The Influx of ‘Pisupo’: Food Colonialism in the South Pacific

Globalization has created an influx of unhealthy canned food in the South Pacific region, leading to a dependency on it and increasing health issues associated with an unhealthy diet. 

The influx of canned food in the South Pacific has led to a variety of problems. Salvation Army USA West. CC BY 2.0.

The legacy of colonialism has a lasting impact on the island of the South Pacific. Many of those islands have been colonized by Western powers, and some of them are still under the control of foreign countries. Due to this, Western influences are still pervasive throughout the region. 

One lasting legacy of Western imperialism in the South Pacific is the introduction of canned and processed food. The first canned food to be brought to the region was pea soup, and therefore, Samoan and a few other languages of the region, the word for canned food in general is “pisupo.” Today, the predominant type of canned food in the region is corned beef.

The prevalence of canned food in the South Pacific has changed the diets of the people living there and has caused a dependence on them. The new diets of the South Pacific Islanders are not necessarily an improvement from their traditional diets. However, as canned and processed foods are generally unhealthy and lacking in nutrients. That has resulted in an increase of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Between 1990 and 2010, the total disability-adjusted life years lost to obesity also quadrupled in the region.

The traditional diets of South Pacific Islanders provide the nutrients needed for a healthy life. whl.travel. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

In order to provide these new foods, livestock such as cattle and pigs have been introduced to the islands, causing ecological damage. The island ecosystems are fragile, and large-scale ranching can easily destroy them. The dependence on canned food introduced by the West has resulted in not only harm to health, but also harm to the environment.

The proliferation of packaged and processed food has affected other parts of society as well, not just the typical diets. In marriage and birthday ceremonies in traditional South Pacific cultures, people often exchange gifts. While in the past, common gifts included fine mats and decorated barkcloths, but today, canned corned beef is one of the more popular gifts at those events. The introduction of canned foods has even changed traditional practices and contributed to the prevalent unhealthy diets of the South Pacific Islanders.

“Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000)” is a piece of art by Michael Tuffery that critiques the food dependency of the South Pacific. Sheep’R’Us. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The neocolonial nature of these developments has its critics. One of them, Michael Tuffery, offers a unique interpretation through his artwork, with one of the most notable being “Pisupo Lua Afe,” a sculpture of a bull made from canned corned beef. He says that his art addresses the impact that the “exploitation of the Pacific’s natural resources has wrought on the traditional Pacific lifestyle.” His choice of subject matter and the material show his thoughts on the influx of canned food in the South Pacific. Bulls were a common presence at the aforementioned ceremonies, and the fact that the bull is covered in canned corned beef represents the fact that more traditional practices. Tuffery laments the changes that globalization has brought to his traditional Samoan culture, which has led to a “decline of indigenous cooking skills.”

With so much waste being created in the making of “Pisupo Lua Afe,” Tuffery calls into question whether the physical and cultural costs of food dependence are worth it. Could the South Pacific do better without the influx of canned food? Tuffery argues that it could. But even if the South Pacific Islanders decide to shun the prevalence of canned food, hurdles remain to improve the health of both the land and people of the region.

Bryan Fok

Bryan is currently a History and Global Affairs major at the University of Notre Dame. He aims to apply the notion of Integral Human Development as a framework for analyzing global issues. He enjoys hiking and visiting national parks.

Drought, Agriculture and the Water Crisis in Spain

In Spain, where drought and agricultural contaminants are affecting drinking water, the precious resource has become a rarity. 

The drought’s effects on water in Spain. Oscar F. Hevia. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

After one of the driest winters of the past 20 years, Spain is experiencing record-low levels of water, which has severely impacted the country’s people. Spain collects the majority of its water through reservoirs and basins, which capture groundwater and rain. At this time of year, these reservoirs are typically at 70 percent. However, due to the drought Spain is currently experiencing, such reservoirs and basins are only at about 40 percent capacity—a palpable cause for concern for all Spanish citizens. 

Due to the severe lack of water, Spain has placed regulations on what the limited supply should be used for. Pools remain unfilled as the weather gets hotter, city fountains are shut off, and villagers in towns closer to the interior of the country find it hard to get a sustainable supply of drinkable water. Villagers from interior areas of Spain, like Lastras de Cuéllar, depend heavily on bottled water sold in their town square. But the purchasing of bottled water is not a sustainable solution to the current water crisis. Older members of the community struggle to carry enough back home, and although many places discount their prices, bottled water is not cost effective. As summer approaches, the people of Spain worry about how long their reserves will last them and hope for heavier rainfall in the spring months to come. 

