LocationsHorizon Scan from Across the Pacific: From Soil to Sovereignty – The Future of Pacific Food Systems
February 5, 2026
Pineapples on display at Auki Market in Malaita, Solomon Islands.
The Pacific once thrived on local, resilient and regenerative food systems rooted in respect for land, ocean, and kinship – each food source carrying nutritional and spiritual value, nourishing not only physical wellbeing but also cultural identity, social cohesion, and ecological balance.
Today, this foundation is under pressure. Yet, from pressure emerges new possibilities.
Ways to read this horizon scan
The Pasifika relational worldview sees all systems of life as interconnected and interdependent– politics, governance, ecology, economy, community, and spirituality. This understanding honours the sacred role that all systems play in creating complete wholeness – there is no separation and privileging of components because all are needed for the continuity of a balanced and harmonious existence.
This horizon scan is best read through this lens of integration. The different signals, trends and possible food futures presented here are not mutually exclusive – they co-exist and interrelate in complex ways. You are invited to read this horizon scan with curiosity and creativity – using these insights to cultivate your own new and unique ideas that contribute to a larger whole.
Just as Pacific Wayfinders pulled islands from the horizon as they vogued across the vast ocean thousands of years ago, may this horizon scan offer seeds to help grow a thriving Pacific food future.
In a nutshell
Innovative digital and data-driven technologies are reshaping how the Pacific grows, trades and governs food – cultivating transparency, access and real-time intelligence.
Pacific communities are reawakening traditional farming and ancestral knowledge through a biocultural movement that restores social and ecological integrity.
The Pacific is pivoting from reactive climate response to anticipatory resilience – using biodiversity, data, and finance as living currencies for climate-smart, risk-informed food systems.
Pacific leaders are forging a new ‘blue-green commons’ – asserting collective stewardship over Pacific foods through regional cooperation and indigenous governance.
A new generation of Pacific farmers is reclaiming food systems through cooperative governance, ancestral education, and youth leadership.
While the future remains uncertain, when viewed as a larger whole, the signals suggest that Pacific Island Countries are reshaping Pacific food systems on Pacific terms. Yet this is not without its challenges.
Looking around: Pacific food systems under pressure
Today, the Pacific food environment is dominated by imported, expensive, and often highly processed foods. This shift from local to globalised diets is contributing to malnutrition and stunting and a public health crisis that sees the Pacific now experiencing some of the highest rates of non-communicable diseases and premature death globally.
Climate change and biodiversity loss is intensifying the pressure on Pacific foods systems. In Tuvalu, rising sea levels are expected to flood more than 50 percent of land territory by 2050 and 90 percent by 21,000. The failure to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees is causing an unprecedented die-off of coral reefs, and ocean warming is shifting tuna migration patterns and diminishing coastal ecosystems that once fed entire Pacific communities. Invasive species threaten native plants and marine life and saltwater intrusion and stronger cyclones are disrupting crops and destroying arable land.
Urbanisation and out-migration – often driven by climate change and overseas employment pathways – means fewer hands to tend the land back home, and colonial legacies and new aspirations of the “good life” have hampered intergenerational knowledge transfer and is making farming less attractive and less valued among younger generations. At the same time, those engaged in farming often prioritise cash crops which offer short-term income but reduce local food diversity and resilience.
Smallholder farmers – who form the backbone of local food production – struggle to access finance, with current adaptation funding meets barely 1.5 percent of estimated needs. Meanwhile, dependence on imported agricultural inputs such as hybrid seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides, has introduced new ecological and financial risks. The Pacific fisheries sector also faces significant financial barriers in advancing sustainable fisheries.
The shift from local and regional interdependence to reliance on external actors has eroded food sovereignty and led to greater vulnerability. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war in the Middle East, and the aftermath of COVID-19 are causing fluctuating fuel and commodity prices which expose the precariousness of Pacific supply chains.
