources will now be partially relieved by Hawaii's high quality, subs-sector premium commodity priced cacao beans; and

WHEREAS, the United States is domestically growing a new agricultural product that is an important food for our nation's citizens and a food that incorporates other U.S. farm products, such as sugar, milk nuts, and others, to manufacture chocolate; and

WHEREAS, the United States Department of Agriculture historically and currently funds foreign cacao farming research, including cacao germplasm centers, pests and disease control work, and flavor testing; and

WHEREAS, by virtue of this Concurrent Resolution, Hawaii announces its intent to compete for such federal funds to shift certain existing funding and other support to Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii will attract world attention to its cacao farming practices and its chocolate manufacturing work, which is aligned with its growing recognition as a high technology, knowledge-based industry state with a broad range of unique human, capital and other resource capabilities; and

WHEREAS, cacao farming in Hawaii provides a new domestic farming opportunity for Hawaii-based private industry to establish a full continuum of chocolate production including manufacturing, marketing, selling, and commodity trading of cacao beans and chocolate products for Hawaii, the mainland, and the rest of the world's markets; and

WHEREAS, the enactment of Act 188, Session Laws of Hawaii 2000 that provided $10,000,000 to facilitate construction of new manufacturing facilities in Hawaii county significantly helped launch a new Hawaii-based $22,000,000 (initial capitalization), high technology chocolate manufacturing industry that is fully integrated with multi-island private sector cacao nursery and canning operations located on former sugar cane lands in communities where there is high unemployment and underemployment of farmers and manufacturing workers; and

WHEREAS, these displaced plantation workers are ideally suited for the continuing employment available through the cacao industry; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii recognizes the establishment of the new $55,000,000 investment in the Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, Hawaii, which significantly advances the work by the Center in the following areas:

WHEREAS, cacao farming and chocolate manufacturing in Hawaii is a generational opportunity given the thirty-plus year life of the cacao tree coupled with the additional value of cacao processing and chocolate manufacturing facilities; and

WHEREAS, cacao farming is a globally valuable food industry that can contribute to a healthy commercial economy that in turn materially contributes to the overall health and well-being of Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, continuous quality improvement from cacao seed to chocolate sale, over the full continuum of cacao farming, chocolate manufacturing, marketing and sales work, is at the center of Hawaii's national and global private and public operating strategies; and

WHEREAS, both the United States and Europe each annually consume about one-third of the $50,000,000,000 in global chocolate industry production with the remaining third consumed in the growing Asian Pacific, South and Central American and other countries; and

WHEREAS, except for Hawaii, major world chocolate manufacturing facilities are located in temperate climate zones that cannot farm cacao; and

WHEREAS, only forty-seven countries located within twenty degrees of the equator can grow cacao with Hawaii predicting that it can grow approximately five per cent of the world's cacao production within a decade at which time it will rank in the top ten of cacao producing countries in the world; and

WHEREAS, certain cacao growing foreign countries also farm plants that supply the raw material for the growing worldwide of illegal drug crops; and

WHEREAS, the federal government funds initiatives to encourage these foreign countries to concentrate their farming efforts on new crops such as cacao farming instead of illegal drugs; and

WHEREAS, the county of Hawaii, the State, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center, and Hawaii's congressional delegation have received solid synergistic encouragement and endorsement from the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, the National Confectioners Association, and the American Cocoa Research Institute to establish a world class U.S. Department of Agriculture - Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center managed cacao germplasm center in Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, all of these organizations note that a Hawaii-based cacao germplasm center will provide high quality and professional cacao research in Hawaii, which is environmentally sound and historically safe from natural disasters and social turmoil; and

WHEREAS, support from the chocolate industry for Hawaii's cacao farming and chocolate enterprises was significantly advanced as a result of the issuance of $5,000,000 in state special purpose revenue bonds to assist Hawaii Gold Cacao Tree, Inc., with the construction of its chocolate and cacao manufacturing facility in Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, the special purpose revenue bonds demonstrated Hawaii's commitment to cacao farming and to securing a U.S. Department of Agriculture - Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center-managed cacao germplasm center; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-First Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2001, the Senate concurring, that the Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are urged to establish and fund a U.S. Department of Agriculture - Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center-managed cacao germplasm center in Hawaii; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the President of the U.S. Senate, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and to the members of Hawaii's congressional delegation.