4.1 Introduction
The Pacific region is a hugely heterogenous region in regard to cultures, climatic zones, and hydro-geological profiles. This diversity has created equally complex food systems in marine and agriculture areas. A food system is generally defined as the interaction of all food activities, ranging from production to waste management, and their feedbacks with multi-scalar socio-economic and global environmental change (Béné et al. 2019; Ingram 2011). Feedbacks throughout this system lead to the ultimate system outcome: food and nutrition security (FNS), defined as “a situation that exists when all people at all times have access to safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and preferences” (FAO 2020c). This complex systemic outcome includes issues of nutrition and health, economic and physical access, social diversity and acceptability, and the agency of communities to make informed food choices (HLPE 2020). Substantial work has been done to document the food security situation from an economic and calorific energy intake perspective (McGregor et al. 2009) within the context of climate change (Barnett 2011) and within a regional vulnerability context (SPC 2011). The disruption of socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 in the Pacific has also created an imperative to articulate pathways for building future food systems resilience and improving FNS for Pacific countries (Davila et al. 2021; Ferguson et al. 2022). While there continue to be multiple analyses of FNS in individual countries and communities in the Pacific, there is less regional focused literature conceptualizing FNS in the region.
Pacific island nations have a rich history of traditional land and marine systems management that continues to influence how communities manage their natural resources (Campbell 2015; Wairiu 2017). Pre-colonial food systems were characterized by diverse activities surrounding food production and exchange, which included a mix of subsistence farming and hunter-gatherer food harvesting systems, bartering, and regional trade between islands. Nutrient rich diets with leafy vegetables and complex carbohydrates were traditionally normal, with plant foods constituting 83% of the diet, and poultry, fish, and pigs making up the protein requirements of many Pacific Island people (Connell 2015; Gnecchi-Ruscone and Paini 2017). With the surge of trade liberalization in the mid-1990s, the region experienced a rapid increase of cheap imported highly processed foods such as noodles, rice, and baked goods (Charlton et al. 2016; Plahe et al. 2013). These imports have slowly shifted food eating habits, and have been accompanied by increasingly sedentary lifestyles, both of which contribute to the substantial burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the region (Sievert et al. 2019) (also see Table 4.1). The breadth of such burdens experienced throughout the region spans wasting, stunting, and micronutrient deficiencies, as well as obesity and diabetes. Table 4.1 compiles available data to provide an overview of food production (agriculture and fisheries), health context, and food consumption for selected PICTs. The table offers insights from selected countries across a spectrum of food systems, from largely import dependent (like Kiribati and Tuvalu), to productive agricultural countries like Fiji and Papua New Guinea (PNG). The table summarizes the diversity of food system contexts, with data on nutrition, food consumption, and agricultural activities. There is a large paucity of food, nutrition, and health data throughout the region (similarly for water, see Chap. 2), which makes collating accurate and up to date information for decision-making a challenge. For example, food consumption and nutrition surveys are conducted through the Household Income and Expenditure Surveys, but the ad hoc frequency of these surveys and limitations in data access make it hard to use this source with any consistency. We note that the Sustainable Development Goals have pushed for more accurate data, and efforts by regional agencies like the Pacific Community (SPC) have made substantial efforts in organizing food systems data (see for example the Pacific Data Hub website).
