COVID-19 and Food Security in Fiji: The Reinforcement of Subsistence Farming Practices in Rural and Urban Areas

With a population of just under a million (CIA 2020), Fiji is one of only two South Pacific sovereign nations to have documented COVID-19 cases, with just less than 30 cases as of the beginning of September 2020 (Worldometers 2020), compared to 460 cases in Papua New Guinea at the same time (ibid.). The economic impact of the virus, however, has been felt in all Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS), where tourism contributes as much as 70% of the overall GDP and generates up to 34% of employment in some cases (Sherzad 2020). In 2019, for instance, Fiji’s tourism incomes totaled around US$ 900 million
(17.2% of GDP), Samoa US$ 193.5 million (23%), Vanuatu US$ 175.8 million (19.3%), and Cook Islands US$ 238.2 million (73.3%) (ibid.). Because of the strict travel restrictions around the globe and in the PSIDS, a sharp reduction has been seen in tourist numbers. As a result, the tourism-dependent economies of PSIDS, such as Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands, and Vanuatu will experience a major recession this year (ibid.) In Fiji, small-scale agriculture is practiced by about half of the Fijian population, which
corresponds to the number of people living in rural areas, although these numbers are declining (CIA 2020.). An estimated 87–89% of the land is still traditionally owned (Scheyvens and Russell 2012) through a structure called Vanua, and agriculture mostly takes place on smallholder farms. Smallholder production often includes a mixture of root crops, vegetables, fruit, and livestock for household consumption, surplus sales, and gifts,
supplemented by income from cash crops such as copra, kava, cocoa, coffee, and vanilla (Sherzad 2020; Pollock, 1986). With a sharp rise in unemployment rates due to COVID-19,
a reduction of the prices of primary products, as well as a decline of remittances sent to people living in rural areas, large portions of the Fijian population are at risk of falling into poverty (ibid.).
This paper analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 virus on Fiji’s food security from a social science perspective. More specifically, it focuses on community-level and government responses to the virus, both from bottom-up and top-down perspectives. Relying on my first-hand experience of COVID-19 in urban and rural areas (i.e. Suva city and Delakado village) where I have been residing since the country’s first confirmed case, as well as on public policy analysis, the paper argues that the COVID-19 situation has triggered a national reinforcement in the practice of subsistence agriculture and has re-valued the notion of ‘self-sufficiency’ across different social spheres in the nation (F