Self-sufficiency, food resilience, and the Canary Islands
Back to the future
Most of the world is linked in a vast network of trade. A changing planet could unravel some of those ties and cast communities adrift.
While staying in the Canary Islands this autumn, I was struck by the dynamics — past and present — between their (inter)dependency and self-sufficiency. What might their journey teach us?
Buy local to feed the world
The scale of material continuously in transit across the Earth’s surface is astonishing. Foreign goods are enmeshed in people’s daily lives, especially in richer places: consider Londoners brunching on avocados from Peru and coffee from Brazil or Vietnam. The share of household budgets spent on food and drink falls as incomes rise.
Environmental impacts disrupt this story. Supply chains for goods and commodities carve up and pollute ecosystems while pumping out carbon emissions (although here, at least in transport, there is some hope). It is a two-way street: an unstable environment threatens production and trade routes. The FAO calls climate change a ‘global threat’ to food security and nutrition.
Shopping for local and more sustainable produce has come back into vogue, including among policymakers and researchers alert to future disruption. It shifts the overall balance of power in the food system, and while it can sometimes be more expensive, that money supports the wellbeing of farmers, workers, and animals. Local and artisanal producers climbing into the ring face heavyweight agribusinesses and transport networks, which cut their costs as much as possible.
Paradoxically, by reducing relentless resource consumption, buying local could also support livelihoods around the world, because poorer countries and people are more exposed and vulnerable to environmental impacts.
The ability to adapt by turning inward reflects a degree of privilege, at least in global terms. Yet it also challenges our ideas of abundance, choice, and a good life.
Island time
Economic and physical geography affect people’s sense of security, pride, and innovation; some embrace products from afar, others cope, even thrive, with what they have available.
So it is in the Canary Islands. The archipelago is Spain’s southernmost autonomous community and therefore part of Europe’s political and economic periphery, despite its close proximity to the African landmass.
Beaches of black sand and sheer hilltops strewn with lumps of twisted rock point to volcanic origins. The islands also enjoy several distinct micro-climates, which vary with exposure to north-easterly trade winds.
Between August and October, my partner and I visited three of the Canaries, which varied tremendously. Fuerteventura’s low-lying landscape is barren yet striking. Tenerife’s steep slopes are sunny and arid in the south; those in the north enjoy more rain and greenery. And La Gomera’s towns sit at the base of ravines dotted with cacti, palms, and banana plants, while its mountain heights — mere kilometres from the ocean — host thick, misty laurel forests.
The Canaries’ special historical and natural character strongly influenced the development of their agriculture. Following their conquest in the 15th century, they became a staging post in the eastern Atlantic for Spain’s colonial ventures, embedded in the resulting flow of people and goods — including slavery. Indigenous Canarians and black Africans were exploited to promote intensive cultivation.
Over the centuries, to contend with the limited arable soil and land offered by the young (geologically speaking) volcanoes, the settled communities built terraces into the slopes. These created plots of land to grow crops both for export and subsistence.
On La Gomera, cereals and beans to feed the local population were grown on dry southern plains, while the northern ravines hosted wines, sugarcane, and banana crops for export to Europe, as I learned at the ethnographic park in Hermigua.
Standing among the banana and papaya plants in the cool, moist air, I struggled to picture the southern beaches of nearby Tenerife, emblems of the Canaries for so many British tourists before me.
Canaries in the coal mine?
Mass tourism and the price competition from imported goods caused the local agricultural economy to wither, even as demand for food boomed thanks to the tourists themselves, as Dirk Godenau and Juan Sebastián Nuez Yánez have clearly recorded. Like in many other places, drier summers threaten what remains of the harvest.
Nevertheless, the islands still have a distinctive, simple, yet rich culinary offering. We quickly became hooked on mojo, a red (or green) sauce of peppers, garlic, cumin, vinegar, and chilli (or coriander), typically served with bread or Canarian potatoes at the start of each meal.
Unexpectedly, these potatoes (papas arrugadas) came to symbolise the duality of trade and self-sufficiency. We were told that heritage crops can still be traced back to the original plants brought from the Andes through the Spanish Empire. Now, however, huge amounts of potatoes are imported. During our visit, an entire shipment from the UK was discovered to be infested which, combined with a poor local harvest, led to a critical shortage. Prices in supermarkets spiked, purchases were rationed, and restaurants took the papas off their menus.
Today, the Canary Islands have a complex relationship with mainland Spain. Alongside a keen sense of identity and heritage, demands for recognition, and their fair share of resources, they once again depend on a continuous human and material flow with Europe to sustain their living standards.
(As in colonial times, the Canaries’ link with Africa is a grim and shameful reflection of the one with Europe: growing numbers of people from northwest African countries are attempting the dangerous Atlantic route with smugglers to migrate to the EU. By contrast, plans for a regular ferry crossing to Morroco have repeatedly run aground.)
The Canaries risk losing even more of their homegrown resilience as online shopping increases among both locals and tourists. This was emphasised by María, the owner and host of Cactus Coliving in Tenerife, who strongly encouraged colivers to buy from the nearby organic market on Friday mornings.
Perhaps, by drawing on the brighter spots from its history and shifting to more symbiotic economic ties with the rest of Europe, the archipelago can return to greater self-sufficiency and food security.
The smallholder farmers who stock the markets are holdouts of a long agricultural tradition, but also pioneers of an organic future. And during our time at Cactus, a slower, more sustainable, and community-focused kind of travel came into view.
The islands’ remoteness and geology have exposed them to extreme forms of the forces that shape our world. Today, travellers and Canarians alike find inspiration in that to confront an uncertain future.
Where to go next
If you are drawn to ideas of self-sufficiency, growing or supporting local food, and connecting with the ecosystem you live in, check out courses in permaculture and regenerative agriculture provided by Ecoversity (or, for more casual learning, their Instagram).
Explore the kaleidoscopic patterns of global trade using data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity; then consult the helpful catalogue of tools at the Trade, Development and Environment Hub to learn about standards and initiatives for sustainability.
I wish those of you who celebrate a merry Christmas and New Year, and all of you some good rest and relaxation.