Table 4.1
Summary of nutrition outcomes, food production, and food consumption aspects of selected Pacific food systems
Category and United/Country | Kiribati | Solomon Islands | Tuvalu | Samoa | Tonga | Papua New Guinea | Vanuatu |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nutrition and demographic measures | |||||||
Stunting ratea (% under 5 years) | 15.2 | 31.6 | 10 | 4.9 | 8.1 | 49.5 | 28.5 |
Wasting ratea (% under 5 years) | 3.7 | 8.5 | 3.3 | 3.9 | 5.2 | 14.1 | 4.4 |
Obesitya (% male/female) | 42/50 | 18/27 | 47/56 | 40/55 | 41/54 | 17/26 | 20/30 |
Population distributionb (% rural/urban) | 46/54 | 76/24 | 38/62 | 82/18 | 77/23 | 87/13 | 75/25 |
Production | |||||||
Agricultural landc (% land area) | 42 | 3.9 | 60 | 12.4 | 45.8 | 25.6 | 15.3 |
Agriculture and fisheries, value addedb (% of GDP) | 30.8 | 35 | 16.5 | 9.8 | 17.2 | 17.7 | 25.8 |
Per capita food production variability (2015)d ($ per person constant 2004–2006) | 24.1 | 2 | 1.3 | 4 | 9.8 | 1.9 | 16.8 |
Value of food imports over total merchandise exportsd (3-year average) (2015–2017) (Percent) | 261 | 22 | 14 | 158 | 231 | 8 | 123 |
Emissions (CO2 equivalent) from land-based agriculture (2018) In gigagrams (1,000 tonnes) | 8.45 | 65.55 | 5.95 | 181.52 | 68.81 | 4,738.58 | 434.06 |
Top staple foods (Note that most rice is imported into PNG and PICT countries) | Banana, coconut, taro, breadfruitc | Sweet potato, coconut, rice, cassava, banana taro, yame | Swamp taro, coconut, banana, breadfruit, taro, cassava, sweet potatof | Taro, rice, coconut, banana, wheat-based foodsg | Cassava, coconut, sweet potato, yam, taro, bananac | Sweet potato, rice, banana, coconut, yam, cassava, Colocasia taro, Xanthosomah taro, sago | Taro, coconut, rice, banana, yam, cassava, sweet potatoi |
Consumption | |||||||
Average national energy consumption (kcal/capita/day) | 2,760j | 2,640k | 2,800l | 2,800m | 2,900n | 2,629o | 3,056p |
Proportion of energy consumed as: | |||||||
Protein (%, note WHO recommends 10–15%) | 13 | 11 | 14 | 11 | 14 | 8o | 12p |
Fats (%, note WHO recommends 15–30%) | 17 | 22 | 29 | 34 | 27 | No data | 22p |
Carbohydrates (%, note WHO recommends 55–75%) | 70 | 67 | 57 | 55 | 59 | No data | No data |
Fruits and vegetables consumed (grams/capita/day, WHO recommends 400 g) | 130 | 182 | 102 | 300 | 260 | No data | No data |
Food consumed from local (in-country) production, contribution to total dietary energy consumed (%) | 12 | 52 | 25 | 30 | 19 | No data | No data |
Contribution of food groups and food products to average dietary energy consumptionq | |||||||
Cereals and their products (%) | 44 | 24 | 34 | 29 | 22 | 26r | |
Meat and meat products (%) | >5 | >5 | 8 | 10 | 13 | 11 | |
Fish, shellfish, and their products (%) | 8 | 7 | 7 | >5 | >5 | > 5 | |
Sweets, sugar, and syrups (%) | 17 | 5 | 17 | 7 | 5 | 6 | |
Pulses, seeds, and nuts (%) | 5 | 19 | No data | No data | No data | No data | |
Oil crops (%) | No data | No data | 19 | 18 | No data | 6 | |
Roots, tubers, plantains, and their products | >5 | 36 | >5 | 10 | 29 | No data | |
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Data from the most recent Global Burden of Disease (GBD) (IHME 2018) study shows that the top two risk factors causing the greatest burden of disease in the region are malnutrition (including nutritional deficiencies) and dietary risks (including diabetes, kidney disease, and cardiovascular diseases). As is the case in many areas around the world, such diseases coexist with nutritional insufficiency. Differences in the experience of various NCDs across genders is evident in the summary of various nutritional indicators of men, women, and children in selected PICTs presented in Table 4.2. Table 4.2 showcases the concerning rates of malnutrition, for example with Melanesia experiencing more than double the global average in stunting in children under five. Diabetes and obesity, across all three regions, is well over the global average for men and women. Delivering improved nutritional outcomes from food systems is crucial to limiting the increasing impact on health systems and supporting the overall wellbeing of vulnerable Pacific communities. This is particularly important to support the physical and cognitive development of the young people, which in some countries make up the majority of the population (SPC 2014).
