Food security complex of the Arctic Indigenous peoples!

Throughout generations, Arctic Indigenous peoples have been practicing traditional food methods for their survival. The word “survival” carries a holistic meaning and is linked to sustenance. In other words, food practice is not only about consuming food for physical sustenance, particularly for the Indigenous peoples. It is also about emotional, cultural, and spiritual sustenance, which designates unique identities for Indigenous communities. For example, the Sámi in Fennoscandia and their association with reindeer are romantically imagined as integral to each other.

All in all, approximately forty distinct Indigenous groups inhabit the Arctic – a geographical region full of complexity in the realm of political, socio-cultural, economic, and infrastructural architectures. In this sense, there is no one common Arctic – some part of it is well-developed and well-networked, while the other parts are not. Indigenous peoples' geographic distribution is not the same – except for the Canadian North and Greenland, Indigenous peoples across the Arctic from minorities. Therefore, the level of assimilation within the dominant culture also varies. Nevertheless, to a varying degree, these groups of peoples still relatively sustainably maintain their diversified traditional food practices. However, threats to food security have become a serious issue due to the rapid environmental, socio-economic, demographic, and geopolitical transformation the region is facing.

Generally, food security refers to as follows: when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life. Access refers to the proximity of food and physical and economic affordability; sufficient is about availability, but also about the sustainability of supply; and then, finally safe and nutritious refer to the quality of food having values for meeting specific dietary needs of the communities – utilization. In the Arctic context, one can see two complex dilemmas, particularly when food insecurity of the Indigenous peoples of the Canadian Arctic and Nordic Arctic is compared. First, food security is affected in the Canadian Arctic as apparently all four criteria – access, availability, sustainability, and utilization – are not duly met. Imported foods are limited and expensive, hence non-affordable. Second, the availability of traditional foods, such as hunting sourced foods, is gradually becoming uncertain as hunting grounds (the ice) increasingly disappear, which eventually challenges sustainability. Finally, the nutritious value of traditional food is jeopardized as impacts of climate change and increase in human activities leave contamination to the food chain.

In Fennoscandia, the well-developed physical infrastructure that links all parts of its Arctic regions nicely provides an opportunity to supply sufficient imported foods. These foods are cost-effective as they are cheap and affordable, and their supplies are sustainable. Apparently, traditional foods become less attractive, despite their high nutritious value and capacity to fight against locally developed unique diseases. On the contrary, imported foods carry various health risks. As a result, much of the traditional resource, translated into traditional foods, is abandoned. For example, in the region, almost 95% of wild berries are abandoned as they are not harvested – harvesting needs physical efforts, which in terms of cost-effectiveness has not become feasible. Yet, they are not immune from being contaminated as, for example, extractive industrial activities are in place in many parts of the region, spreading toxic substances that adversely intricate traditional food systems. Therefore, it is crucial to strategize issues of Indigenous food security and traditional food systems in the Arctic as an integrated aspect, within environmental, socio-economic, cultural, and political decision-making.