Politics of Food

I went shopping in Apia the other day and noticed that the eggs at Chan Mow's were a particularly good price-- $3.50. I wasn't in the market for eggs, and I moved on. At another store the products were around the same price (I was hunting for gourmet coffee) but they had something else- local eggs. Local eggs are brown and a bit smaller. They also cost $6.50. That's right- you have to pay an extra $3 for a dozen eggs that haven't been shipped across the ocean in a voyage that most Samoans are not able to take. Do you see a problem here?

Most people here will laugh when you suggest to them that Samoa might someday not be able to feed itself. But it's a real possibility. Yes, there are breadfruit that are dripping off every tree, but the majority of foods that Samoans eat are imported. A lot of these are foods that can be grown or raised here—such as eggs, chicken, beef and some fruits like papaya. Samoan chicken is considered a delicacy, and is also not generally as meaty as imported cheaper chicken. Other foods are replacements for foods that are similar and local—such as rice being eaten rather then breadfruit, or canned fish rather then freshly caught. It's worse out in "kua", the villages far from away from Apia—although the villages tend to use more grown produce like taro, they are also more likely to depend on imported canned foods. The only local, fresh food that my family eats is taro, everything else is imported, and they are only about an hour from Apia (three by bus). Other then that it's ramen noodles, canned mackel and crackers. Not the best diet!

Importation is fine- as long as you have strong exports. But it actually costs more to import the can to put some coconut milk into for export then the coconut milk is worth. Most Samoan still rely on taro as a staple of their diet—the day that it becomes cheaper to import taro and breadfruit, Samoa is in big trouble. Their only viable economy is really tourism—but tourism increases importation and eventually leads to the destruction of plantation land, which reduces the self-reliance of Samoans. Finally, many of the new resorts are being put up by larger foreign-owned firms, like Marriot. This isn't going to help the local economy either, and will part the smaller places out of business.

Only time will tell.