When you’re a small state, especially a small agricultural state like Hawaii, collaboration is a key to success. As such, we formed a partnership with California and Florida, two states we have a history of sharing invasive pest species. We have just the right of amount of overlapping climate and just the right amount of similar agricultural crops that if one pest shows up in one state, the other states will get it. In a time with budgets getting increasingly tight, workng together has become even more critical. Southern California was the first of our collaborative effort to share what issues we have— and the solutions we have developed. More importantly, we will have the ability to combine efforts to pusue long term, meaningful solutions together.
We started off early— really early. It was marvelous. Los Angeles is literally one of the primary hubs for food in the world. We saw produce and cut flowers from all parts of the world, all in need of inspection. It was amazing to see the diversity, quantity and quality of the produce presented and to talk to the people that handle the inspections.