Table 4.2
Summary of malnutrition and obesity in the Pacific Islands countries, based on data from the Global Nutrition Report (2020)
Melanesia (Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu) (%) | Polynesia (Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu) (%) | Micronesia (Kiribati, Marshal Islands, Federal States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau) (%) | Global average (%) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Women of reproductive age with anemia | 35.9 | 27.9 | 25.1 | 32.8 |
Stunting, children under 5-years | 49.5 | 4.9 | Data not available | 21.9 |
Wasting, children under 5-years | 13.3 | 3.9 | Data not available | 7.3 |
Overweight in children under 5-years | 13.7 | 5.3 | Data not available | 5.9 |
Men with diabetes | 15.3 | 22.4 | 21.7 | 9 |
Women with diabetes | 14.8 | 26.4 | 22.8 | 7.9 |
Men with obesity | 17.5 | 54.9 | 43.6 | 10.5 |
Women with obesity | 26.8 | 40.7 | 53.1 | 14.7 |
The above human nutrition context from Table 4.2, coupled with risks from climate impacts in the region, make food and nutrition security core elements of the water-food-energy nexus. In this chapter, we present an overview of how five major dimensions of FNS are currently illustrated across different Pacific food systems. We discuss the five pillars of FNS with different examples from throughout the region, showcasing the complexity of regional approaches to improving FNS outcomes in food systems. To capture the different dimensions of food and nutrition security, we organize the chapter around the four pillars of food and nutrition security, and add an additional pillar focused on agency to capture the crucial issue of sovereignty and equity that have traditionally been missed from food security analyses (Chappell 2018). We conclude with reflection on the large socio-ecological conditions that will influence the future of food and nutrition security changes in the Pacific region.
4.2 Food and Nutrition Security Analytical Framework
Measuring and understanding the FNS of a community, nation, or region is highly complex and can be done through multiple approaches (Burchi and De Muro 2016). Traditional approaches to FNS analysis have focused on food availability approaches, which looked at the balance between population and food, or on income-based approaches, which focused on incomes and purchasing power. While valid metrics, these approaches fail to capture the underlying determinants that lead to pervasive food insecurities, notably the socio-cultural and underlying societal norms. The seminal approaches, focused on entitlements (Sen 1982) and livelihoods (Scoones 2009), have become common lines of enquiry to understand the structural conditions that can enable FNS. The combination of these different approaches is now used by policy agencies across scales to understand the ultimate impacts on the major categories of FNS: availability, accessibility, adequacy, acceptability. These four major pillars are well recognized; however, they lean towards focusing on quantifiable metrics of FNS and miss influential social dimensions (HLPE 2020). To overcome these limitations, much of critical food scholarship from food sovereignty has focused on how cultural diversity and power relations influence FNS in different contexts. Rather than perpetuating the tradition to contrast agency-based approaches with metric-based approaches, some authors have proposed that the inclusion of sovereignty and agency is now a well-recognized principle for genuine FNS (Chappell 2018; Davila 2020; HLPE 2020). Furthermore, agency is a core determinant of long-term resilience across scales, as it allows the diversity of actors, including marginalized ones, to have a greater voice in decisions being made. Creating equitable Pacific food systems requires embedding agency into decision-making in formal food security interventions, to work with the traditional and reciprocal approaches of engaging with food in PICTs.
The framework used in this chapter builds from the common pillars in food security, but adds the socio-political lens grounded in food sovereignty. The 5 Pillars Framework is proposed as a way of focusing on the economic and health dimensions of traditional definitions of food security and includes additional principles of agency and decision-making to address underlying issues of justice and equity that are often missed in food security debates. Chappell (2018) argues that agency is an essential ingredient in bridging food sovereignty as a process that can contribute to more equitable food security outcomes in specific cases. Agency emerges from much longer traditions that critique common framings of food security, which tend to lean towards markets, and build from elements of food sovereignty definitions, which focus on processes, power relations, and the ability of communities and nations to define their food systems (Davila 2020).
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Since the 1980s, Pacific food systems have globalized, with increased food imports throughout the region. Diverse diets and food staples have been replaced by more affordable or attractive high-calorie foods, contributing to the increase in NCDs. Analysis of historical trade data shows that the Pacific region has become a net importer of food, with Melanesian leading the region with growing from approximately 200 tonnes in 1997 to 800 tonnes in 2017 (Andrew et al. 2022). The degree of reliance on imports as a percentage of food expenditure is different throughout the region, with most nations having negative food balances (McGregor et al. 2009; SPC 2011). The reliance on international food exposes PICTs to fluctuations in food prices, which can have serious implications for food security for the poor and vulnerable. In the previous global food crisis in 2008, an analysis by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) showed that 50% of Pacific people, even in rural areas, buy their food (rather than grow it) to meet their food security needs (Parks and Abbott 2009). Despite the general increase in imports, agricultural productivity and exports have been relatively stagnant in the region, notably in Polynesia and Micronesia (Farrell et al. 2020). This makes Pacific communities dependant on international food production systems, making them vulnerable to changes in these distant agricultural landscapes, and impacting the incomes of communities through the requirement to purchase foods.