Collectively, these pressures have redefined what it means to grow, prepare, and share food in the Pacific. Yet, across these challenging landscapes, five interconnected food and agriculture trends are taking root – from digital transformation and ancestral revival to anticipatory resilience, regional solidarity, and youth leadership.
Pacific communities are reclaiming food as a vessel of mana – a medium of resistance, regeneration, and self-determination.
Looking across: Emerging signals of change
The Age of the Digi-scene: Digital infrastructure and data governance as the new soil of agriculture
Digital inclusion and market access are deepening across the region. In Samoa, the Maua mobile app is enabling farmers and fishers to access markets, inputs, and government grants directly through digital wallets and e-vouchers. In Fiji, online supermarkets such as Superstore are reshaping consumer habits by allowing groceries to be purchased and delivered entirely through digital platforms. In livestock systems, blockchain technology is enhancing traceability by linking animals to digital ledger.
Data-driven decision-making is also gaining ground. Tonga’s new Food Security Dashboard aims at improving national access to near real-time data on food availability, affordability, sustainability and utilisation, while a regional trade data platform now automatically captures trade information directly from customs computer systems and enables data-sharing across multiple Pacific Island Countries.
These shifts exist alongside the expansion of digital infrastructure and connectivity such as the roll-out of Starlink’s high-speed satellite internet and the construction of subsea cables around the region.
Meanwhile, emerging technologies from further afield – from AI-regulated aerial growing in the Netherlands to AI-driven robotic farming in Japan, and climate-smart floating and underwater data centres in Scandinavia– could offer new possibilities for the Pacific at a time when land and labour are under pressure.
These pathways are reducing middlemen, increasing transparency, and seeding a new kind of accountability and access across value chains. Together, they signal a shift toward Pacific food systems that are not only digitally connected but increasingly efficient – driven by data and powered by technological innovation.
The Ancestral Plate: Putting Pacific culture back in agriculture
Revival of traditional farming practices is gathering momentum across the region. Pacific Islands Countries are working together to reawaken seaweed cultivation, blending ancestral knowledge with innovation to create new livelihoods and climate-resilient products such as seaweed jellies and fermented pastes. In Fiji, communities are combining mangrove restoration with tabu (temporary fishing closures) to slow coastal erosion and protect spawning grounds. In Palau, the Healthy Islands Vision is restoring “One Health” farming principles – recognising the sacred interconnected wellbeing of people, land, and ocean.
Restoration of native ecosystems and species is another emerging trend. The removal of invasive rats in the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the reintroduction of giant clams in the Federated States of Micronesia are reviving balance across coral reefs and coastal ecosystems, strengthening both biodiversity and cultural identity.
Pacific communities are also blending traditional ecological knowledge with modern science. The Breadfruit Institute and Solomon Islands’ Kastom Garden Association are advancing farmer-led conservation of indigenous crops and knowledge. Meanwhile, the University of the South Pacific’s Periodic Table of Food Initiative is mapping the biomolecular richness of native and underutilised Pacific foods to inform nutrition and policy.
This biocultural movement aligns with a broader trend of returning to conscious food systems and signals the re-grounding of food in traditional knowledge systems that nurture the sacred relationship between all living things.
The food before the storm: Anticipatory resilience as an emerging agricultural currency
In Solomon Islands, a new risk-informed investment is combining climate-resilient crops, inclusive rural financing, and sustainable value-chain development to strengthen food security and restore ecosystems. Similarly, the launch of the regional Biodiversity Finance Programme (BIOFIN) and the Kunming Biodiversity Fund’s allocation to FAO-led projects signals a growing recognition that biodiversity itself is infrastructure for resilience.
Meanwhile, the Global Environment Facility is strengthening climate resilience and supporting ecosystems across Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and Pacific Island Countries are taking an integrated approach to health promotion through food and nutrition policy, campaigns, and health services. Many nations are also integrating agriculture and food security into their National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions.
