Abstract
Food security in the Pacific, especially in Micronesia, has worsened in the past half century. Agriculture, fishing and local food production have declined, except in the most remote islands, especially in peri-urban environments. Diets have incorporated more processed and imported foods, because of prestige, accessibility, cost and convenience, at financial, social, environmental and nutritional cost to countries and households. Non-communicable diseases have grown rapidly throughout Micronesia. Household expenditure is dominated by imported foods, especially rice. Food security requires more adequate market access, but national resource bases are limited, and government intervention and policy formation are both weak and exhibit urban bias in unusually fragmented states. Climate change is likely to further hamper local food production. Household has negotiated multiple livelihoods across international boundaries with national and household incomes boosted by remittances, which may become a distinctive key to achieving improved health and nutritional status.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexeyeff K (2008) Neoliberalism, Mobility and Cook Islands Men in Transit. Aust J Anthropol 19:136–149
Alkire W (1978) Coral Islanders. AHM Press, Arlington Heights
Anderson I, Sanburg A, Aru H, Tarivonda L et al. (2013) The costs and affordability of drug treatments for type 2 diabetes and hypertension in Vanuatu, Pac Health Dialog, 19:1–21
Aswani S (2002) Assessing the effects of changing demographic and consumption patterns on sea tenure regimes in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. Ambio 31:272–284
Aswani S, Vaccaro I (2008) Lagoon ecology and social strategies: habitat diversity and ethnobiology. Hum Ecol 36:325–341
Barnett J (2011) Dangerous climate change in the Pacific Islands: food production and food security. Reg Environ Change 11:S229–S237
Bates M, Abbott D (1958) Coral Island: portrait of an atoll. Scribners, New York
Bayliss-Smith TP (1975) The central polynesian outlier populations since European contact. In: Carroll V (ed) Pacific atoll populations. University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu, pp 286–343
Bayliss-Smith T, Gough K, Christensen A, Kristensen S (2010) Managing Ontong Java: social institutions for production and governance of atoll resources in Solomon Islands. Singap J Trop Geogr 31:55–69
Bell J, Kronen M, Vunisea A, Nash W, Keeble G, Demmke A, Pontifex S, Andréfouët S (2009) Planning the use of fish for food security in the Pacific. Mar Policy 33:64–76
Bertram G, Watters RF (1985) The MIRAB economy in South Pacific microstates. Pac Viewp 26:497–520
Birch-Thomsen T, Reenberg A, Mertz O, Fog B (2010) Continuity and change: spatiotemporal land use dynamics on Bellona Island, Solomon Islands. Singap J Trop Geogr 31:27–40
Birk T, Rasmussen K (2014) Migration from atolls as climate change adaptation: current practices, barriers and options in Solomon Islands. Nat Resour Forum 38:1–13
Brewis A (1996) Lives on the line: women and ecology on a Pacific atoll. Harcourt Brace, Fort Worth
Caillon S, Degeorges P (2007) Biodiversity: negotiating the border between nature and culture. Biodivers Conserv 16:2919–2931
Cassels S (2006) Overweight in the Pacific: links between foreign dependence, global food trade and obesity in the Federated States of Micronesia. Globalization Health 2:10
Chambers K, Chambers A (2001) Unity of Heart: culture and change in a Polynesian atoll society. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights
Chazine J-M (2005) Of atolls and gardens. In: Tcherkézoff S, Doauire-Marsaudon F (eds) The changing South Pacific: identities and transformations. Pandanus Books, Canberra, pp 207–229
Christensen P (1995) Infant nutrition and child health on Tarawa, Kiribati. A Nutritional anthropological approach, UNSW Centre for South Pacific Studies Monograph No. 14, Sydney
Christensen A (2011) Marine gold and atoll livelihoods: the rise and fall of the bêche-de-mer trade on Ontong Java, Solomon Islands. Nat Resour Forum 35:9–20
