Food security in Rural Australia

Abstract: Many aboriginals living in many developed countries suffer from hunger every day, so much so that nations and organizations have been hugely motivated to implement umpteen studies, surveys, public policies and movements to address the issue in a more tangible way than ever before. As a result, success have been achieved to some extent over this food security issue, which researchers call ‘closing the gap’; however, the struggle is still on. Even today, indigenous folks in rural parts of an otherwise developed nation suffer from poor health and die of hunger. Eradication of food insecurity has its own set of challenges, but that should not stop the efforts to do so. This paper examines food security issues and challenges in the context of a rural Australia, where aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders are victims of this global issue each day and deserve better lives. The purpose of this paper is also to discuss the effectiveness of a healthy public policy to meet the challenge and present a healthy settings approach that the author feels best suits the needs of rural Australia.

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What’s the ‘Gap’?

Let’s begin by running through the following facts and figures to understand the ‘gap’ prevailing between indigenous and non-indigenous people living in rural Australia:

  • 3% of the entire Australian population are aboriginals (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008).
  • About 66% of Aboriginal Western Australians live in rural, remote and far-away regions (Simpson, 2009).
  • Between 2004 and 2005, 24% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders above 15 years ran out of food, compared to only 5% of non-Indigenous Australians (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2008).
  • When compared to non-Aboriginal Australians, there is a life expectancy gap of 11.5 years and 9.7 years for Aboriginal males and females, respectively (Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, 2012).
  • Australian Indigenous infants are more susceptible to be still-born, have low birth weight and suffer from anemia and malnutrition problems than their non-Indigenous counterparts (Australian Medical Association; Gracey, 2007).
  • A Victorian study held in 2006 revealed that 51% of Aboriginal families reported experiencing food insecurity (Browne, et al., 2009).
  • Food costs are approximately 20–30% higher in rural and remote Australian areas than the rest of the country (Burns, et al., 2004; Harrison, et al., 2007; Landrigan & Pollard, 2011).
  • In the age range of 35-74 years, chronic diseases comprise 80% of the mortality gap between non-indigenous Australians and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2011).

The list is endless, there are series of statistics that stare straight at the Australian government and the world at large, to awaken cognition for planned action in these remote, rural areas. What surfaces, though, from these facts and numbers is an unnerving ‘gap’ in living and health conditions between non-Indigenous Australians and Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. Closing this ‘gap’ has emerged a national policy priority for Australia (Council of Australian Governments, 2009).

 

Food Security: The WHAT and WHY of It

 

What is being food secure? Loosely speaking, when every person in an economy has access to enough healthy food at all times, they are food secure (Radimer, 2002). According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, food security is a fundamental right (United Nations, 1948). The World Health Organization (2011) rests food security on three pillars:

  1. Food availability: Adequate nutritious food for everyone
  2. Food access: Enough resources (finances & transportation) to get the nutritious food
  3. Food use: Proper use of food and hygiene, on the basis of nutritional knowledge and care.

For the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders in rural Australia, all these three pillars are jeopardized — they do not have access to nutritionally safe food, they do not have enough food supply and they stay immersed in years of disease and decay due to poor habits and lack of education. The following table illustrates Australia’s food insecurity rates in the certain mix of population (Browne, et al., 2009; Burns, et al., 2004):

Group types facing food insecurity Rate of food insecurity
Indigenous people 24%
Low-income group 20%
Unemployed people 23%
Single-parent households 23%
Young people 15%
Rental households 20%

Source: Australian National Nutrition Survey 1995, ATSI Health Performance Framework (2004-05)

 

The reasons for food insecurity among ATSI people are many:

  • Locational disadvantage
  • Poor income
  • Poor household infrastructure
  • Lack of food supply / stores
  • High cost of food
  • Limited access to transport
  • Dietary habits / practices
  • Lack of proper food storage
  • Lack of enough cooking facilities
  • Lack of enough water
  • Lack of awareness and hygiene
  • Part success of policies and frameworks, etc.