4.2.1 Availability
Availability of food relates to having a quantity and quality of food sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, free from adverse substances and acceptable within a given culture, supplied through domestic production or imports (HLPE 2020). Food availability depends on the extent in which rural communities depend on subsistence or purchased foods and varies widely depending on household incomes. Subsistence production is widespread in the region, particularly within rural areas, but can be constrained by soil quality, climatic conditions, and limited area for food production (Taylor et al. 2016). While there may be availability of foods, including staple root crops, diversity within food groups can be limited (Bottcher et al. 2020; Hidalgo et al. 2020; Savage et al. 2020). Production diversity is very limited in atolls like Kiribati or Tuvalu, which are less than 5 km wide and very flat, with poor coral-based soils and limited freshwater (Chap. 2). These biophysical conditions limit the type of food that can be grown, and with growing and increasingly urbanized populations (Trundle et al. 2019), food has to be imported. For example, up to 72% of diets in Kiribati are made up of imported foods (Estimé et al. 2014). Imported foods can provide stability in food availability, but can increase a country’s vulnerability to changes in global food supply chains and pricing (Savage et al. 2020). As capacity to import food has increased, so has the availability of processed foods, with long-shelf lives highly suited to long sea voyages, within the region (Snowdon et al. 2013). Given the evidenced link between ultra-processed foods and poor health outcomes (Monteiro et al. 2019), this is of current and great concern in the Pacific (Table 4.2).
Food production in the region has been impacted by urbanization and trade with impacts seen in rural and urban settings. In rural settings, a move towards a formal (or monetary based) economy has impacted food availability. As rural populations move towards engaging with roles that provide an income, there is less time for food production activities (Savage et al. 2020) and at times, an increased reliance on more convenient, imported processed foods (Hidalgo et al. 2020). Commodity crops (e.g., Kava in Fiji), sometimes replace or displace traditional root crops or vegetables (Campbell 2015), reducing the availability of traditional staple foods for local communities. As communities and villages increase in population size, less land may be available for gardening. This has led to increased urbanization in the region, with the perverse outcome of informal settlements emerging in larger cities like Suva, Port Moresby, and Honiara. These informal urban and peri-urban settlements, which often have people living below the poverty line, have limited land available for growing food in home gardens and their food security is largely dependent on what they are able to buy. People in these settlements also have limited access to clean water (Chap. 2) and affordable, reliable, and clean energy (Chap. 3).
Climate hazards (Chaps. 5 and 10) and environmental concerns also place pressure on local food production, ultimately impacting the diversity of, and overall food availability. In the PICTs particularly, major climate events such as tropical cyclones, can result in long-lasting damage to land. For example, in a remote island of Ono in the Kadavu province of Fiji, communities report climate change as an ongoing challenge to food security (Hidalgo et al. 2020). Villagers are deterred from planting fruits and vegetables due to variable water availability and rising temperatures and describe how land damage from a tropical cyclone in 1979 has only recently seen to be improving. At the same time, fishermen report that once plentiful supplies of fresh fish and shellfish close to shore are now accessed by fisherman who are required to travel further from shore, for longer periods of time, and sometimes at night. These climate events restrict market access for producers and consumers (Campbell 2015). Different food crops are more or less susceptible to different climate hazards. Banana plantations are highly susceptible to storm damage, for example the crop decimation in Samoa by Cyclone Gita in 2018. Taro plantations in coastal alluvial plains are most at risk from soil and groundwater salinization. Uncertainty and severity of future climate hazards will continue to impact food availability in the region.
