SECTION 1. Hawaiian breadfruit (‘ulu) has a long history in Hawaii as an important and consistent food source. This illustrious history includes a period during which breadfruit played a significant role in providing an annual production of millions of pounds of nutritious food that sustained the traditional population across the islands. Breadfruit is believed to have arrived on the Hawaiian islands approximately seven hundred years ago. Since this introduction to the climate and soil environment of Hawaii, breadfruit has consistently contributed to and enhanced all aspects of Hawaii, including traditional diet, culture, and lifestyle. Its distinctive beauty and mythical origins, historical, cultural, religious, and social significance, and the diversity of its forms in traditional methods of food production have all contributed to the legacy of breadfruit in the Hawaiian heritage and culture. This significant presence and abundance illustrates how breadfruit flourishes in modernity as the contemporary manifestation of Hawaii Nei.

The combination and collective force of discrete factors over the past decade have demonstrated that breadfruit consumption and research is growing in relevance, including the availability of large numbers of breadfruit trees, expansion of the gluten-free market, confirmation of value in breadfruit by-products, and the increasing market movement toward locally grown food. For the first time in the technological era, breadfruit has the potential to become a major commercial crop, even while remaining closely connected to traditional Hawaiian, Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian values.

Conservation of breadfruit agrobiodiversity and development of micropropagation methods by the Breadfruit Institute at the National Tropical Botanical Garden provide the means to rapidly expand breadfruit plantings and utilization for commerce and for food sustainability. The Pacific Business Center Program at the Shidler school of business administration at the University of Hawaii has initiated a program for analysis and testing of shelf-stable breadfruit products, such as gluten-free flour, as well as developing technology for processing breadfruit latex and inflorescence for its insect repellent properties in collaboration with the college of tropical agriculture and human resources at the University of Hawaii, National Tropical Botanical Garden Breadfruit Institute, and Department of Grain Science and Industry at Kansas State University.

Additional research is required to develop sustainable breadfruit production methods, postharvest handling, processing and refinement, manufacturing methods, scalable flour mill design, packaging, market product development and testing, distribution and regional sustainable capacity for supply for breadfruit flour and by-products for refinement and export from Hawaii.

A projected $10,000,000 per year farm value is anticipated within ten years, with room in local markets to expand significantly thereafter. This injection of value may provide direct benefit to farmers, as well as ancillary economic impact through value-added production. The gluten-free market servicing United States consumers is expected to exceed $15,000,000,000 in 2016, on top of the current commodities value for organic latex priced at $900 per gallon. Furthermore, the profit projected from processing and marketing the breadfruit flower as an organic insecticide is estimated to exceed the million dollar mark. This profit may be due to the far more potent nature of the breadfruit flower that contains a natural tri-chemical compound combination that so powerfully acts as a repellant that the breadfruit outperforms its synthetic competitors.

The economic development potential for the processing, refinement, packaging, and exporting of breadfruit flour and by products for the state and national market is substantial considering the general employment and economic benefits to the State simultaneously strengthens the authentic Hawaiian experience for the visitor industry.

As everyone who has tasted extraordinary dishes made from ‘ulu knows, there is now high potential for ‘ulu to contribute to healthy diets and food security ideals based on locally grown foods. ‘Ulu is a long-lived, easy to grow, productive, nutritious, starchy staple crop that will continue to contribute to environmental, social, and economic health for generations.

The purpose of this Act is to make an appropriation for the research, development, marketing, and conservation of breadfruit.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $650,000 or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2015-2016 for the research, development, marketing, and conservation of breadfruit.

The sum appropriated shall be expended by the college of tropical agriculture and human resources at the University of Hawaii for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2015.

INTRODUCED BY:	_____________________________

THE SENATE	S.B. NO.	709
TWENTY-EIGHTH LEGISLATURE, 2015
STATE OF HAWAII