Investigating the Connections Between Food Choices and Climate Change Mitigation in Fijian Households
Abstract
Climate change negatively impacts Indigenous people’s food sovereignty. The choices communities make to manifest that sovereignty fluctuate in response to environmental conditions and access to resources. To investigate how communities in coastal Indigenous Fijian (iTaukei) villages balance risks related to food production and food access we conducted 71 interviews in three coastal communities across Fiji. We asked which foods were purchased from nearby towns, which foods were grown or harvested locally, and how different spatial locations and climatic factors affected food choices. Geography, weather patterns, and extreme events influence food production, while village remoteness influences food access. These factors also affect risk exposure mitigation in iTaukei communities. Our cluster analysis comparing food items in town and village groups showed there was little overlap between community-grown and purchased foods for each village. However, there was a higher degree of variation within the community-grown foods. Purchased food and frequency of travel were consistent among all locations regardless of distance or cost of travel, suggesting that items from towns were relatively inelastic to travel costs. We find that coastal iTaukei communities are splitting risks by maintaining two complementary food systems, providing the ability to alternate between purchased and community-grown foods to adjust for varying risk levels. While grounded in Fiji, this work speaks to broader conversations about barriers to Indigenous food sovereignty.
References
Chand, S. 2015. The Political Economy of Fiji: Past, Present, and Prospects. The Round Table 104:199–208.
Cinner, J. E., T. R. McClanahan, N. A. J. Graham, T. M. Daw, J. Maina, S. M. Stead, A. Wamukota, K. Brown, and Ö. Bodin. 2012. Vulnerability of Coastal Communities to Key Impacts of Climate Change on Coral Reef Fisheries. Global Environmental Change 22:12–20. DOI:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.09.018.
Clark, G., and A. Anderson. 2001. The Pattern of Lapita Settlement in Fiji. Archaeology in Oceania 36:77–88.
Corlett, R. T. 2011. Impacts of Warming on Tropical Lowland Rainforests. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26:606–613. DOI:10.1016/j.tree.2011.06.015.
De Keyzer, W., T. Bracke, S. A. McNaughton, W. Parnell, A. J. Moshfegh, R. A. Pereira, H. Lee, P. Van’t Veer, S. De Henauw, and I. Huybrechts. 2015. Cross-continental Comparison of National Food Consumption Survey Methods—a narrative review. Nutrients 7:3587–3620.
Fache, E., and A. Breckwoldt. 2024. Women’s Active Engagement with the Sea Through Fishing in Fiji. Anthropological Forum 34:186–208. DOI:10.1080/00664677.2023.2258452.
Ferguson, C. E., K. M. Green, and S. S. Swanson. 2022. Indigenous Food Sovereignty is Constrained by “Time Imperialism.” Geoforum 133:20–31. DOI:10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.05.003.
Ferguson, C. E., T. Tuxson, S. Mangubhai, S. Jupiter, H. Govan, V. Bonito, S. Alefaio, M. Anjiga, J. Booth, T. Boslogo, D. Boso, A. Brenier, A. Caginitoba, A. Ciriyawa, J. B. Fahai’ono, M. Fox, A. George, H. Eriksson, A. Hughes, E. Joseph, S. Kadannged, E. Kubunavanua, S. Loni, S. Meo, F. Micheli, E. Nagombi, R. Omaro, A. Ride, A. Sapul, A. Singeo, K. Stone, M. Tabunakawai-Vakalalabure, M. Tuivuna, C. Vieux, V. B. Vitukawalu, and M. Waide. Local Practices and Production Confer Resilience to Rural Pacific Food Systems During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Marine Policy 137:104954. DOI:10.1016/j.marpol.2022.104954.
García-Quijano, C.G., H Lloréns, D. C. Griffith, M. Del Pozo, and J. J. Poggie. 2023. Coastal Forest Fisheries, Estuarine Livelihoods, and Human Well-being in Southern Puerto Rico. Human Ecology 51:861–876. DOI:10.1007/s10745-023-00449-2.
Golden, A. S., W. Naisilsisili, I. Ligairi, and J. A. Drew. 2014. Combining Natural History Collections with Fisher Knowledge for Community-based Conservation in Fiji. PLoS One 9:e101407. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0098036.