Parametric insurance schemes are now active across several Pacific Island Countries, providing rapid, data-triggered payouts for cyclones, floods, or droughts – turning early data into immediate recovery. At the same time, early warning systems popping up in Africa offer potential for Pacific farmers to apply informed decision-making around planting, harvesting and livestock management using real time data, and biomimic farming in Italy shows how natural ecological processes can be emulated in farming to preemptively adapt to a warming climate
The Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees continues serve as a living repository of resilience – housing more than 2,400 accessions of Pacific crops such as taro, yam, cassava, and banana for regional sharing and replanting. Meanwhile, Pacific leaders have formalised their collective commitment to safeguard seeds and conserve plant genetic resources.
To proactively adapt to climatic pressures and arable land scarcity, countries such as Singapore are using vertical farming techniques and experiments are underway in the Pacific to grow hydroponic lettuce using desalinated seawater – potential gamechangers for atoll nations.
With climate in the hot seat, these signals reveal a region pivoting toward anticipatory resilience – where science, finance and innovation converge to safeguard local food systems.
The ‘blue-green commons’: Stewarding a Pacific-led Food Order
Pacific leaders are strengthening local production, regional trade, and Pacific-led governance – both on land and at sea. Pacific heads of agriculture and forestry have united to endorse the Pacific Agriculture and Forestry Strategy, marking a significant milestone towards building resilient, sustainable, and inclusive agrifood systems. Four Micronesian nations have signed an agreement to boost regional air cargo connectivity – a move that strengthens intra-Pacific trade, improves food transport, and reduces dependency on external markets.
Meanwhile, Pacific nations have reached a historic regional accord on South Pacific Albacore management by establishing proportional catch allocations among Forum Fisheries Agency members. Fiji and Tuvalu are also negotiating access arrangements to secure tuna supply for Fiji’s processing industry, reinforcing regional interdependence and shared value creation.
Indigenous-led conservation is emerging as a regional governance frontier. Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have announced plans to create the world’s first large-scale, indigenous-led ocean reserve – an innovative model intertwining biodiversity protection with regional governance and indigenous custodianship. This is complemented by the global High Seas Treaty which has recently come into force.
At the same time, food is becoming a key ingredient in geopolitics. Tonga’s new trade partnership with China seeks to transform subsistence farming into export-oriented production geared towards China, while Nauru’s AUD1 billion cooperation deal with the China Rural Revitalisation and Development Corporation aims to modernise the country’s agriculture sector using Chinese technologies. Meanwhile, Australia is investing AUD477 million in expanded maritime surveillance to curb illegal fishing amid rising Chinese maritime presence.
Together, this signals food sovereignty as both an economic and political project – a balancing act between autonomy and alliance, where Pacific nations are charting pathways toward a more self-reliant, regionally governed, and geopolitically aware food future.
Growing together: Food democracy and the rise of the young farmer
Pacific communities are redefining what it means to participate in food and agriculture. In Fiji, the Kevin Young Farmers Alumni are decentralising food systems by operating as a farming cooperative grounded in constitutional governance and collective decision-making. The Fiji Bia-i-Cake Women’s Cooperative is also growing – contributing to livelihood development and sustainable food, for example through aquaculture. At Tonga’s Mahuleva Organic Farm, the use of participatory guarantee systems and community-based organic certification allows producers to access fair markets without the prohibitive costs of external auditing.
Education and the passing down of ancestral knowledge are cultivating the next generation of farmers. Across schools, gardens are becoming “living classrooms” for agroecology and are being used to teach aquaculture, food preservation, and value-chain literacy. The revitalised Navuso Agricultural Technical Institute integrates communal solesolevaki farming into youth programs, emphasising care, reciprocity, and service. Meanwhile, the new Lomana Na Vulagi Eco-Farm & Training Centre provides a sacred learning ground where young people from across the region can reconnect with ancestral wisdom – learning environmental stewardship, herbal medicine, and traditional Pacific farming as acts of both cultivation and communion.
Stories from Panama offer insights for intercultural collaboration, and the upcoming Global Conscious Food Summit in Bhutan will provide a space for movement building and collective action on shaping food futures rooted in culture, values, spirituality, happiness and inner development.
