Foreign Junk Food Ban

Vanuatu

The remote Torba Province in the northern part of the South Pacific Island chain of Vanuatu has banned all imports of foreign junk food in favor of an all-local and all-organic diet. Worried by the health threats from imported sugar, white flour noodles, and other western foodstuffs flooding into the rest of the country, local officials in Torba made the decision to stick with locally grown and harvested fish, crabs, shellfish, taro, yams, paw paw, pineapples and more that have kept them healthy for generations. To learn more, read South Pacific islands ban western junk food and go organic or As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food.

Note that while Local Futures cannot verify whether this bill remains in place and what effects it has had on the Torba community, we are keeping it in Planet Local as it provides inspiration and guidance to others.

Photo by ILO in Asia and the Pacific (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)