The drought is being credited to climate change, and the ever-rising temperatures felt across the globe are now creating drastic impacts on the ways people will have to start managing their resources. Calls for water-management reform have begun from many scientists in Spain, the main argument being that due to rising temperatures, old ways of managing and transporting drinking water may need to change. Interior towns of the country that heavily depend on rain water to sustain them may have to rethink their system all together.

Park fountain without water.  Ell Brown. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

On top of the drought, agricultural contaminants have threatened what little water resources Spain has left. Spain is a global leader in pork production, a process that actively affects groundwater resources commonly collected in the basins used to hold drinking water. Pig manure is loaded with toxins that make drinking this groundwater very dangerous. Wired Magazine explains that “pig feed is high in a chemical called phytate, which swine excrete as phosphorus.” When farmers use pig manure to fertilize their land, “phosphorus can become concentrated in the soil and leach to groundwater.” This concentrated phosphorus in groundwater can make humans extremely sick, another reason why clean water has become so rare in Spain.

Besides phosphorus, pig manure also secretes nitrates, something also commonly found in fertilizers used in the agricultural production of crops. Therefore, on top of the dangerous toxins found in pig manure, the nitrates in fertilizer are also seeping into groundwater and impacting the purity of Spain’s limited drinking water. The Local, an online magazine dedicated to covering news in European countries, states that “22 percent of Spain’s overall surface area…is exposed to nitrate pollution,” a startling statistic, considering Spain’s clean water crisis. 

The implications of the drought—combined with the continuation of agricultural contaminants that are consistently finding their way into Spain’s drinking water—are extremely severe. If Spain doesn’t experience a spring with heavy rainfall, this issue may turn into a crisis. Spain has been for many years a water-insecure region, but as the effects of climate change excellerate and agricultural production continues to pollute the land, the issue only becomes more dire. For now, Spaniards can only hope for rain to counter the drought, and for water-management reform to make their drinking water safer. With those hopes in mind, they wait to see what the impending summer heat will mean for their depleted clean water supply.

To Get Involved:

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an organization designed to assist economic and trade progress on a global scale. Learn about the OECD’s assessment of how water resources in Spain are allocated and how the OECD recommends to improve such allocations as conditions in Spain change here.

Circle of Blue is a non-profit organization dedicated to discussing critical research and the challenges involved with global water insecurity. Uniting journalism and data literacy, Circle of Blue serves to educate readers on global issues linked to water and provide research on ways others can get involved to fight global water insecurity. Learn more on how to eliminate global water insecurity here.  

Ava Mamary

Ava is an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois, double majoring in English and Communications. At school, she Web Writes about music for a student-run radio station. She is also an avid backpacker, which is where her passion for travel and the outdoors comes from. She is very passionate about social justice issues, specifically those involving women’s rights, and is excited to write content about social action across the globe.

Africa Faces Higher Food Insecurity Due to COVID-19

Africa experiences food insecurity due to poverty, conflict, climate change and a lack of access to food. When COVID-19 hit, it made all of these matters much worse.

A man inspects failed corn crops in Mauritania. Oxfam International. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Although made significantly more severe by COVID-19, food insecurity has been a serious concern worldwide for decades, mostly caused by economic shocks, climate change and conflict. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, 239 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were undernourished as of 2018.

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened food insecurity across the world by reducing incomes and disrupting food supply chains. The United Nations warns that about three dozen countries—Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Sudan included—could experience major famines this year, pushing 130 million more people to starvation. East Africa’s biggest locust invasion in 70 years combined with the impact of COVID-19 threatens to drive 25 million people into hunger. Research from a series of high-frequency phone surveys shows that over 105 million adults have been affected by some degree of food insecurity across Uganda, Nigeria, Malawi, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso following the onset of the pandemic. Devastated food sources and billions of dollars in crop damage may push residents over the edge.

In addition, preventive measures like border closures, lockdowns and curfews intended to slow the spread of COVID-19 are disrupting supply chains that struggled to keep markets well-stocked even before the pandemic. At least 60% of the African population is dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods and access to food, and disruptions to this system caused by COVID-19 are threatening this group’s food security.

A man tending to his crops in Uganda. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. CC BY 2.0.