Together, these signals reveal a movement toward inclusive food systems with young people young at the centre – grounded in care for land and kin rather than commodities.
Pacific Island Countries are reshaping Pacific food systems on Pacific terms.
Looking ahead: A Taste of a Possible Pacific Food Future
At first light, the island wakes quietly. Breadfruit leaves rustle above the fields, and somewhere offshore the floating data centre hums steadily.
Vilisi checks her smartphone – soil moisture, market demand, cyclone probability. Data moves as easily as fish between reefs – stitched together from climate, trade, seed, and fisheries systems that now span the entire Blue Pacific. She knows that if natural disaster hits, finance will be triggered automatically, not as charity, but as recognition of value.
By mid-morning, Vilisi has sold half today’s harvest without leaving the village. Payments clear instantly, logged on the blockchain alongside seed origin, import-export data, and transport emissions. No middlemen. No guessing.
At the village school, children eat lunch grown nearby – seaweed from the lagoon nursery, vegetables from shaded agroforests – sourced through a regional market app. They learn planting cycles alongside chemistry, data science alongside duty.
In the afternoon, a regional alert pings: tariffs have automatically adjusted to slow imports as breadfruit and taro peak across three island chains. Cargo routes shift. An air alliance reroutes planes to move surplus between islands before anything leaves the region. It feels ordinary now. It wasn’t always.
At the Ministers talanoa later that day, there is no debate about whether local supply comes first – it is coded into the system. The region speaks with one voice – setting biosecurity standards, seed diversity thresholds, and data rules that reflect Pacific values. For the first time, decisions about land and ocean are made where their consequences are lived.
And yet, tensions still exist. The servers still sit far away, and the algorithms were not all written here. Data sovereignty must be defended daily, not declared once.
In the evening, seeds are exchanged, not sold. Stories move with them. Elders speak of seasons that no longer behave, of the care needed to hold balance. Vilisi listens closely.
Innovation is welcome here, but only if it knows how to sit respectfully.
Food for thought: Reimagining power
There is a clear connecting thread woven across this horizon scan: food is power – a site of struggle and sovereignty that determines who defines, governs, and benefits from Pacific food futures.
Reframed through a Pasifika relational worldview, food ceases to be a commodity and becomes a sacred practice that binds land, ocean, ancestors, and future generations. This reorientation exposes the colonial architectures still embedded in trade, technology, and governance, while offering pathways for decolonial futures grounded in vanua and vā – interconnected relational accountability and reciprocity.
In this reframing, food sovereignty is not merely about production but about epistemic and political agency: the right to know, grow, trade, and nourish on one’s own terms. Whether through agroecology, data governance, or blue food systems, Pacific communities are reclaiming food as a vessel of mana – a medium of resistance, regeneration, and self-determination.
Yet the enduring question remains: will the future of food in the Pacific dismantle colonial hierarchies or recreate them in new and different ways? The answer will depend on who holds the fork, and the authority to define what it means to eat, share, and sustain life in the Pacific.
Potential impact on development: Medium at present with the likelihood of becoming high if not addressed in the medium to long term.
What is horizon scanning?
Horizon scanning identifies trends and weak signals of potentially significant change, and finds emerging threats and opportunities while there is still time to act on them. It is a way to surf an increasingly volatile change ecosystem rather than being wiped out by it. Scans pose the questions: What are we not talking about that we should be? And what topics are we already talking about that are developing further implications that we have not yet discussed?
Why is UNDP Pacific investing in horizon scanning?
The accelerated pace of development and increasing volatility of change has meant that development practitioners need to continuously scan to identify emerging threats and opportunities to inform institutional decision-making processes. UNDP’s scanner squad is a critical investment to stay ahead of change.
This work has been produced by the Policy, Innovation and Communications team with contributions by Aquila Van Keuk. It serves as part of a regular series looking at key signals from across the Pacific region.