About

HIAP is a platform for collective action for local agricultural development. It is structured to support collaborative efforts throughout the agriculture and food system, creating new spaces and tools for diverse groups of people to collaborate around specific issues, actions or opportunities.

Our Role

HIAP facilitates support for its members in generating ideas and implementing new projects and initiatives, helping them to operate in cooperation with other projects and strategies. The partnership shares information on relevant projects associated with Hawaiʻi Island’s agriculture cluster on to help stakeholders be aware of who is doing what. Individual projects involving multiple HIAP members may choose to use HIAP’s support mechanisms to document and facilitate project team meetings and coordinate stakeholder planning and support.

Resources

Who We Represent

HIAP's organizational partners and individual members represent a diverse range of stakeholders, businesses and institutions who share a common interest in growing opportunities for Hawai'i Island's farms, ranches and other agricultural and food businesses.

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Partners

HIAP's Partners represent its organizational members and include a diverse set of farms, businesses, industry groups, government agencies, educational institutions, non-profits and networks. Any organization, business or farm can become a Partner regardless of the sector or industry they fit within. Our shared interest lies not in what each of us do, but in our common goal of a thriving agricultural economy on Hawai'i Island that can reduce our dependency on imported food.

See our Directory of Partners

Members

Any individual can become a member of HIAP regardless of whether their organization is a partner. Individuals can join HIAP and utilize its collaboration tools to coordinate project plans, arrange team activities and access its reference data.

Become a Member

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Governance

A top-down, command and control approach may be effective for managing projects quickly, but for a public-private partnership focused on aligning diverse interests, such an approach is neither feasible nor effective. Decision-making for HIAP’s shared strategies requires a decentralized leadership focused on clustered interests within small, autonomous teams and projects. HIAP’s uses a constellation model of governance to structure decision-making for shared strategies and plans. This means that HIAP’s board of directors do not make decisions about shared actions, but instead set the basic rules of engagement within the partnership, determining HIAP’s structure and developing the business model for HIAP’s sustainability. Within HIAP’s broad rules of engagement, each of HIAP’s teams and committees set their own rules for determining leaders (or “co-captains”) and agreeing upon objectives, outcomes and shared targets. The following table briefly outlines HIAP’s governance model.

Board of Directors

HIAP's Board of Directors represent multiple organizations and stakeholder groups, including both public and private interests. They set the rules for HIAP's functions and select the organization to serve as Managers of HIAP's activities.

See HIAP's Board Members

Managers

HIAP operates without staff, outsourcing all administration, financial management, convening and facilitation to the Hāmākua Institute, who serves as the backbone organization to the partnership, functioning as convener and facilitator for its members.