Page 13 - Islands Business March 2023

Agriculture

Karen Mapusua
BUILDING A VISION FOR PACIFIC

AGRICULTURE

By Samantha Magick together,” referring to all steps involved in getting a plant (or
animal) to someone consuming it.
The lack of a regional vision for agriculture and forestry is “At the moment, the global food system is having negative
“one of our biggest challenges”, says the Director of the Land environmental outcomes. We're living beyond our planetary
Resources Division of the Pacific Community, Karen Mapusua. boundaries, it's having negative health outcomes, you look at
But this is poised to change, after the Pacific Heads of our health stats around the region as an example of that. And,
Agriculture and Forestry Meeting in Fiji this month approved you know, food insecurity is growing globally. So we need to
the development of the first-ever regional strategy for the look at that whole system and how it works together, in order
sector. to change those outcomes,” Mapusua adds.
“We really want to look far into the future at what it would She believes COVID has shown us that the region has a
look like for us to have an agricultural system that gives high level of resilience: “I think we’ve also learned just how
us a sustainable food basket for the region, and then work interconnected we are with the rest of the globe. We often
backwards from there,” Mapusua says, adding that a plan talk about our isolation, but that [COVID] just demonstrated
developed and owned by the region will also be a means of how linked in we are.
keeping partners accountable to supporting that vision. “There is a risk of going back to business as usual very
“Obviously it has to be resilient to climate change, it has to quickly. And I think that other global events, like the war in
support adaptation, it has to rebuild our biodiversity and our Ukraine, is contributing to that. So you know, post-COVID,
soils, it's got to protect us from invasives. So there's a lot of there was a really strong awareness of growing your food and
things that it needs to do, but we have to work out together sustainability and short value chains. And now, we've also got
what we want it to really look like.” the pressures of that war that's leading to fuel increases and
Engagement with farmers organisations to develop this plan fertiliser increases.”
will be critical, as will working through traditional systems She challenges the belief (mainly heard internationally)
and talking with communities at the very beginning of the that “we’re not going to be able to produce enough food,”
design process, Mapusua says. saying that it is “really doing a bit of damage to the narrative
Research was one of the key issues of the meeting and that we came out of COVID with around health and around
associated side events, with Mapusua pointing to some sustainability and around resilience building. So there's a real
valuable work being done to identify resilient and drought- tension there between those two narratives. And our risk is
resistant crops, and in the export/production realm, into falling into that fear trap of ‘we won't be able to produce
cocoa genetics (particularly identifying ‘fine taste’ cocoa enough food’ and recognising that actually, we can, and we've
for value-adding). She would like to see more research into proven that we can.”
systems approaches: “Food systems is the buzzword at the
moment. But we still are largely researching small pieces editor@islandsbusiness.com
of that, we need to be looking at how the systems work

Islands Business, March 2023 13