Clarke WC, Thaman RR (1997) Incremental agroforestry: enriching Pacific landscapes. Contemp Pac 9:121–148
Connell J (1991) The new Micronesia: pitfalls and problems of dependent development. Pac Stud 14:87–120
Connell J (1994) Beyond the reef: migration and agriculture in Micronesia. Isla 2:83–101
Connell J (2003) Regulation of space in the contemporary postcolonial Pacific city: Port Moresby and Suva. Asia Pac Viewp 44:243–258
Connell J (2008) Niue: embracing a culture of migration. J Ethn Migr Stud 34:1021–1040
Connell J (2011) Elephants in the Pacific? Pacific urbanisation and its discontents. Asia Pac Viewp 52:121–135
Connell J (2013) Islands at risk. Environments, economies and contemporary Change. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham
Connell J (2015) Vulnerable Islands: climate change, tectonic change and changing livelihoods in the Western Pacific, The Contemporary Pacific (in press)
Connell J, Brown R (2005) Remittances in the Pacific: an overview. ADB, Manila
Corsi A, Englberger L, Flores R, Lorens A, Fitzgerald M (2008) A participatory assessment of changing dietary patterns and food behavior in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr 17(2):309–316
Davenport W (1969) Social organization notes on the northern Santa Cruz Islands: the main Reef Islands. Baessler-Archiv 17:151–242
Davenport W (1972) Social organization notes on the northern Santa Cruz Islands: the outer Reef Islands. Baessler-Archiv 20:11–95
DeMers A, Kahui V (2012) An overview of Fiji’s fisheries development. Mar Policy 36:174–179
Denman V, Dewey K (1989) Food self-sufficiency in Micronesia: effects of a nutrition assistance programme on food consumption. Food Policy 14:330–346
Dixon J, Jamieson C (2005) The cross-Pacific chicken: tourism, migration and chicken consumption in the Cook Islands. In: Folds N, Pritchard B (eds) Cross-continental Food Chains. Routledge, London, pp 81–93
Donner W (2002) Rice and tea, fish and taro: Sikaiana migration to Honiara. Pac Stud 25:23–44
Englberger L, Marks G, Fitzgerald M (2003) Insights on food and nutrition in the Federated States of Micronesia: a review of the literature. Public Health Nutr 6(1):5–17
Errington F, Fujikura T, Gewertz, D (2013) The Noodle Narratives. University of California Press, Berkeley
Estimé M, Lutz B, Strobel F (2014) Trade as a structural driver of dietary risk factors for noncommunicable diseases in the Pacific: an analysis of household income and expenditure survey data. Globalization Health 10(1):48
Evans M, Sinclair R, Fusimalohi C, Liava’a V (2001) Globalization, diet and health: an example from Tonga. Bull WHO 79:856–862
FAO (2008) Climate change and food security in Pacific Island countries. FAO, Rome
Feinberg R (1986) Market economy and changing sex-roles on a Polynesian atoll. Ethnology 25:271–282
Finney B (1967) Money work, fast money and prize money: aspects of the Tahitian labor commitment. Hum Organ 26:195–199
Flinn J (1988) Tradition in the face of change: food choices among pulapese in Truk state. Food Foodways 3:19–39
Foster R (2008) Coca-Globalization: following soft drinks from New York to New Guinea. Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Friberg E, Schaefer K, Holen L (2006) US economic assistance to two Micronesian nations: aid impact, dependency and migration. Asia Pac Viewp 47:123–133
Furusawa T, Ohtsuka R (2009) The role of barrier islands in subsistence of the inhabitants of Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. Hum Ecol 37:629–642
Gaillard C, Manner H (2010) Yam cultivation on the east coast of New Caledonia: adaptation of agriculture to social and economic changes. Aust Geogr 41:485–506
Gewertz D, Errington F (2010) Cheap meat: flap food nations in the Pacific Islands. University of California Press, Berkeley
Gillett R, Cartwright I (2010) The future of Pacific Island fisheries. SPC and Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, Noumea and Honiara
Grynberg R (2010) The trade and health debate. Isl Bus 36(9):34–35
