Well, it's nice to know that someone's got a plan.

Even before the pet-food recalls and subsequent food-safety scares, there was last year's E. coli outbreak resulting from tainted spinach.

Given the Islands' reliance on imported food, that was enough of a red flag for John Ryan, who heads the Quality Assurance Division of Hawai'i's Department of Agriculture.

Today, the department is unveiling a sensible three-year pilot project to help increase food safety by tracking and tracing food products.

Using technology called Radio Frequency Identification Devices, boxes or pallets of produce will be tagged and traced as they are transported through the food chain. Farmers will be able to use the system to log information, such as when the crop was planted, harvested and what pesticides were used.

The product ID number is then entered into an online database that will be accessible to the public via the Internet. That means all produce entered in the system can be traced back to its farm of origin.

Granted, the program is still in its planning stages, and issues such as funding have yet to be ironed out. But it's a sound plan that takes a necessary, proactive step toward ensuring food safety in our state.

Nationally, such a plan has yet to be made public.

The Food and Drug Administration recently named David Acheson its new "food czar." The new honcho is charged with developing an agencywide plan to prevent the type of contamination that has claimed numerous pets. Since the pet-food recalls, numerous stories have highlighted the FDA's flawed regulatory system and has caused many consumers to rightly question where our food comes from — and what's in it.

The latest reports show that the contaminated wheat flour from China was intentionally mislabeled as gluten to make it appear more valuable. The contaminant, melamine, was added to make the product look higher in protein.

This was a wake-up call, exposing just how vulnerable we all are.

In light of the E. coli scare, Ryan was right to come up with a state plan. Our new national food czar must not wait for yet another scare to come up with his.