4.2.2 Accessibility
Access to food relates to the ability of people to obtain safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs. While availability relates to the physical presence of food, accessibility includes aspects of geographical and economic access to food. For example, Bogard et al. (2021) explain that different types of food environments exist within the Solomon Islands, and the type of food environment determining the access to types of healthy foods. They found that participants in rural areas are more likely to access the WHO recommended daily >400 g of non-starchy fruit and vegetables, partially due to the immediate physical access to this food. Access is also determined by the underlying structural issues of class, access to land, and gender relations (FAO 2019a, b, 2020a). As noted above, different types of food availability exist throughout the region depending on the type of food harvested or fished. Accessing this food thus depends on the economic and physical conditions of people. For example, while PNG has a productive agricultural sector, high poverty rates and limited access to physical markets means carbohydrates are the main source of food; protein, fats, and oils more often being inaccessible or expensive (Bourke and Harwood 2009; Iese et al. 2018). These different economic and physical dimensions of food access thus limit the ability of individuals to achieve FNS, regardless of its availability.
There are two major factors limiting access to nutritious food. The first is the cost of healthy food. As per the availability section—imported foods are now common to Pacific diets. However, a different dimension of this import reliance is the costs of it, and the impact it has on the ability to access. Imported food can be cheaper than local products, which in a region with increasing poverty, means that imported foods might be more accessible. Furthermore, the conveniences of using imported food such as rice and noodles can save substantial time for households, making fresh food preparation less appealing. The combination of this convenience and cost factors creates barriers for healthy food preparation and consumption. A second limiting factor is the ongoing and projected threats of climate change in the region and the impacts it will have on either producing subsistence food or producing cash crops for incomes to access food. For example, the 2019 Tropical Cyclone Harold in Vanuatu destroyed 95% of homes in Pentecost; with cash-crop damages ranging from 50–100%. The globalization of food meant that some of the affected communities had been intensively planting kava for international consumers in Australia and the United States, and had limited to no subsistence food crops planted when the cyclone hit. With kava crops destroyed, these communities were left without incomes overnight, and thus without the ability to access food either through subsistence or through purchasing. The proximity of individuals and communities to coastal areas also poses major risks, as projected sea level rise will likely impact households and distribution networks, limiting access to food in the future.
Access to different types of foods has changed in the region. Andrew et al. (2022) showed that since 1995, import tonnage of food and beverages for the region have been dominated by cereals other than rice (14%), rice (12%), sugar and sugar confectionary (7%), wheat and meslin flour (5%) and poultry meat and offal (5%). Data on food imports between 2001 and 2009 in the region shows that in Melanesia, approximately 17–20% of energy is obtained from imported food (an outlier is Fiji, with 58%). Contrastingly, in the more productive fertile countries like Tonga and Vanuatu, island cabbage, sweet-potato, cassava, yams, and taro make up the main foods consumed by poorer households who grow these in their home gardens. In urban areas in Tonga, there is high accessibility to mutton flaps and imported chicken, accounting for more than a quarter of the daily energy needs and about a fifth of the total household expenditure on food (SPC 2011). Meat consumption has increased in the region from 34 kg per person to 52 kg between 1973 and 2003 (SPC 2011), with Tongans consuming approximately 107 g of chicken per person per day in 2020 (FAO 2020d). Changes in food accessibility have led to an overall dietary transition in the region, which when coupled with increased sedentary lifestyles, has resulted in a surge in NCDs (Table 4.2) which present a long-term burden and risk to health systems in the region (Charlton et al. 2016; Thaman 1988).
Access to food is also conditional on the proximity to coastal areas, given a generally high reliance on fish for animal based protein and as a source of livelihood for communities in the region (Charlton et al. 2016). Proximity to coastal areas is extremely high in the Pacific with 97% of the population living less than 1 km from the coast when PNG is excluded, or 50% when PNG is included (Andrew et al. 2019). This proximity to coastal areas, and the location of major capitals with food markets near coastal areas as well, means physical access to food is relatively adequate in the region. The coastal proximity of most of the population means that access to fish is high and provides a 50–90% of required animal-protein for 50% of the Pacific population (SPC 2015). A review of fish consumption in the Pacific found that per capita annual fish consumption ranges from 18 to 64 kg; however, with projected population growth it is expected that coastal ecosystems will be unable to yield sufficient fish to maintain required protein needs (Charlton et al. 2016). This decline in fish species, which will be accelerated by loss of coral reef habitats due to ocean acidification (Johnson et al. 2015), can pose long-term food security risks to Pacific communities. Offshore, the tuna industry provides a major contribution to both domestic and export markets and is targeted by both PICT and international fishing fleets with the four main target species of yellowfin, skipjack, albacore, and bigeye not currently considered to be overfished (Hare et al. 2020). Given the highly nutritious value of fish, determining how protein will be sourced and how marine environments can be sustained to meet the requirements of the population in the future is an important area of continued research and policy for food and nutrition security (Bell et al. 2009).
