Restoring Traditional Food Culture for Better Food Security in the Pacific
By Andrew F. Hetzel
Traditional foods of the Pacific are vanishing, leading to disastrous but preventable public health consequences for indigenous populations. The region suffers from the highest rates of obesity in the world, while paradoxically also facing a double burden of chronic malnutrition. This has caused noncommunicable disease[1] (NCD) rates approaching epidemic proportions among Pacific islander communities.
Pacific island nations rank high for prevalence of type two diabetes; between 50 to 150% above global averages, with up to 40% of the population afflicted in some countries. Men and women ages 30-70 have a higher probability of dying prematurely from NCDs in the Pacific than in any other region[2]. Concurrently, malnutrition is on the rise. From 2005 to 2017, undernourishment in the Pacific increased from 5.5 to 7%. Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea have the world’s highest rates of juvenile malnutrition, affecting nearly half of all children under five. FAO cites a lack of food diversity and increased childhood exposure to “cheap and convenient unhealthy processed foods rich in salt, sugar and fat but poor in essential nutrients” as primary contributing factors. Ironically, trade and aid policies put in place to improve food security may have created these conditions.
Free trade globalization and food aid are market forces that favour large-scale agricultural efficiency at the expense of community farming. Most Pacific nations have a negative or highly negative food trade imbalance. As economies develop, they see a “steady increase in demand for packaged foods (such as canned meats, instant noodles, cereals, rice and sugar-sweetened beverages)” that replace traditional foods. Sugar and carbohydrate cravings are triggered by the same reward mechanism of the brain shared by addictive substances, making processed imports difficult to displace once adopted. Traditional food systems are unable to compete with the market distortions caused by appealing packaged imports and low-cost surplus commodities, so they often fail. In the absence of sustainable domestic agriculture, nations become further dependent on foreign suppliers (trade or aid).
Food security as a concept is not, however, strictly an economic issue. Fischler articulates the importance of food from a sociocultural perspective, noting that “Food is central to our identity.” In 2006, a Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition Foundation study concluded, “The food system contains and transports the culture, traditions and identity of a group. …it keeps alive the tie with our culture of origin in a tangible way.” With the loss of domestic market systems, so go the foods that play an important sociocultural role binding community.
Two inventive new food programs in the Pacific are fighting the public health crisis by addressing both informational and sociocultural barriers. Despite a similar holistic approach, each takes a different path to achieve results.
The Timor-Leste Food Innovators Exchange (TLFIX) uses storytelling, pride, and confidence to reintroduce foods that have been forgotten. During hundreds of years of Portuguese colonial rule, the national diet changed from corn and tubers to bread. Another two decades of Indonesian occupation later, rice became a centrepiece of every meal. Timorese dishes were “looked down on as ‘poor people’s food.’ ‘If you came to Timor, you could eat at 150 restaurants and never find it on a menu’”.
Recognizing an opportunity to alleviate malnutrition on a larger scale, chef Alva Lim and partner Mark Notaras created TLFIX from experience gained operating a social enterprise restaurant in Dili. The project was funded as a pilot program by innovationXchange, supported by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
At its onset, a team of local project researchers and storytelling facilitators collaborated with a rural community to explore and document traditional food ingredients, preparations, and stories. Timor-Leste has a rich oral tradition of myths, legends, and folklore used as a primary means of preserving Timorese culture. Storytelling activities were therefore organized around food, inviting elders to share knowledge with the younger generation as a powerful educational tool.
Lim and Notaras next mobilized their young Timorese restaurant staff to apply lessons learned and adapt traditional foods for modern practicality while remaining true to their origins. The cooks shared their creations back with the community. Results were encouraging: not only did all participants have an opportunity to explore food traditions, but had an opportunity to see Timorese food as source of cultural pride for the first time. Lim and Notaras hope to expand the program, increasing the lexicon of regional food variation and prominence of local foods in Timor-Leste.
The Pacific Island Food Revolution (PIFR) takes a different approach, turning the issue of health education into a television reality cooking competition that glamorizes Pacific cuisine, making it a more desirable option than imported foreign food in addition to being healthier. Like TLFIX, PIFR is a project of innovationXchange, created with support from DFAT and the New Zealand government. Season one puts twelve teams of two contestants from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu in competition to solve cooking challenges modelled on regional issues like diabetes, malnutrition, and sustainable farming.
Chef Robert Oliver is the show’s creator, drawing from his unique life experiences. Born in New Zealand, Oliver grew up in Fiji and Samoa. He went on to become a prominent international chef of the farm-to-table movement, author, and celebrity judge for cooking reality show My Kitchen Rules in New Zealand. Key to his formula are influential co-hosts who lead each episode, including HRH Princess Pilolevu Tuita of Tonga, charismatic contestants, Pacific humour, and international-quality production value.
The result is “an educational platform using the power of reality television and social media to create a movement that positively impacts health.” The show has filmed two seasons, the first of which aired during prime time viewing hours across the Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand. The second season will be released in 2020.
Lim and Notaras met Oliver at their Dili restaurant in January 2019 for a special occasion. Together, they hosted a dinner featuring Timorese dishes from TLFIX for the country’s prime minister.
[1] Including cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and type two diabetes
[2] Probability of premature death from NCDs by country: Micronesia, 26%; Fiji, 31%; Kiribati, 28%; Papua New Guinea, 36% (world’s highest); Samoa, 22%; Solomon Islands, 26%; Tonga, 24%; Vanuatu, 22%. For reference: Australia, 9%; New Zealand 10%.
Andrew Hetzel is a coffee and specialty crop value chain development expert with two decades experience in more than fifty countries. He has managed or held specialist roles advising on agriculture policy and market access for smallholder farmers and cooperatives in Asia and the Pacific (India, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste), East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania), South America (Brazil, Ecuador), and the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Yemen). As a consultant to private industry, he has provided training and business consultancy services for commodities importing/trading and coffee roasting companies worldwide. Prior to starting his work in agriculture in 2000, he founded and sold a technology company that pioneered retail point-of-purchase video advertising in the 1990s.