Hawkes C (2006) Uneven dietary development: linking the policies and processes of globalization with the nutrition transition, obesity and diet-related chronic diseases. Globalization Health 2:4
Hezel F (2006) Is that the best you can do? A tale of two Micronesian economies, East-West Center Pacific Islands policy Paper No 1, Honolulu
Hooper A, Huntsman J (1973) A demographic history of the Tokelau islands. J Polyn Soc 82:366–411
Houk P, Rhodes K, Cuetos-Bueno J, Lindfield S et al (2012) Commercial coral-reef fisheries across Micronesia: a need for improving management. Coral Reefs 31:13–26
Inaoka T, Matsumura Y, Suda K (2007) Tongan obesity: causes and consequences. In: Ohtsuka R, Ulijaszek S (eds) Health change in the Asia-Pacific Region. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 127–146
Johannes R (2002) The renaissance of community based marine resource management in Oceania. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 33:317–331
Kirch PV (1986) Exchange systems and inter-island contact in the transformation of an island society: the Tikopia case. In: Kirch Patrick V (ed) Island societies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 33–41
Kiste R (1968) Kili Island: a study of the relocation of the Ex-Bikini Marshallese. Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene
Kronen M, Vunisea A, Magron F, McArdle B (2010) Socio-economic drivers and indicators for artisanal coastal fisheries in Pacific island countries and territories and their use for fisheries management strategies. Mar Policy 34:1135–1143
Kuhlken R (2007) Agricultural landscapes of Kadavu. Persistence and change on the Fijian periphery. In: Connell J, Waddell E (eds) Environment, development and change in rural Asia-Pacific. Routledge, London, pp 56–75
Lawrence R (1977) Tamana, ANU Development Studies Centre. Atoll economy social change in Kiribati and Tuvalu. Report No. 4, Canberra
Lawrence R (1992) Tamana fifteen years on: a survey of changes in the Household Economy since 1974, Department of Geography. Victoria University of Auckland, Wellington
Lewis D (1988) Gustatory subversion and the evolution of nutritional dependence in Kiribati. Food Foodways 3:79–98
Lieber M (1994) More than a Living: fishing and the social order on a Polynesian atoll. Westview, Boulder
Marshall M (1979) Weekend warriors: alcohol in a Micronesian culture. Mayfield, Palo Alto
Marshall M (2004a) Namoluk beyond the reef: the transformation of a Micronesian community. Westview, Boulder
McInnes L, Connell J (1988) The world system in a Fijian store. South Pac Forum 4:116–121
McMurray C, Smith R (2001) Diseases of globalization: socioeconomic transitions and health. Earthscan, London
Mertz O, Bruun TB, Fog B, Rasmussen K, Agergaard J (2010) Sustainable land use in Tikopia: food production and consumption in an isolated agricultural system. Singap J Trop Geogr 31:10–26
Marshall M (2004b) Market highs: alcohol, drugs, and the global economy in Oceania. In: Lockwood V (ed) Globalization and culture change in the Pacific Islands. Pearson, New Jersey, pp 200–221
Moodie R, Stuckler D, Monteiro C, Sheron N (2013) Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink industries. Lancet 381:670–679
Moseby K, Labere J, Read J (2012) Landowner surveys inform protected area management: a case study from Tetepare Island, Solomon Islands. Hum Ecol 40:227–235
Murai M (1954) Nutrition study in Micronesia, Atoll Research Bulletin No. 27
Nason J (1975) The effects of social change on marine technology in a Pacific atoll community. In: Casteel R, Quimby G (eds) Maritime adaptations of the Pacific. Mouton, The Hague, pp 5–38
Oles B (2007a) Access and alienation: the promise and threat of stewardship on Mokil atoll. Hum Organ 66:78–89
Oles B (2007b) Transformations in the sociocultural values and meanings of reefs and resources on Mwoakilloa. Coral Reefs 26:971–981
Pam C, Henry R (2012) Risky places. Climate change discourse and the transformation of place on Moch (Federated States of Micronesia). Shima 6:30–46