4.2.3 Adequacy
Food adequacy has two components and has received increasing attention in food and nutrition security policy discourses which previously focused on physical and market access and stability. The first component relates to the extent to which the food consumed is able to meet the dietary needs of the population. There is widely accepted nutritional research that shows Pacific communities are consuming inadequate food (Farmery et al. 2020; Lyons et al. 2020; Vogliano et al. 2021). Over-nutrition is persistent and has contributed to obesity and high prevalence of NCDs in the region. NCDs cause 60–80% of deaths in the Pacific, influencing life expectancy which averages from mid- to low-60 years. Contrastingly, stunting and wasting are chronic in some rural areas in the larger Melanesian countries. For example, in PNG the prevalence of stunting in children under five years of is 49.5%, significantly higher than the low- and middle-income country average of 25% or the global average of 21.9% (Table 4.2). There has been an increase in poverty in the region since the 1990s (Chap. 14), and with limited safety nets and public support systems, household income is limited for making adequate food choices (Edwards 2020; SPC 2011). Analysis of trade agreements and sales of processed foods between 2004 and 2018 across various Pacific islands has shown there has been an increase in sales of imported items, such as vegetable oils and meat (Plahe et al. 2013). They note that the urbanization trends in the region lead to people having decreased available time and limited physical space, making cooking with oils over traditional cooking methods more convenient (Sievert et al. 2019). Historical analysis points towards the fundamental shifts colonialism played in transforming diets and farming systems, establishing new trade systems, intensifying commodity production, and transitioning the region from subsistence towards a system where cash was required to access food (Connell 2015; Plahe et al. 2013). The conflation of colonial legacies (Chap. 11), urbanization and poverty, and changing food import and export patterns have all impacted the current adequacy of nutritious food in the region.
The second component of adequacy relates to the sustainability of farming and fishing, and the extent to which it is adequate to support ecological and climate resilience. As discussed in more detail in Chap. 6, Pacific Islands have hugely diverse natural resources and ecosystems that are the basis of these industries. Countries like PNG, Fiji, and Solomon Islands benefit from highly fertile soils and in some instances abundant water resources (Chap. 2), while the drier islands of Tonga and Samoa, or coral based Tuvalu and Palau make farming much more difficult. Oceanic fish resources are governed by the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), with standards and regulation for deep ocean species (such as tuna) maintained along with oversight for monitoring and sustainable catch standards (Barclay and Cartwright 2007). Coordinated management is more limited in coastal fisheries, which are moving towards community based management systems to support more sustainable use of resources through inclusion of diverse knowledges (SPC 2015). In agricultural systems, there is ongoing tension between subsistence agriculture and more ‘modern’ and industrial oriented agricultural practices. The focus on international exports of cash commodities like taro, sugar, and cocoa lead towards tendencies to intensify production at the cost of marginal land. The region is dominated by small farms of under 10 hectares, and farmers tend to grow a mix of cash commodities for local markets and subsistence produce. Use of chemicals (fertilizer for enhanced growth and insecticide/fungicide for pest and disease control) has increased and has seen national policy prioritizing use in particular industries (for example sugar in Fiji); however, the high cost of these means most farmers continue to farm using more traditional low-input methods. Theoretically communities in the atolls have an opportunity to develop innovative low-cost composting and circular economy systems that help capture nutrients for the low-quality soils. Types of interventions like this already exist to support adequate sustainable farming, but up-scaling and adoption of the technologies remains a barrier.
