Hawaiian Food Sovereignty in Progress: A Biocultural Movement

Traditional Hawaiian and Indigenous agricultural and fishing practices endure and remain vital according to local nonprofits

There is a major difference between Hawaiʻi achieving food security, primarily governed by capitalist economic factors, and Kānaka maoli (Native Hawaiians) achieving food sovereignty — defining and controlling their own sustainable agricultural systems and food distribution. Many local non-profit organizations and even local businesses are rooted in restoring these ancient practices on land and in the water.

This differentiation involves defining who is considered “important,” according to Dr. Noa Lincoln, a Kānaka maoli scholar from Kealakekua and associate professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM). His work bridges traditional Hawaiian knowledge and modern environmental science, studying Indigenous cropping systems, island ecology, and how ancestral practices inform today’s cultural, environmental, and food-system restoration efforts.

He explained sovereignty is much more nuanced and holds deeper cultural and socioeconomic implications. Sovereignty means decolonizing who has access to land and how that land is engaged with on the community level.

Food sovereignty in an indigenous context takes this a step further to include ecological sustainability as a necessity to food production. He explained that Indigenous agriculture often outperforms contemporary agriculture in terms of resilience in the systems — in some cases, even in terms of food per unit area. Indigenous agriculture may fall short in food per unit, labor, and profitability.

This is central to the issue of contemporary Western industrial culture — which judges the success of food production by profits made. “Its hard to figure in Indigenous practices, values, and practices into that,” Dr. Lincoln explained. As a result, there is a widespread dissociation from space and place.

What does reconnecting look like? Bridging natural patterns and processes as living things interacting with each other and viewing ourselves as an integral part of the environment — in kinship, not in supremacy.

Many Hawaiʻi communities and organizations have chosen to center community support and the health of the local ecosystem over profits. This is inseparable from Hawaiian identity and culture, he emphasized.

Hoʻokuaʻāina, nestled in Maunawili, is a nonprofit community-run organization using loʻi kalo to promote culture and cultivate community through aloha ʻāina. They recently launched their “Kalo Hotline” (1-833-EAT-KALO) on Nov. 15 for the communities of Kailua and Waimānalo.

Their mission is to reach Hawaiʻi’s families, kūpuna, and communities in need. “Together we’re planting seeds for food sovereignty — by the people, for the people,” they shared in a recent Instagram post. According to their website, they harvest 30,000 kalo annually, have had 124 acres put back into agriculture, hosted 25,000 volunteers, paid for 350 internships, offered 118 tuition scholarships for apprentices, and rescued 116 acres from development.

Paepae o Heʻeia is another nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring and revitalizing the 800-year old Loko Iʻa O Heʻeia (fishpond) and its kuapā (wall). They officially launched a campaign in 2014 to restore the wall, repairing a 50-year old, 200-foot wide hole, as well as removing invasive fish and plant species to revive the pond.

They will complete their 25-year long restoration on December 13, 2025 — where thousands of people will gather to reconnect the last 300 feet of its 7,000-foot span.

Restoring water flow, the mākāhā (gate) regulates the flow of water, allowing small fish to enter and grow, while preventing larger fish from escaping, creating a sustainable and managed source of food.

Other contemporary organizations carry social and cultural value sets within a business model. Dr. Lincoln mentioned Maʻo Organic Farms — located in Lualualei, Waiʻanae — as an example. According to their website, their mission is to empower their local youth and community through the practice of aloha ʻāina to build a future of māʻona (fullness or plenty).

Being in academia with a background in the sciences, he explained the roots of agricultural science grew out of the fields of plant and chemical science — creating a mathematical perspective of food production. “It’s very formulaic and dissociated with food even as living things,” he said.

This creates the need to bring Western science into alignment with indigenous thinking and values. This idea is growing with the agroecology movement — which aims to promote circular, equitable, and sustainable food production with respect to local communities — or large-scale climate change awareness, but more holistic and integrated concepts in ecological management and even in health are needed.

This entails opening up academia’s commonly narrow or siloed views of agriculture and food to one that is of nature. This includes viewing food as a living thing that is integral to human health.

In the Hawaiʻi Foodbank Research 2024-2025 Executive Summary, 32% of Hawai‘i households — approximately 463,000 individuals — were food insecure in 2024 to 2025. Additionally, one in five households experience very low food security (the most severe category).

According to a recent study by the CDC, 76.4% (representing 194 million) of US adults also reported one or more chronic conditions in 2023, noting that low-income communities have greater difficulty accessing recreation opportunities and healthier foods.

Serving as evidence of the importance of food in maintaining human and community health, viewing agriculture as medicine is evermore vital. As Dr. Lincoln emphasized, peopleʻs well-being is directly integrated into their environment.

The throughline he has seen in his work across Indigenous cultures is adaptation to place. For him, it’s about recognizing that the land has its own desires.

Rather than wondering how the land can accommodate us, he recommends asking, “What can this land do that works within its confines and natural processes?” Living in a place necessitates a responsibility to learn and engage with the land, whether or not one has ancestral connections to it.

“To be of a place is a process. Just like having a relationship with a person. You need to learn their moods and what they like and what they don’t like and that can only happen through sustained honest interaction with other people. It’s the same with being in a place.” Dr. Lincoln addressed this core responsibility we all share to care for our planet, placing importance on being open and observant. To him, being of a place requires genuine appreciation and care for it to begin with.

If you haven’t begun your schooling, perhaps it’s time you start learning about the land that grew you and the place that sustains you.