Hawaiʻi Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities
Place-based Producer Support
The Hawaiʻi Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities (HiCSC) Project is being intentionally designed to provide assistance and support for historically underserved farmers and ranchers to increase their participation in the program. We aim to be a catalyst for greater demographic producer representation, food security, circular economic development, ecological regeneration, and normalizing indigenous and place-based food systems as a legitimate climate-smart practice.
Pewa Framework
- Equity: A willingness to understanding the nature of the fracture: A willingness to acknowledge the history of dispossession, and a willingness to affirm the value of what was lost
- Reciprocity: A willingness to build interventions that address the reason for the fracture, and are built to hold each side equally strong: to ID interventions that recognize historical injustice and ancestral efficacy and then create approaches that work on investments into restorative interventions.
- Transparency: The willingness to be clear and honest in intent, and to operate in a transparent way: Pewa are emphasized on the ‘umeke, not hidden. They show that the carrier is now strong. We do not hide the fact that there was a fracture, but honor our work to mend it. And now we can have abundance.
The project is using the Pewa Framework to help intentionally build stronger relationships amongst all project partners to provide place-based support and effective outreach to under-served agricultural producers – including Native Hawaiian ʻāina practitioners and other historically underserved multiethnic producer demographies, women producers, and small or beginning farmers and ranchers to ensure their participation in the program. The framework has been developed by the University of Hawaiʻi’s Office of Indigenous Knowledge and Innovation (OIKI).
What is a Pewa?
Literally, a rectangular patch or wedge used for mending bowls, perhaps so called because of a resemblance to a fishtail. The physical form of the pewa is a helpful metaphor for the values of equity, reciprocity and transparency which inform the project’s attention to under-served agricultural producers and ʻāina practitioners.
How we are using the Pewa Framework?
The project is using the Pewa Framework to guide our work through three phases of Kahua (Observation, Sensemaking), ʻAuamo (Creation) and Kūkulu (Promotion). In Kahua, the project is focusing on building understanding of the current landscape and foundations of trust with agricultural producer and practitioner communities. ʻAuamo refers to a tool that is used to distribute weight evenly and will therefore focus on the distribution of resources after relationships and capacities have been developed. Kūkulu literally means “building” and will focus on building enduring partnerships and projects.