4.2.4 Acceptability
Cultural diversity in the Pacific region fosters different perceptions of what acceptable food consumption is. Acceptability of food is heavily influenced by a combination of class and status, social practices, religion and belief systems, and specific traditions (Briones Alonso et al. 2018). For example, pigs in PNG are the most valuable livestock commodity and play an important cultural and ceremonial role. They are used to celebrate weddings, Christmas, graduations, as well as for dispute settlements and other bartering processes (Ayalew et al. 2011). This makes this source of protein acceptably consumed only in special occasions. But what is ‘acceptable’ to eat, and the way people eat has changed through time in the region. Before colonialization there was highly acceptable trading and bartering within and between countries, and food was eaten communally across households (Campbell 2015). These cultures of sharing are still very prevalent in the region, but the type of food that is consumed has shifted. There are now efforts to develop culturally appropriate and healthy diets based on local produce. For example, the Pacific Guidelines for Healthy Living provide an accessible guide to normalizing the consumption of diets that meet global health guidelines, as well as encouraging consumption of vegetables from home gardens commonly present in the region (SPC 2018). The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a resurgence in home gardening and domestic food production, and has created an opportunity to reframe the acceptability of eating local fresh food over more convenient imported foods (Davila et al. 2021).
An important factor that influences food security is the acceptability of gender roles and norms in food systems in PICTs. Gender relates to the socially constructed attribution of roles and norms to specific members of society, and is normally linked to the binary distinction between male and female roles (Barclay et al. 2018). In Pacific islands, there continues to be a strong acceptability on distinct roles of men and women in particular parts of the value chain. For example, in coastal fisheries, it is more acceptable for men to go out on boats and do the days fishing, while the women are responsible for processing and selling the caught fish and preparing any household meals from the men’s labour. Contrastingly, women play an important role in shallow water fishing and catching bivalves, crustaceans, and small pelagics, and then selling them (Barclay et al. 2018; Kronen and Vunisea 2009). These gender roles and norms throughout the region intersect with how food is prepared and accessed by families. The increase in women’s contribution, to more than just food production, can help shift the accepted framings towards ones where women are agents of change in household food security.
4.2.5 Agency
The first four pillars of food security examined in this chapter cannot be achieved without agency (Chappell 2018; HLPE 2020). Agency is the capacity of communities to shape their food systems, to make empowered decisions about what they eat and, in doing so, to realize their own food and nutrition security (Chappell 2018).
In the PICTS, agency over food choices has become disproportionately influenced by large corporations and other global actors with interests in advancing the globalization of food supply (Plahe et al. 2013; Thow et al. 2011). Trade agreements and investments have enabled these actors to affect what food consumers have access to (Campbell 2020; Sievert et al. 2019). This has eroded the sovereignty governments in PICTs have over their food systems and, as their food supply has become saturated with imported foods, the agency that individuals have to make healthy food choices (Campbell 2020; Plahe et al. 2013). In response, several Pacific governments have adopted policy measures to enable and empower their communities to choose healthy foods, such as tax exemptions on fruit and vegetable imports and endorsing national dietary guidelines (Tin et al. 2020). Policy gaps remain however, and progress is impeded by corporate pressure and weak governance. Inequities in food and nutrition security persist as certain community groups have less agency over the food system and decision-making than others (HLPE 2020). In PICTs, this includes women whose decisions around food production, marginalized urban poor citizens, and rural communities who lack access to accurate information needed to make informed choices (FAO 2019b). This results in poorer food security and nutrition outcomes for these groups and, ominously, for their children.
Despite these challenging agency conditions, there are also strong narratives of localized community agency that enable food and nutrition security. The region continues to have strong cultures of food sharing and distribution, and with the reduced market opportunities due to COVID-19 there has been a re-surgency of bartering and informal trading networks. One domain where long-term national outcomes can be attained is the area of child nutrition, which is critical for the human potential of the region. Stunting is of high concern in Melanesian countries, and the adequate feeding of infants is determined by a mix of economic, cultural, and gender factors. For example, in Vanuatu, one-in-three children under five years living in rural areas are stunted, compared with one-in-five children under five years living in urban areas (SPC 2013). Twenty-one percent of women of reproductive age have anaemia and only 29% of children in Vanuatu aged 6–23 months are fed according to recommended infant and young child feeding practices (SPC 2013). In rural areas, communities have limited access to services such as health care and education, and men tend to control decision-making at both the household and community level (FAO 2020a). Recommended policy measures to regulate corporate influence over infant and young child feeding practices have not been adopted by government (WHO 2020). However, some interventions to boost individuals’ agency over nutrition outcomes do exist (see Box 4.1).
