A group of south Pacific islands are banning foreign junk food imports in favour of an all-local, organic diet as a way to combat future health problems.
Torba province, part of Vanuatu, aims to impose restrictions on the import of western foodstuffs and instead take advantage of its productive agricultural land and rich natural resources.
Located in the northern part of Vanuatu, Toba is often described as the “forgotten province” and the majority of its 10,000 people are subsistence farmers.
Father Luc Dini, a community leader and head of the local tourism council, said a ban on foreign food imports would improve the health and wellbeing of islanders.
“At the moment we have an infiltration of junk food from overseas,” he said.
“It is easy to boil noodles or rice, but they have almost no nutritional value and there is no need to eat imported food when we have so much local food grown organically on our islands.”
Dini said his province had an abundance of locally grown or sourced food to sustain its population including fish, crabs, shellfish, taro, yams, paw paw and pineapple.
The most popular imported foods consumed in Torba were rice, sweets, tinned fish and biscuits, he said.
“We are Vanuatu’s most isolated province and so far our health has stayed pretty good because of that, but we want to continue to be healthy,” he said.
“In other provinces that have adopted western diets you see pretty young girls but when they smile they have rotten teeth, because the sugar has broken down their teeth. We don’t want that to happen here and we don’t want to develop the illnesses that come with a western junk food diet.”
Beginning this week and with the backing of local chiefs Dini has ordered tourism bungalows to serve guests only locally grown, organic food, with a plan to introduce legislation within the next two years banning the importation of all foreign food. Torba aims to be Vanuatu’s first organic province by the year 2020.
Dini said the central government in Port Vila was supportive of his plan and keen to observe how the ban would be tolerated by locals and visitors.
Whether to include alcohol imports was yet to be decided but there were a number of local kava bars that may be able to meet that demand.
“If you really want to live on a paradise of your own, then you should make do with what you have and try and live with nature,” he said.
Graham
7 comments:
Smart people. Nothing ruins paradise faster than people moving in and bringing Hell with them.
Amazing! Probably, western tourist would appreciate such change as exotic one. Nice find!
If they have enough food for all, then why not.
I hope it works!
Excellent!!!
This reminds me of a book I read a couple of years ago: One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding. Set on a pacific island where the natives eat what grows around them and are all healthy and happy, until near the end of the book, when the main character returns to the island to find western culture has taken over and the natives are all overweight from western easy foods and spending much of their time watching television.
Sad. That book is what turned me away from a weekly MacDonalds dinner.
Good for them they will be saving the island in the long run!
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