Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

Kiribati Gets Food Aid

Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Kiribati

Kiribati gets emergency aid to meet rising food costs - by the BBC

A reminder that the South Pacific isn't always "Paradise" for locals...

Southern Kiribati in particular, with its dry and hot climate and infertile soil, has long had a history of food shortages, so bad that in the centuries past many locals have willingly boarded ships of blackbirders just to be able to get food.
Others ended up migrating to the Solomons - poor and undeveloped as it might be, it's a veritable paradise of large, lush islands compared to their small atolls.

And it looks like the apparence of imported food was a mixed blessing too, creating dependency...