All these reasons exist in isolation and combination with each other to keep the issue of food insecurity alive in rural Australia. This is a global issue and as DuPont observes in this context, “every eighth person in the planet goes to bed hungry”. A lot of efforts and initiatives have been taken by public bodies and private organizations to address the issue of food security, as is revealed in all the research available. Some of these are:

 

  • National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nutrition Strategy and Action Plan 2000–2010 offered a wide framework for nutrition improvements, both from supply and demand perspectives (AGDHA, 2001).
  • The Perth Declaration on Food Security Principles from Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2011 and remind the Commonwealth of its commitment to use the Principles to improve domestic food security (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2011).
  • Council of Australian Governments (COAG) pledged to close the life expectancy gap within a generation, and bringing down the mortality gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-indigenous children under 5-years of age by 50% (Australian Red Cross Policy, 2013).
  • The Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 (NTER) initiated a community stores licensing program to develop food supply through better store governance (NTNER, 2007).
  • The Office of Aboriginal Health (OAH), together with the Western Australian Department of Education and Training (DET), has undertaken development of a new Vocational Education and Training in Schools (VETiS) program to improve aboriginal health and education (Simpson, 2009).

There are more such, both from Government and non-Government bodies. Evidently, several programs and interventions have been driven to improve the food security in the ATSI group, of which some initiatives showcase good progress and helpful learning. Unfortunately, in spite of all these, food security improvements are the least in the Asia-Pac region, of which Australia is a part (Global Food Security Index, 2014). This is clear from the figure below:

Source: Global Food Security Index, 2014

Therefore, there is still a lot left to be done to help improve food insecurity in the Asia-Pac region, and for the ATSI people.

 

Role of Government & Public Policy

 

Health and health equity are not the only integral components in a public policy, but are definitely vital for attaining various societal objectives. In a democratic governance, public policy plays a crucial role as the development and decision making influences the daily lives of individuals, families, communities and society. Australia boasts of a population that is culturally diverse as people from all over the world have chosen to migrate to Australia. So as Rudolph (2013) says, “The policy also needs to look into the systematic and cultural hurdles beyond the authority of local governance”.

 

The HPP, is another step ahead in the horizon of public policies. It prioritizes health over all public policy-making across sectors and levels. It underlines the need for understanding the health outcomes of a good policy or the lack of it, thereby mandating ownership and responsibility on the part of the policy-makers, primarily the government. Then the HiAP came into presence, via the Eighth Global Conference on Health Promotion held in Helsinki, Finland (PAHO, 2013). It is an offshoot of the HPP and is directed towards a similar goal of revisiting the public policies to incorporate the health aspect in them. The HiAP factors in “health” in all policies, so that public health and health equity can take a positive lift. The HPP or HiAP, therefore, puts a lot on the government’s plate for them to plan and action.

 

Challenges to Securing Food Security

 

Often, as in Australia, there are challenges faced by the government to improve health conditions of aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. Either the collaboration at all levels of the government (state or local) is missing, or some public policies could not be truly observed in practice due to capacity constraints. For example, the public heath nutritionist workforce capacity in Australia is quite poor (National Public Health Partnership, 2001).

 

Another challenge to successful implementation of public policies if lack of community participation. For example, there are very few aboriginals on government and non-government Health Boards throughout WA (Simpson, 2009).

The Australian government made limited attempts in its reports to define the success factors behind gardening sustainability in the Northern Territory (Kelly, 2006). Funding was yet another challenge faced, as is made clear by a non-indigenous manager, when interviewed during a study: “Everyone thinks this is a good idea, but no one is committing to the funding of remote gardens” (Hume, et al., 2013).

 

Also, when the Government did implement ‘community stores’ in remote, rural Australia, these were ignored as small businesses, rather than being taken as an essential source of health & education services (Lee, et al., 2009).

 

The most pressing challenge is the adaptability of the community itself. The ATSI people, living in less remote regions, make wrong food choices (fast food over traditional crops and vegetables), either due to nutritional knowledge gaps, or due to financial constraints (NHMRC, 2000). Their busy lifestyles may also stop them from healthy dietary habits. Sometimes, challenges are also faced in the psychological distance that exists between ATSI and the mainstream Australians (Scrimgeour, 2007).