Long awaited food trickling into Pago Pago

Transcript

Another delayed shipment of food from ports on America's west coast has arrived in American Samoa.

Food stocks in the highly import-dependent territory are being depleted due to transportation delays arising from a worker slow-down on the US wharves.

The local Chamber of Commerce says the labour issues highlight American Samoa's over-dependence on food imports not only for sustenance but revenue raised through import duty.
 
Our correspondent in Pago Pago, Fili Sagapolutele, told Sally Round the situation has not reached crisis point but the government is monitoring the situation.

FS: A large portion of the food especially meat comes from the United States and the meat is one of the issues that is concerning to the Chamber of Commerce. Meat can be brought in from Australia or New Zealand, however that meat needs to be inspected by a US Department of Agriculture inspector. That inspector has to be flown in from Honolulu and that could take time. Now the other commodities such as rice, sugar and the other basic commodities coming in from the west coast - and the majority of them come in from the United States - according to the Chamber of Commerce, 95% of the commodities consumed in American Samoa are exports, so one of the big issues that's being pushed again by the Chamber of Commerce and other members of the community is to encourage local residents to grow their vegetables, produce eggs. There're a lot of areas where you can produce your own meat. Samoan chicken, Samoan meat is available on island.

SALLY ROUND: Has the shortage which has gone on for several weeks now given people cause for thought about changing the way they get their food?

FS: It could be. Some people might take it seriously as an issue they should address and grow the food locally but there's also those who just ignore the issue until it becomes worse and they need to blame someone. The first one they're going to blame is the government for not taking action in advance to help prevent this but the government put out a plan about two years ago on food security in which it calls for local residents to plant and grow their own vegetables, food. We have taros - a common basic commodity for Samoans - taro bread, bananas that can be grown locally instead of depending on rice. But hopefully there is some change in attitude. While there's encouragement to work for locally grown food, the government also depends a lot on revenue from excise tax and that will have to be balanced out. How that will be done by the government is a big question.

SR: What about the implications for the canneries in American Samoa, for the export of their tuna?

FS: The concern for the cannery is the fact that they won't be able to load their containers from here for export to the US. If they export, they can't be offloaded in the ports in the US. That means they can't move the fish, they can't move the tuna,   and if it continues to be a problem they'll have to lay off employees.