Government of Fiji. 2019. National Adaptation Plan: A Pathway Towards Climate Resilience. Available at: https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/NAPC/Documents/Parties/National%20Adaptation%20Plan_Fiji.pdf. Accessed on December 4, 2024.
Government of Fiji. 2021. Horizon 2030: Fiji’s Pathway to Sustainable Food Systems. https://www.unfoodsystemshub.org/docs/unfoodsystemslibraries/national-pathways/fiji.
Gregory, P. J., J. S. I. Ingram, and M. Brklacich. 2005. Climate Change and Food Security. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 360:2139–2148. DOI:10.1098/rstb.2005.1745.
Gupta, C. 2018. Return to Freedom: Anti-GMO Aloha ‘Āina Activism on Molokai as an Expression of Place-based Food Sovereignty. The Politics of Food Sovereignty 12:1–16. DOI:10.1080/14747731.2014.957586.
Hernández-Delgado, E. A., P. Alejandro-Camis, G. Cabrera-Beauchamp, J. S. Fonseca-Miranda, N. X. Gómez-Andújar, P. Gómez, R. Guzmán-Rodríguez, I. Olivo-Maldonado, and S. E. Suleimán-Ramos. 2024. Stronger Hurricanes and Climate Change in the Caribbean Sea: Threats to the Sustainability of Endangered Coral Species. Sustainability 16(1506). DOI:10.3390/su16041506.
Leweniqila, I, and S. Vunibola. 2020. Food Security in COVID‐19: Insights from Indigenous Fijian Communities. Oceania 90:81–88. DOI:10.1002/ocea.5270.
Mbow, C., C. Rosenzweig, L.G. Barioni, T. G. Benton, M. Herrero, M. Krishnapillai, E. Liwenga, P. Pradhan, M. G. Rivera-Ferre, T. Sapkota, F. N. Tubiello, and Y. Xu. 2019. Food Security. In Climate Change and Land: an IPCC Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems, edited by N. Benkeblia, A. Challinor, A. Khan, and J. R. Porter, pp. 439-520. IPCC, Geneva.
McKenzie, B. L., G. Waqa, A. C. Hart, A. M. Silatolu, A. Palagyi, R. Norton, R. McLean, and J. Webster. 2022. Gender roles, Generational Changes and Environmental Challenges: an Intersectional Interpretation of Perceptions on Healthy Diets Among iTaukei Women and Men in Fiji. Public Health Nutrition 25:3146–3157.
McMichael, C., M. Yee, G. Cornish, CSIRO, A. Lutu, and K. E. McNamara. 2024. Adaptive Capacity in Pacific Islands: Responding to Coastal and Climatic Change in Nagigi Village, Fiji. Available at: https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/7800. Accessed on December 9, 2024.
Meier, E., S. Crimp, S. N. Lisson, and J. Hargreaves. 2017. Adaptation Options for Cassava Production Under Different Climate Futures for Fiji. Paper Presented at the 50th Conference of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Brisbane, Australia. Available at: https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/publications/adaptation-options-for-cassava-production-under-different-climate. Accessed on December 4, 2024.
Mueller, N. G., and A. Flachs. 2022. Domestication, Crop Breeding, and Genetic Modification are Fundamentally Different Processes: Implications for Seed Sovereignty and Agrobiodiversity. Agriculture and Human Values 39:455-472. DOI:10.1007/s10460-021-10265-3
Ngcamu, B.S. 2023. Climate Change Effects on Vulnerable Populations in the Global South: A Systematic Review. Natural Hazards 118:977–991. DOI:10.1007/s11069-023-06070-2.
Nixon, R. 2011. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Oksanen, J., R. Kindt, P. Legendre, B. O’Hara, M. Henery, and H. Stevens. 2007. Vegan: Community Ecology Package. Version 2.5-6. Available at: https://cran.r-project.org/package=vegan. Accessed December 4, 2024.
Palanivel, H., and S. Shah. 2021. Unlocking the Inherent Potential of Plant Genetic Resources: Food Security and Climate Adaptation Strategy in Fiji and the Pacific. Environment, Development and Sustainability 23:14264–14323. DOI:10.1007/s10668-021-01273-8.
