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A green field of shiny taro plants with one big plant in the left foreground
During the first few months of the pandemic, a strong community obligation in rural Pacific island communities meant locally produced foods were traded and shared, even with urbanites moving to rural homes. Photo by David Fleetham/Alamy Stock Photo

How Pacific Islanders Fared Under Lockdown

Local food systems served up resilience for rural Pacific island communities during the pandemic.

Authored by

by Monica Evans

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In Solodamu, a village on the craggy northern coastline of Fiji’s densely forested, sparsely populated Kadavu Island, Suliasi Lau looks back at the COVID-19 lockdown of early 2020 with a note of nostalgia. “It was a beautiful time,” he says. “We couldn’t go to the shops because of the pandemic, but we could go fishing for free. We had a huge supply of greens like taro leaves, bele, and lettuces, and there were plenty of root crops—taro, yams, and cassava.”

Market closures and travel restrictions meant Solodamu residents couldn’t raise cash by regular means such as selling produce in neighboring towns, or kava root in the capital city of Suva. But there were fewer financial obligations, too: churches and schools dropped their calls for donations, while weddings were cancelled and funerals kept to small numbers. With time on his hands, Lau tried out new crops, which he swapped and shared with other villagers. Strong communal obligations ensured no one went hungry. “It was the first time for me to plant cabbages, eggplants, and purple onions,” he says. “We grew tomatoes and watermelons, too: all of these things we had more than sufficient.”

Lau’s experience is echoed in a new study, which shows that most rural Pacific communities had high levels of food security in the first few months of the pandemic. The scientists behind the study found that countries with a food supply more reliant on imported food, such as Tuvalu, were nearly twice as likely to report food insecurity than those countries least reliant on imported food, such as Fiji and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). In those countries, traditional practices such as local food production and food sharing were key to their adaptability and resilience.

The researchers, who hail from a range of academic and community organizations, interviewed 609 people from 199 coastal villages from FSM, Fiji, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu. As well as conducting the local surveys, they also conducted a nationwide survey in Palau.

The scientists conducted the interviews between May and October 2020. While there were few COVID-19 cases in the region at the time, lockdowns and border closures caused major job losses. Particularly hard hit was the tourism sector, upon which many Pacific island economies are disproportionately reliant. As in other countries, people moved out of urban areas—many, in this case, to their ancestral villages. Traditional practices helped facilitate the transition from urban to rural living.

Teri Tuxon, one of the study’s coauthors and an assistant coordinator for the Locally-Managed Marine Area Network, an international NGO, says that “initially, we thought there might be an increase in fishing pressure as a result. But we didn’t find that at all: instead, there was a lot more agriculture taking place.”

In Fiji, people collectively established and expanded community gardens, which many urban returnees relied on before their own plantings were ready for harvest. In Tuvalu, people turned to traditional food preservation techniques to ensure food availability.

With people out of work, cash flows stalled, and supply chains stymied, bartering was revived and amplified in many countries, sometimes with an updated twist. The Facebook group Barter for Better Fiji, for instance, was founded in May 2020 and within a week had over 90,000 members.

“We saw these kinds of cultural values and practices becoming much stronger over this time,” says Viliamu Iese, an expert in climate change, food security, and disaster risk management at Fiji’s University of the South Pacific, who was not involved in the study.

While countries with higher local food production were more resilient in the face of the pandemic, this finding did come with a key caveat.

As the pandemic stretched on, some countries faced other disasters, such as tropical cyclones. These overlapping emergencies significantly impaired rural communities’ ability to provide for themselves. “If you’re battling a couple of crises at once, that’s where the access to imported items becomes important,” says Tuxon. “You don’t want to be overconnected [to the global food system]—but you also don’t want to be underconnected.”

The study emphasizes the need for policy in Pacific island nations to support existing local food production practices, while being able to supplement with imported foods when required. “The point is not to change too much,” says Tuxon. “There’s a lot of management for resilience that’s been going on in villages for generations. So when the government comes in, it’s important to remember that things are already working in a certain way—and working pretty well.”

Given the novelty of the current situation, however, Tuxon acknowledges that new knowledge and practices are also required.

Iese is also keen to point out another key element that was not addressed in the study. Many of the interventions meant to help food-insecure people overlooked an important factor: dietary diversity.

“The [Fijian] government and NGOs responded to COVID-19 in the way they would react in a cyclone: distributing root crops like sweet potato and taro,” Iese says. In a shorter-term crisis like a tropical cyclone that’s a fine strategy. But in an ongoing situation like the pandemic, during which many people did not have access to protein, the public health impacts could be significant. While some people have the skill and gear to fish, own livestock, or have cash to buy imported foods like tuna and corned beef, many do not. 

Back in Solodamu, however, Lau says he’s eating better than ever—and enjoying a newfound sense of pride in his homeland and lifestyle. 

“Before [the pandemic], people with white-collar jobs looked down on us,” Lau says. “Now, when we say we come from the village, they respect us more. We feel that it’ll be okay for us if something like this happens again—as long as we’re here in the village.”