Box 4.1 Enhancing agency for nutrition in Vanuatu
To address poor nutrition and health among children living in rural areas of Vanuatu, World Vision undertook a three-year project with 79 villages in remote South West Tanna Island (World Vision Australia 2015). At baseline, 47% of children were stunted, only 52% of infants under six months were exclusively breastfed, and only 28% of mothers reported increased food intake while pregnant. Participants had limited access to health services and limited or no understanding of dietary guidelines and the benefits of a healthy diet.
A way of boosting agency in this program was engagement of the different community members in building an understanding of child nutrition. Given known gender and power inequities, the project involved the engagement of community leaders including chiefs and pastors, and their appointment of a male and female volunteer to each participating village. Volunteers were trained in nutrition and, with the support of community leaders, undertook activities to enable men and women to better understand nutrition and health. This included providing antenatal and nutrition education to men and women in separate and combined forums, developing a cookbook of healthy local recipes, and advocating to government for improved health service access. Within its short lifespan the project achieved many significant improvements in nutrition, including increasing the rate of exclusive breastfeeding to an impressive 90%, and reducing the prevalence of stunting to 37%. Having access to accurate information and practical resources like a cookbook increased the agency project participants had to make informed decisions about what they and their children eat. By including men and community leaders in the project, women were empowered and supported to apply the knowledge they acquired at household and community level.
The case above illustrates the transformative potential of interventions that enable agency and local acceptance of different ways of meeting the nutritional needs of children. Farmer organizations are spread throughout the region and provide opportunities for landholders to have greater say in their farming decisions. The COVID-19 impacts, largely health related and economic in the Pacific due to losses from tourism, have interestingly led to a growth in country level focus on agricultural production, and government incentives have been established to enable farmers to establish more crops and home gardens as a way of improving the immediate food security of the country. Yet, while these examples of agency are good in local scale, wider structural challenges remain for genuine sovereignty in the Pacific region. A major determinant are land rights, which vary widely throughout the region and continue to be contested in some areas. A further determinant is the increased focus on export of cash commodities (sugar, cacao, etc.), which can create perverse incentives and move communities away from growing food towards growing high value commodities which are more vulnerable to changes in global markets.
4.3 Conclusion: Looking to the Future of Systems-Based Food and Nutrition Security
This chapter has outlined some of the general trends in the state of food and nutrition security of the Pacific region. The huge diversity of the PICTs makes distilling any recommendations complex, as the socio-ecological conditions of each state impact the five pillars of food security. Despite this, some major drivers of change are clear across the region and will influence food interventions into the future. The first is climate change—it undeniably creates major disruptions across food production systems, value chains, and natural resources. While the impacts will be differentiated throughout the region, they will be felt by all. This indicates urgency in adaptation strategies that are cognizant of the implications of climate change in future food security. The second is increasing levels of poverty and the triple burden of malnutrition in the region. As incomes fluctuate and imported unhealthy and convenient food remains widely available and accessible, the health crisis is unlikely to go away. Furthermore, healthy food might still be unavailable from traditional systems, for example in coral atolls which have challenging agricultural conditions for vegetable production. Much of the Pacific food system remains at the mercy of international trade agreements—ones that enable the flow of cheap and unhealthy food that other (richer) countries do not want in their domestic markets. Increasing equitable trade systems and matching poverty reduction with healthy eating strategies can help reduce health risks into the future. Third is the deeply embedded traditions and cultures that enable different types of agency throughout Pacific cultures. Language, history, song, and dance have allowed Pacific communities to retain their uniqueness, while also creating a shared identity as a region connected by ocean resources. As the international food systems community re-orients itself towards more place and locally based food systems, the Pacific is in a position to amplify traditional farming systems, water and resource management practices, and food sharing networks to increase the agency of communities in their localized food systems. Finally, the inseparable connection between land, sea, and people remains crucial to future Pacific food and nutrition security. Land is a mixed resource in the Pacific—in some places it is abundant, like in PNG, in others it is scare and disappearing, like in atoll nations. The biophysical contexts of landscapes, and the associated tenure systems, will need to be considered if healthy food is to be enabled throughout the region’s diverse geography. Similarly, the diversity of fish available will require ongoing sustainable management in light of the projected population growth and pressures on the resource. International interest and commitment to systemic approaches, such as the water, energy, and food nexus approach, that link landscapes, people, and health outcomes in a changing geopolitical and environmental context can provide important leverage for changing the status of Pacific food and nutrition security into the future.
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