Petersen G (2009) Traditional micronesian societies: adaptation, integration, and political organization. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu
Peterson A, Stead S (2011) Rule breaking and livelihood options in marine protected areas. Environ Conserv 38:342–352
Plahe J, Hawkes S, Ponnamperuma S (2013) The corporate food regime and food sovereignty in the Pacific Islands. Contemp Pac 25:309–338
Pollock N (1992) These roots remain. Food habits in islands of the central and eastern Pacific since western contact, Institute for Polynesian Studies, Honolulu
Pollock N (1996) Namu atoll revisited: a follow-up study of 25 years of resource use. Atoll Res Bull 441:1–11
Rao M, Afshin A, Singh G, Mozaffarin D (2013) Do healthier foods and diet patterns cost more than less healthy options? A systematic review and meta-analysis, British Med J, 3
Rhodes K, Warren-Rhodes K, Houk P, Cuetos-Bueno J and Fong Q (2011) An interdisciplinary study of market forces and nearshore fisheries management in Micronesia. Asia pacific conservation region marine program Report No. 6/11, Nature Conservancy
Rodman M (1987) Constraining Capitalism? Contradictions of Self-Reliance in Vanuatu Fisheries Development. Am Ethnol 14:712–726
Ruddle K (1998) The context of policy design for existing community-based fisheries management systems in the Pacific islands. Ocean Coast Manag 40:105–126
Rudiak-Gould P (2009) Surviving paradise, one year on a disappearing island. Sterling, New York
Rudiak-Gould P (2013) Climate change and tradition in a small island state. The Rising Tide, Routledge, London
Scourse A, Wilkins C (2009) Impacts of modernisation on traditional food resource management and food security on Eauripik atoll, Federated States of Micronesia. Food Secur 1:169–176
Seiden A, Hawley N, Schulz D, Raifman S, McGarvey S (2012) Long-term trends in food availability, Food prices and obesity in Samoa. Am J Hum Biol 24:286–295
Snowdon W, Thow AM (2013) Trade policy and obesity prevention: challenges and innovation in the Pacific Islands, Obesity Reviews, 14 (Suppl. 2), 150–158
SPC (2010) Towards a food secure Pacific. SPC, Noumea
SPC (2011) Food security in the pacific and east timor and its vulnerability to climate change. SPC, Noumea
Thaman R (1982) Deterioration of traditional food systems, increasing food dependency and malnutrition in the Pacific Islands. J Food Nutr 39:109–121
Thaman R, Puia T, Wilson T, Namona A, Fong T (2010) Marine biodiversity and ethnobiodiversity of Bellona (Mungiki) Island, Solomon Islands. Singap J Trop Geogr 31:70–84
Thow A, Swinburn B, Colagiuri S, Diligolevu M, Quested S, Vivili P, Leeder S (2010) Trade and food policy: case studies from three Pacific Island countries. Food Policy 35:556–564
Turner R, Cakacaka A, Graham N, Polunin N, Pratchett M, Stead S, Wilson S (2007) Declining reliance on marine resources in remote South Pacific societies: ecological versus socio-economic drivers. Coral Reefs 26:997–1008
Veiteyaki J (1997) Traditional marine resource management practices used in the Pacific Islands: an agenda for change. Ocean Coast Manag 30:123–136
Ward RG (1959) The banana industry in Western Samoa. Econ Geogr 3:123–137
Ward RG (1982) The effects of scale on social and economic organisation. In: May R, Nelson H (eds) Melanesia, beyond diversity. ANU Research School of Pacific Studies, Canberra, pp 181–191
Wilkinson C, Salvat B (2012) Coastal resource degradation in the tropics: does the tragedy of the commons apply for coral reefs, mangrove forests and seagrass beds. Mar Pollut Bull 64:1096–1105
Winthorpe M (2004) Words from Whitesands: reef management in Tanna, Vanuatu, Unpublished B.Sc. Hons thesis, University of Sydney
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Connell, J. Food security in the island Pacific: Is Micronesia as far away as ever?. Reg Environ Change 15, 1299–1311 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-014-0696-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-014-0696-7