Food security for Indigenous people in remote areas
The above information paper from the national Rural Health Alliance is available HERE
The paper highlights the issues of food security for those most impoverished of Australians: Indigenous people who live in remote Australia.
Food security is defined in its most basic form as ‘access by all people at all times to the food needed for a healthy life. Achieving food security means ensuring that sufficient food is available, that supplies are relatively stable and those in need of food can obtain it’.
The health of remote Indigenous people is making some gains, but there are is a high incidence of obesity, hypertension, raised cholesterol levels, cardio-vascular disease, diabetes and renal failure.v These rates increase as one travels further into remote Australia. The issues of obesity, diabetes, high blood fats and hypertension are acute in the Torres Strait Islands.
Poor nutrition early on in life translates into poor health later and higher levels of chronic disease. The reasons for this poor health are many and include poor living conditions, racism related to dispossession and colonisation, poverty and poor nutrition.
For most people who live in remote communities the major source of food is the community store, where it is particularly expensive and the quality of what is sold is often poor. The issues concerning food supply relate to the cost of the food itself, governance of the store, transport of the food from the source to the community, health hardware in the home for storage and preparation of the food, and the income required to buy the food in the first place.
The paper describes some ‘food basket surveys’ which look at the cost of the average amount of food needed to feed a family for a week. These surveys occur at regular intervals around remote Australia.viii Generally food is much more expensive in remote areas. The paper goes on to describe some projects underway that have the potential to improve the situation. These include nutrition programs in schools, buying services across several communities, strategies to improve management of stores, employment, training, fair trading, food safety and hygiene, pricing and transport.
Several government initiatives are briefly discussed, such as the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nutrition Strategy and Action Plan, 2000-2010 (NATSINSAP), the Remote and Indigenous Stores and Takeaways (RIST) Project, the Stores Charter and the FoodNorth Project.
The paper highlights the issues of food security for those most impoverished of Australians: Indigenous people who live in remote Australia.
Food security is defined in its most basic form as ‘access by all people at all times to the food needed for a healthy life. Achieving food security means ensuring that sufficient food is available, that supplies are relatively stable and those in need of food can obtain it’.
The health of remote Indigenous people is making some gains, but there are is a high incidence of obesity, hypertension, raised cholesterol levels, cardio-vascular disease, diabetes and renal failure.v These rates increase as one travels further into remote Australia. The issues of obesity, diabetes, high blood fats and hypertension are acute in the Torres Strait Islands.
Poor nutrition early on in life translates into poor health later and higher levels of chronic disease. The reasons for this poor health are many and include poor living conditions, racism related to dispossession and colonisation, poverty and poor nutrition.
For most people who live in remote communities the major source of food is the community store, where it is particularly expensive and the quality of what is sold is often poor. The issues concerning food supply relate to the cost of the food itself, governance of the store, transport of the food from the source to the community, health hardware in the home for storage and preparation of the food, and the income required to buy the food in the first place.
The paper describes some ‘food basket surveys’ which look at the cost of the average amount of food needed to feed a family for a week. These surveys occur at regular intervals around remote Australia.viii Generally food is much more expensive in remote areas. The paper goes on to describe some projects underway that have the potential to improve the situation. These include nutrition programs in schools, buying services across several communities, strategies to improve management of stores, employment, training, fair trading, food safety and hygiene, pricing and transport.
Several government initiatives are briefly discussed, such as the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nutrition Strategy and Action Plan, 2000-2010 (NATSINSAP), the Remote and Indigenous Stores and Takeaways (RIST) Project, the Stores Charter and the FoodNorth Project.
posted by Anon at 3:41 PM
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