This tax is going to help fund some of the sustainability programs that were cut by DOGE. Many don't know, but Hawaii only produces about 10% of the calories it consumes, inspite of having some of the most productive agricultural systems and spaces on the planet. There were several grants as part of Biden era focused specifically focused on increasing both the sustainability and access to resources necessary for sustainable farming, along with market development for local crops. Some examples are, in spite of a long history of ranching and cattle (for example, paniolos), right now most animals raised in Hawaii actually get shipped to mainland for processing, then shipped back again for consumption.

Likewise we lack much of the other infrastructure that is much more developed due to the extreme consolidation the extremely monopolized and extractive sugar and pineapple industries under the plantation system. Liliʻuokalani described the business owners (mostly sugar planters) who took power in 1893 as oligarchs, and I'm confident if the language has been available at the time of her writing, fascist would also have been a word she would have used, based on the writings she made at the time. This is relevant because the existing land distribution and governmental structures in Hawaii are a direct descendents of this system.

It's not going to compensate for the loss we saw in the DOGE cuts, but it's at least something. Without access to land, and cooperatives and processing facilities, and markets to make products available, it's quite challenging for small farmers which operate at the scale of most Hawaiian agriculture to be viable. And when you live on an island 2500 miles from anywhere, and you've seen the impacts of what even modest disruption to the distribution systems does to supply chains, the importance of sustainable, local agriculture becomes paramount.