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By David Brooks, Agence France-Presse
WELLINGTON: While leaders from around the world
argued about how to blunt the impact of soaring food prices in Rome
earlier this month, Pacific Islanders were wondering how they would
feed their families.
In the Northern Mariana Islands, Lili George, a
cook from the Philippines, said she was contemplating going home
after 14 years in the capital Saipan.
“Food prices had gone up by over 50 percent
recently,” she said. “I am planning to go home if things don’t
get better in the next few months.”
Janet Gogue, 31, a mother of four on the island
of Guam, says she cannot keep up with the speed of price rises.
“In the last couple of months, food prices
continue to go up and it seems like it never stops,” Gogue said.
“The last time I bought a 50-pound
(22.7-kilogram) bag of rice, it was just a little over $20,” she
said. “I went shopping yesterday and found that the same bag now
costs almost $30.”
In the Marshall Islands, government power
utility worker Ambi Amram is supporting a household of eight and
used to bring home two 20-pound (9.1-kilogram) bags of rice every
fortnight.
“Now, I can only afford one bag of rice that
has to last us two weeks,” he said.
He is supplementing meals with local foods such
as breadfruit but in the crowded capital Majuro, there is hardly any
spare space for people to grow their own food.
Local agriculture has dwindled on most Pacific
islands in the face of cheap food imports.
But imports are no longer cheap thanks to the
double whammy of much higher commodity prices—especially for the
islands’ staple of rice—and soaring fuel costs.
The New Caledonia-based regional organization,
the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), told the world food
summit in Rome that urban poor in the Pacific Islands are the worst
affected.
Many remote communities still largely rely on
subsistence agriculture, growing their own crops and fishing. But
rapid population increases has led to the growth of sprawling towns
throughout the region.
“In Fiji, for example the poorest 10 percent
of the population spend between 50 percent to 65 percent of their
income on food whereas the richest 10 percent spend less than 20
percent on food,” the SPC said.
More poverty feared
A study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB)
released last month found that recent increases in world food prices
could push another five percent of low-income families in the
Pacific into poverty this year.
The leader of the study, ADB economist Craig
Sugden, said the number of people who will be badly hurt will depend
on the response of regional governments. But he warned it could be
in the tens of thousands.
“A lot of people are going to suffer. They may
go very hungry and face having a very poor diet,” he said.
In Fiji, the military government has removed
duties on basic food imports to reduce the impact of higher food
costs.
From this month, duty has been removed on white
and brown rice, tinned fish and cooking oil, and taxes have been
removed from local eggs.
The country’s military leader Voreqe
Bainimarama has also appealed to Fijians to grow more of their own
food.
“The only sustainable solution to combating
rising food prices is to grow more of our own produce,” he said.
Agriculture has been neglected in recent decades
in the region and will take years to rebuild. For those who live on
coral atolls, where soils are thin or non-existent and water often
in short supply, the options are limited.
Most islands can grow at least some root crops
such as taro, however, and they may have to wean themselves off once
cheap imported rice.
“For too long our children have been fed on
rice as staple food because of the convenience of preparation and
storage,” President Manny Mori of the Federated States of
Micronesia said recently.
“We have neglected our responsibility and even
contributed to their lower health standards by failing to teach them
to appreciate the natural food and bounty of our islands.”
Cheap imported foods have been blamed for
spiraling rates of obesity in the Pacific Islands, so a return to
local traditional foods would also play an important part in
improving the health of islanders.
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