Dr Cristelle Maurin was engaged by the Norfolk Island administration to produce a “food security strategy” with the following brief:

 

  1. Project description

The Norfolk Island Food Security Project (The Project) will provide the resources and support for strengthening Norfolk Island’s local food system and building community resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stresses by creating an island-wide, cross-sectoral alliance to promote local food and farming and sustainable resources management.

  1. Scope and logic of intervention

Currently food security, nutrition and health, land and resources management are issues addressed incrementally, in a siloed-approach. Responsibilities for food and agriculture are highly dispersed, scattered across various departments and agencies.

The Norfolk Island Community Strategic Plan 2016-2026 has set the objective to create a food secure community. Realising this objective in coherence with other objectives as set out in the Plan would benefit from a strategic, whole-system approach to food security and to building community resilience and prosperity. The recommendations in the Norfolk Island Environmental Assessment Report highlight some priority actions, and recommend a strategic framework to strengthen Norfolk Island’s food system, placing local food production at the heart of a comprehensive sustainable development strategy.

Based on those recommendations, the Project will seek to provide guidance, tools & networks to build capacity towards:

(1) More effective and inclusive participation of the people of Norfolk Island in the governance of food and agriculture to strengthen the local food system, and enhance coherence with other sectors (e.g. tourism, health, land management, education);

(2) A transition to a more localised, resilient and sustainable food system.

  1. Objectives

The objectives of the Project are:

      1. To co-design/drive/enable a multi-level strategic planning process to support food localisation and the strengthening of the local food system;
      2. To increase the Norfolk Island community’s awareness, knowledge and skills in sustainable, healthy food consumption and production;
      3. To support community members/ groups with activities around local food production, knowledge building and sharing, skill training;
      4. To develop/ initiate some pilot projects, with:
        • Consideration of agriculture/crops to meet local consumption;
        • Consideration of agriculture/crops for export purposes, if any, cognisant of biosecurity and shipping limitations.

Timeframe

The Project will be implemented during the period 6 December 2021 – 30 June 2022.

  1. Deliverables
  • A preliminary consultation with technical specialists on suitable systems for market-based recycled water solutions for the Island;
  • A detailed study on opportunities and limitations for on-island agriculture (including suitable crops, soils, land availability) and suitable farming methods that are regenerative of soils, ecosystems and biodiversity;
  • A suitable multi-stakeholder governance structure, with participatory and inclusive mechanisms, to enable the development of a community vision for the Island’s food future, a policy framework for food security and some pilot projects;
  • The development of a food security policy, setting out the path for a food secure future for Norfolk Island.

Completion of the Strategy was delayed. The “Final version” is dated February 2023. The Food and Farming Alliance does not endorse the Strategy and at 24 May 2023, its status as a policy document of the Council is unclear. However, it was released on to the Council’s website on 25 May 2023.