Despite the 3,000-year-old cultivar becoming a more recent economic boon for the Pacific, industry insiders are expressing concern over murmurs of kava farming taking place in Australia. Traditionally grown by small-holdings farmers alongside subsistence crops, it is now taking over as a cash crop. Almost solely grown in Pacific Island nations, kava is being exported globally, although kava experts fear the industry could be taken outside the Pacific. Passing around shells of kava is a centuries old tradition among Pacific Island communities, but increased international interest has steadily bolstered demand over the past decade. Though kava is important culturally, it has become a product he and his Ni-Vanuatu countrymen have used to improve their livelihoods, Tapi says. Prized for anxiety, stress and pain-relieving qualities, the plant is rolled out for big community events - deaths, marriages, and pig killing ceremonies among them. When the plant’s roots and rhizomes are peeled, crushed, steeped in water and extracted, the final product is kava - other names around the Pacific Islands include ‘awa, sakau, yaqona or malok. ![]() His community of about 20 people, in the northern village of Amatbobo, sits down to cups of kava each night to relax after a hard day’s work.Ī majority of Tapi’s 7.5 acres is dedicated to piper methysticum, a plant native to Vanuatu. Nestled in the lush and steep climes of Penecost Island in Vanuatu, Anthony Tapi and his neighbors grow taro, cassava, and island cabbage.
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