Most African countries rely heavily on food imports; between 2016 and 2018, Africa imported about 85% of its food from outside the continent. Heavy reliance on world markets is extremely detrimental to food security, and export bans imposed by major food exporters due to COVID-19 made the region even more vulnerable. If trade blockages persist, agricultural production in Africa could decrease by between 2.6% and 7%.

African countries are also reporting shortages and price spikes for some domestic food crops, such as millet, sorghum and maize. In addition, the disruption of marketing and trade activities, combined with panic-buying during the pandemic, intensified food price increases and caused both rural and urban consumers to lose purchasing power.

As a direct result of rising food prices, the availability and affordability of nutritious food has plummeted. Nutrient-rich foods like eggs, fruit and vegetables are 10 times more expensive than staple foods like rice or wheat in sub-Saharan Africa, so vulnerable families were forced to buy cheaper and less nutritious food to survive, adding to a rise in malnutrition and obesity.

In addition, school closures in South Africa have stopped a national feeding program that provides nutritious meals to 9 million poorer children.

Restrictions imposed by governments—lockdowns, travel bans and social distancing measures included—have increased the risk of food insecurity, and many low-income households have lost their livelihoods and ability to access markets.

A fruit and vegetable stand in Kampala, Uganda. World Bank Photo Collection. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

COVID-19 has clearly had a detrimental effect on food security in Africa, with 43% of households that were not severely food insecure in 2018 estimated to be severely food insecure as of June 2020.

However, there are ways to help, and many government programs have already started to alleviate some of the hunger in Africa. In Chad, a government project is providing food kits, establishing cereal banks and distributing seeds for future harvests so that households can survive the rest of the pandemic. In East Africa, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Feed the Future program is supporting measures to keep food and agricultural inputs moving across borders and from ports to inland countries.

Although many efforts to help Africa are already in place, it is imperative that African countries take the necessary steps to build resilient, climate-friendly and competitive food systems so that they can survive COVID-19 and any future challenges.

To Get Involved:

Donating to Oxfam South Africa or Action Against Hunger will help to provide essential care to hungry families in Africa. Additionally, the U.N. World Food Program uses donations to deliver lifesaving food to those in need, wherever they may be located.

Another great way to help is by giving to The Hunger Project, which uses donations to implement programs that mobilize rural communities to achieve sustainable progress against hunger. These are just a few of the many ways to get involved to help end the crisis. To learn more, visit the United Nations’ website on hunger in Africa.

Isabelle Durso

Isabelle is an undergraduate student at Boston University currently on campus in Boston. She is double majoring in Journalism and Film & Television, and she is interested in being a travel writer and writing human-interest stories around the world. Isabelle loves to explore and experience new cultures, and she hopes to share other people's stories through her writing. In the future, she intends to keep writing journalistic articles as well as creative screenplays.

Bridging the Food-or-Energy Gap

Should land be used for solar panels or agriculture? The burgeoning Solar Sheep movement argues: Why not both?

Affectionately called "lambmowers," these sheep graze among a field of solar panels.All Photos from the American Solar Grazing Association

Lexie Hain tucks a chunk of business cards in her back pocket before bounding up to speak to a room of 75 livestock farmers. On a rain-dumping January day, they’ve driven in from around New York and New England. A polite lethargy has set in by the time Hain, the final presenter, stands up, but her talk, “Solar and Sheep: The New Power Couple,” jolts the crowd like a dozen diner-coffee refills. By the end, Hain is slapping backs, handing out cards, and promising to talk farmer to farmer to the dozens lined up. The conference sponsor, Cornell Cooperative Extension, has to boot her out of the ballroom before the hotel’s next scheduled event. 

Hain had projected image after image onto a big screen: the woolly, timeless faces of sheep munching among the sweeping, futuristic angles of solar arrays. Hain and her wife, Marguerite, farm in New York’s Finger Lakes region, where Hain tends a flock of 100 ewes. For the past few years, she has grazed those sheep on a 4-acre Cornell University solar field. It’s part of the 100 acres that Hain and her business partner graze, a third of which belong to Cornell. In 2017, Hain co-founded a trade group, the American Solar Grazing Association, after realizing that sheep like hers could not only help earn a farm living, but also solve a larger problem.

A key element in good solar grazing practices is letting the land rest and recover periodically.

