A comprehensive report from the Islands and Remote Areas’ Regional Food Business Center

From 2023 - 2025, Kitchen Sync worked with the Islands and Remote Areas Regional Food Business Center conducted extensive community research across seven non-contiguous US regions— Hawaiʻi, Alaska, Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. The report identifies fundamental distinctions between these places' food systems and those of the continental US, highlighting opportunities to take a distinct policy approach of targeted universalism.

The regions share common historical experiences of colonialism, militarization, and economic disruption that continue shaping their food systems. Yet communities are developing innovative, place-based solutions: revitalizing traditional crops and growing methods, building community-centered food hub networks, and reasserting food sovereignty through cultural practice. Projects like Hawaii's ʻUlu Cooperative exemplifies how these efforts blend traditional ecological knowledge with contemporary market development.

The report identifies critical barriers requiring federal attention: agriculture across extreme climate zones poorly served by USDA programs; insufficient federal data collection creating cascading barriers to market access; and the definition of "local and regional food" requiring reimagining, since for every territory represented, the nearest non-local market is international.

A central tension emerges between these regions' aspirations for self-reliance and food sovereignty and their complex relationships with global markets and US policy frameworks. The report argues these places offer crucial lessons about resisting corporate food consolidation through maintaining strong community relationships to producers. It also outlines a call for federal agencies to establish dedicated internal offices supporting these regions, improve data collection inclusive of subsistence producers, and develop flexible policies accommodating their unique geographic and economic realities.

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