Patel, R. 2009. Food Sovereignty. The Journal of Peasant Studies 36:663–706. DOI:10.1080/03066150903143079.
Pearson, J., K. E. McNamara, and P. D. Nunn. 2019. Gender-specific Perspectives of Mangrove Ecosystem Services: Case Study from Bua Province, Fiji Islands. Ecosystem Services 38:100970. DOI:10.1016/j.ecoser.2019.100970.
Plahe, J., K., S. Hawkes, and S. Ponnamperuma. 2013. The Corporate Food Regime and Food Sovereignty in the Pacific Islands. The Contemporary Pacific 25:309–338. DOI:10.1353/cp.2013.0034.
Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). 2005. Pacific Islands Framework for Action on Climate Change 2006–2015. Available at: https://www.sprep.org/attachments/Publications/PIFACC-ref.pdf. Accessed on December 4, 2024.
Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). 2014. Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change (PACC) Programme: Outcomes and Lessons Learned [web page]. Available at: https://www.sprep.org/pacc. Accessed on December 4, 2024.
Shah, S., A. Moroca, and J. A. Bhat. 2018. Neo-traditional Approaches for Ensuring Food Security in Fiji Islands. Environmental Development 28:83–100. DOI:10.1016/j.envdev.2018.11.001.
Shiiba, N., P. Singh, D. Charan, K. Raj, J. Stuart, A. Pratap, and M. Maekawa. 2023. Climate Change and Coastal Resiliency of Suva, Fiji: a Holistic Approach for Measuring Climate Risk Using the Climate and Ocean Risk Vulnerability Index (CORVI). Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 29:9 DOI:10.1007/s11027-022-10043-4.
Stutton, V. 2013. Fiji: Climate Change, Tradition and Vanua. In Climate change and indigenous peoples, edited by R. S. Abate and E. A. Kronk, pp. 363-376. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK.
Thomas, A., S. Mangubhai, M. Fox, S. Meo, K. Miller, W. Naisilisili, J. Veitayaki, and S. Waqairatu. 2021. Why They Must be Counted: Significant Contributions of Fijian Women Fishers to Food Security and Livelihoods. Ocean & Coastal Management 205:105571. DOI:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2021.105571.
U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance. 2024. Food Sovereignty [web page]. Available at: https://usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org/what-is-food-sovereignty/. Accessed on December 4, 2024.
Walters, G., N. P. Broome, M. Cracco, T. Dash, N. Dudley, S. Elias, O. Hymas, S. Mangubhai, V. Mohan, T. Niederberger, C. Achtone Nkollo Aganga, A. Ousou Lio, N. Raveloson, J. Rubis, S.A.R. Mathieu Toviehou, and N. Van Vliet. 2021. COVID-19, Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and Natural Resource Governance. PARKS 27:1–16. DOI:10.2305/IUCN.CH.2021.PARKS-27-SIGW.en.
Whyte, K. P. 2016. Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Renewal, and US Settler Colonialism. In The Routledge Handbook of Food Ethics, edited by M. C. Rawlinson and C. Ward, pp. 354–365. Routledge, London, UK.
Copyright (c) 2025 Alexandra Kaminski, Peter Hughes, Waisiki Sevakarua, Osea Dukuno, Joana Kamanalagi, Mia Glover, Joshua Drew
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content and grant Ethnobiology Letters (the “Journal”) and the Society of Ethnobiology right of first publication. Authors and the Journal agree that Ethnobiology Letters will publish the article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits others to use, distribute, and reproduce the work non-commercially, provided the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal are properly cited.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
For any reuse or redistribution of a work, users must make clear the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
In publishing with Ethnobiology Letters corresponding authors certify that they are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements. They warrant, on behalf of themselves and their co-authors, that the content is original, has not been formally published, is not under consideration, and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights. They further warrant that the material contains no matter that is scandalous, obscene, libelous, or otherwise contrary to the law.
Corresponding authors will be given an opportunity to read and correct edited proofs, but if they fail to return such corrections by the date set by the editors, production and publication may proceed without the authors’ approval of the edited proofs.