The question lies in how to define “productive use.” Are fields of open, often fertile land better used for producing renewable energy or food? The U.S. already hosts more than 2 million solar installations, and photovoltaic capacity is projected to more than double over the next five years. Meanwhile, our growing global population means we’ll need to produce 70 percent more food to feed 2.2 billion more people by 2050. An emerging land-use solution is called agrivoltaics: co-locating solar panels with agriculture. 

Benefits in kind

Within the small-but-growing U.S. agrivoltaic industry, an early winner is making solar ground into pasture for sheep. It’s common practice in countries such as the United Kingdom and Uruguay. When sheep graze on fields that also support solar arrays, the same land can produce energy, wool, and meat, all at the same time. Not to mention the benefits of their manure and hooves to the soil health. 

Some farmers are installing solar to power their own farms. Others, including the American Solar Grazing Association’s several hundred members, are renting out their sheep to solar companies for vegetation maintenance.

At the end of the grazing season, sheep are rounded up and hauled away from a solar field.

The collaboration is a win-win—the shepherds earn extra income, and the sheep keep greenery trimmed for less than it would cost solar companies to mow. Lots of news coverage has called sheep cheaper, nimbler, lower-emission lawnmowers. Hain likes to joke about how simplistic it sounds: “Solar brings jobs. Some of those jobs could be ours!” she tells her fellow livestock farmers, to chuckles, at Cornell’s grazing conference. But then, for the next 45 minutes, she talks about how much deeper the solar sheep solution goes than jobs and cost-savings. 

The sheep benefit from the windbreak and shade of solar panels, often napping under them on sunny days. In turn, they keep plants from growing high enough to shade or disturb the panels. The solar field’s vegetation provides the sheep food. Sheep will eat almost anything, with the  exception of thistle. That includes turf grass (though it sometimes has a fungus that keeps the sheep from gaining weight.) Rotating the sheep’s grazing around different parts of the solar array, fed on a mix of grasses, is optimal. Their manure then turns around and fertilizes the land. 

“This dual use of the land adds a layer of efficiency that wouldn’t be there,” Hain says. “You start seeing layer after layer of benefit, benefit, benefit.”

Shepherd Kim Tateo loves the sound of that. She has come to the grazing conference expressly to hear Hain speak. Part of the fresh generation of urbanites-turned-agrarians, Tateo left her work in New York City’s composting industry several years back to farm upstate. She now grazes about 20 sheep at Albany’s Tivoli Lake Preserve. But with city grant funding for the project drying up, she says, she needs a new income stream.

An informal meet-and-greet with a flock of solar grazers.

“Learning more about it, it makes total sense to have sheep there,” Tateo says. “These sheep will eat the grass and improve the soil. Instead of just having dead panels, you can have something that is very alive and at the same time producing energy.”

Power tools

In San Antonio, Ely Valdez sees even more benefits. Five years ago, he owned a traditional landscaping business. He lived on a ranch with about 20 sheep, which he raised mostly as a learning project for his young sons, Ely, Eric, and Emilio. Then, in 2017, he read a news story about solar sheep. It struck him with the force of the Texas sun hitting a photovoltaic panel. 

“Running all over with weed wackers gets pretty hard on my guys when it gets to 102 or 105 [degrees Fahrenheit] in the summertime,” he says. “It’s relaxing to go see the sheep underneath the panels.” His whole business model changed.

In the midday heat, sheep graze in the shade under the solar panels.

Valdez’s ranch sits in a hot but surprisingly lush spot between the San Antonio and Medina rivers. The water quality is frequently tested by San Antonio River Authority, so to prevent chemical runoff, Valdez has a company rule that prohibits the use of herbicides. In the rainy season, Valdez says, the Johnsongrass plant can grow 2 to 3 inches per day. High-reaching sunflowers can quickly shade solar panels, too. His animals nibble both while the plants are small. “Sheep have been the best result for the problems we have here,” he says. “It’s a great impact for the environment.”

There are challenges, though. Making sure the sheep have enough water takes constant vigilance, Valdez says, especially in the Texas heat. A coyote snagged one of his lambs once. And a couple times, sheep have rubbed up against the emergency-stop button, calling a technician to the site. But it’s worth the occasional trouble, he says, especially when summer temperatures rise. 

After the lambing season that began in January, Valdez will be up to 400 sheep this year, with a goal of getting the flock to 1,200 sheep that can graze on multiple solar arrays.

A flock of solar grazers gathers by a solar array.

