Food security is key: please reelect DeCoite

Now more than ever, the people of Hawaii understand the pressing need for locally grown food. During my final year as president of the Maui Native Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce, our annual Hui Holomua Business Fest was devoted entirely to our perilous reliance on food grown overseas.

As a business owner, parent and keiki o ka ‘aina, I need to know how those seeking elected office plan to help us recover from this unprecedented pandemic. How will we continue to eat with disruptions in Mainland supply chains and shipping costs approaching extortion levels? Our elected leaders must truly understand what it takes to grow food here, on a commercial scale, so our community can continue to eat today and tomorrow.

Lynn DeCoite, a third-generation homestead farmer, is the only candidate for public office with real-life farming experience. She and her husband Russel have owned and operated Molokai’s L&R Farms for several years. The dirt under Lynn’s fingernails comes from growing food, not from theorizing, writing or preaching about it.

Since 2015, Lynn has faithfully represented the people of House District 13, and as vice chair of the House Agricultural Committee, she has passionately championed the rights of farmers to farm. If we are to emerge from this public health and economic crisis intact, we need our hardworking farmers and ranchers to succeed. And they need Lynn’s voice in the capitol.

This is not the time to elect an inexperienced, self-described activist to public office. Please support Lynn DeCoite, candidate for House District 13. Teri Freitas Gorman Kula