Fuzz, buzz, and beyond

Sheep, of course, aren’t the only livestock that graze. Solar co-location experiments are also being done with other animals. A test project at the University of Massachusetts Crop Research Station, for instance, placed panels 7 feet off the ground so cattle could graze underneath. Although it worked well, the cost of steel to mount panels at this height has largely kept developers from following suit. Trials with goats, meanwhile, have shown that installations might also have to be modified, because the goats sometimes jump on panels or chew wires. 

Experiments are also being done with row crops so they’re partially shaded by panels and thus use less water. University of Arizona researchers have been testing whether foods such as tomatoes, peppers, chard, kale, and herbs could grow better under photovoltaic panels in dryland areas. Last year, their study found that chiltepin pepper plants yielded three times as much fruit, and tomatoes twice as much, in the agrivoltaic setup. 

Where sheep are involved, yet another food can be made on the same land: honey. Setting aside more pollinator habitat has been imperative since a combination of pesticides and mites contributed to mass honeybee die-offs over the past decade. Companies such as Minnesota-based Bare Honey are now marketing products made with “solar honey” as value-added. The American Solar Grazing Association has helped develop a seed mix of plants with Ernst Conservation Seeds for the Northeast region that are good for sheep and also provide pollinator habitat. Hain, always good-humored, had it named Fuzz & Buzz. 

Solar grazing benefits shepherds as well as solar farmers

For shepherds, the remaining challenge is that the number of sheep, and the people who tend them, will grow. Ely Valdez has already expanded his flock, and Kim Tateo hopes to. The network of processors and customers will necessarily need to grow up around them, too. In the same way that solar grazing can meet human needs for food, warmth, energy, and economic activity, it can also feed the Earth. “I love the idea of [aspects like] pollinator patches and making them into something that is feeding a whole ecosystem,” Tateo says.

As Cornell Cooperative Extension staffer Aaron Gabriel closes down the grazing conference, he tells Hain, “We’re going to have to do a lot more processing and marketing [of lamb]—we’re going to have a lot more sheep people here.” 

“I am deeply aware of the need for that,” Hain answers. “There’s going to be a whole community that builds up.”

Lynn Freehill-Maye writes about sustainability and related topics from her home in New York's Hudson Valley. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, CityLab, Civil Eats, and Sierra, among other publications.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY FEATURED ON YES! MAGAZINE

NEPAL: Invisible Farmers

In the southern lowlands of Nepal, where the cold still bites harshly in winter, lives a voiceless, landless community of marginalized ethnic groups who have spent their whole lives working for others. With no piece of land in their names, and no opportunities, they are Nepal’s invisible farmers.

NO LAND FOR US

“I have worked on farms for more than forty years for landlords, and yet I don’t have a piece of land. What else can I do?”
— Jaga Majhi

Above: Jaga Majhi, a landless inhabitant of Bagaiya village.

Meet Jaga Majhi, an elderly inhabitant from the small village of Bagaiya in the Bara District, located in the southern lowlands of Nepal. Like many of the older generation here, Jaga tells me that he can’t remember exact year of his birth, although his citizenship card states 1938. He died of old age in August 2015.

Jaga's grandchildren play within their home.

Over the last few decades landless squatters in this region have built meagre huts to house their families. They have been here for all or most of their lives, and yet have no formal title to the land they live on, and most of them work on farms for their landlords, on a daily wage basis.

Above: [1] Locals struggle with the cold in the early winter morning. Poor housing and lack of sufficient clothing make life difficult during winters. [2] Shyam Chaudhari works in the field for a daily wage. [3] Keeping goats can help earn a living. [4] Daily wage workers. 

Most of the inhabitants here belong to marginalized ethnic groups such as Tharu, Musahar, Chamar, and Majhi. These ethnic groups are also viewed as ‘untouchables’ by the traditional and complex caste system, that is still present in many parts of Nepal.

Above: [1] Children inside a classroom at the local primary school. The school has two rooms with no furniture inside. They were able to make this school building at the end of 2010. Around 60 children come to study here. [2] An old man walks into a village of landless squatters. 

With no piece of land in their name and an utter lack of opportunity, they remain as impoverished as ever. This is the story of those who have spent their entire lives working for others — they are Nepal’s invisible farmers.

Above: The women also work in the fields on a daily wage basis, but receive a lesser payment than men for an equal day’s work. 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA 

 

KISHOR SHARMA

@Kishor_ksg 

Kishor is a freelance documentary photographer based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He studied Photojournalism at the Danish School of Media and Journalism and is interested in using photography as a means of storytelling.